More w/the New Cam

That is, of course, the Texas State Capitol. In the true Texas spirit, it's taller than the nation's capitol building in DC, by a good 14 feet, and it is the largest in the US. However it's still shorter than the Louisiana state capitol. Of course now whenever anybody uses that phrase "Everything's bigger in Texas" I will retort "You've obvously never been to China!" Haha. Although I'm sure that comes off sounding really elitist ;-) In fact, when I first got to China, one of the first things I learned how to say was "Have you ever been to the US?" Ni qu guo mei guo ma? So I asked everybody that -- but I realized that asking cabdrivers and ayis that comes off sounding really, well, I dunno, like of course they've never been to America -- just like a lot of people in the US have never been to China.

I feel so lucky :-)

The pictures above use a polarizing filter that I bought alongside the camera. It's not really bright enough out today to use one, but I did anyway because I was just curious how the photos would turn out. They look pretty nice. I can't wait until a clearer day so I can really bring out the contrast in these vast Texas skies. I took lots more pictures today, but those are the ones I feel are worthy of sharing with ya'll, haha.

Randomness: I was taking pictures of the strip-mall sign outside Epoch Coffee today when this gangly guy asked "Are you a professional photographer?" I said no, not really, but I knew how to handle the camera I've got. He was like "Great, I'm looking for someone to take a picture of me, I'll pay you money, just follow me into that alley over there."

Are you fucking kidding me?? I mean this guy was skinny and whatever, I probably could have taken him (not that I'm a fighter) but he could have had a gun or a knife or something. Hahaha. I dunno. It was just a strange situation. So I left.

In other news, congratulations are in order for Joe Straus, who was elected Speaker of the Texas House the other day, becoming the first MOT to hold the position. Yeah, we're taking over the world, one state legislature at a time!!

I Promised I'd Do This

I saw my parents off safely about two hours ago. They did and saw so many things here that they are afraid they won't be able to remember it all -- a fear that is extremely understandable.

In order to help, I'll post a day-by-day itinerary of their major adventures.*

Saturday:

• Arrival in Shanghai
• Hour-plus taxi ride to hotel
• Room service dinner (tuna fish sandwiches)
  
• Sleep

Sunday:

• Taking the subway one stop
• Walking down Nanjing Dong Lu
• Walking down the Promenade alongisde the Bund
• Xintiandi
• Jin Mao tower sightseeing deck
• Thumb Plaza
• My apartment

Monday:

• Guided tour of Shanghai, including Yuyuan
• Dinner at hotel restaurant Windows on the Park (2nd floor of hotel)

Tuesday:

• Shanghai Museum
• Dinner at Gongdelin

Wednesday:

• Shanghai No. 1 Department Store
• Dinner at Ajisen Ramen
• Chinese acrobat performance: ERA -- Intersection of Time

Thursday:

• Tour of the Ohel Moishe synagogue and the surrounding area in Hongkou
  
• Duolun Lu Cultural Street
• Garden Books and Changle Lu / Shaanxi Nan Lu area
  
• Dinner with me and my co-workers
  

Friday:

• Taking the subway 5 stops by themselves
• Shanghai Science & Technology Museum
• Taikang Lu
• Dinner at Epicure, the revolving restaurant on the 45th floor of the hotel (which also produced these insane pictures)
  

*Not listed: crossing blocked-off streets, almost getting hit by cars, negotiating with cab drivers, bargaining with shopkeepers, withstanding satellite malfunction, overcoming jet lag, getting swarmed by hundreds of touts trying to sell them knockoff knickknacks at every conceivable location, successfully communicating in Chinese, enduring tourist traps, attending conferences, journalling, etc.

==

With all the insanity going on, the month of May has been bad for blogging / picture taking. I look forward to doing some more before my trip back to Austin in late June. I think a trip to Suzhou is in the cards, plus some more tourism stuff in & around the city. But for now -- relaxation!! :-)

Chabadass

Jin tian wan shang wo he ba ge you tai ren zai zhe li chi wan fan. There were si ge Mei guo ren (including me), yi ge Fa guo ren, two Israelis (including the rabbi), and the rabbi's wife (who's from Michigan). Oh, plus their three small children.

Sorry about the Pinyin there. I'm practicing, so you'll have to deal with it :-)

On the way there, I had literally no idea what to expect. Would they be formal? Nice? Super-religious? I walked in and they were doing Ma'ariv. Everyone was in nice clothes, which immediately made me feel weird since I was wearing a t-shirt and khakis. (Plus some pre-existing metal in my ears.) But I was able to sing along to a couple prayers, which felt food. Then we ate dinner (after kiddush and n'tilat yadayim of course), cooked by the rabbi's wife and assisted by two aiyis.

Dinner was great. The main dish was some kind of stewed beef, but I didn't recognize most of the other food, except for the potato salad, haha. Then we sat around and talked, benched, and talked some more. I met one guy who's an automotive test engineer at Hella. I felt like I spent 30 minutes in some kind of sales pitch, actually. It was like we spoke the same language -- CAN, HIL, simulation, modelling, real time, The V. And strangely enough, this wasn't the first time I've done that in Shanghai! It was mostly informative though -- talking business on Shabbat can be construed as melachah and therefore is strictly forbidden by some, including this guy. But, you know, in 24 hours Shabbat will be over :-)

Anyway, everyone was nice, and I'm sure I will go back again and see them at some point. If anything, I want to buy some matzah from them on Sunday so I can make fried matzah ... and also to introduce my Chinese co-workers to it. It was fun explaining the concept of kashrut to them today at lunch. They seemed incredulous that we would not be eating any pork at dinner :-)

At any rate, I'll probably end up at their seder next Sunday night. Of course I'll most likely be the youngest ... better warm up my singing voice!

Lao Wai on the Move

• I kind of can't believe it, but I found a good pair of rollerblades that fit me! I bought them on the spot and spent a couple hours zig-zagging around the S&T Metro plaza, dodging small children and getting my footing back. I have not rollerbladed since high school, so it was a bit surprising that I could get up and move around swiftly without falling at ALL. I suppose it's like riding a bike.
• I finally got flicker to approximate something resembling normal functionality. I was having serious problems with it all day Saturday, but when I got home from the Live Bar show it was working fine. So I posted a bunch of new pictures, some from this weekend and some from last weekend. Check 'em out if you're so inclined. Here's one from the rock show I went to last night:
  
  
  The show was really fun. Everything about the place reminded me of Austin. The venue felt so much like Flamingo Cantina, Beerland, Room 710, or even Emo's that I was instantly transported back to Texas. And the music was really good too. Even the crowd had a bunch of scruffy-haired hipsters drinking cheap beer and kind of wiggling back and forth in an attempt to evince physical appreciation of the music without displaying too much emotion (because that would be uncool). Ah, just like home. However there were some people having fun, because I definitely saw a mini mosh pit get started :-)
  
  Something else I found amusing was that the lead singer of the first band, The Dropkicks, was definitely Jewish. (I can smell a fellow MoT from a mile away.)
  
  
  
  So that made me happy - a British/Jewish punk rocker in Shanghai. Of course the connection between Judaism and punk rock has been documented before. But I wonder if this guy knew that his band name was a dead rip-off of these guys?
  
• I got some sweet videos also, from both Friday and Saturday night, but our favorite Web 2.0 wunderkind YouTube is blocked right now, so I can't upload anything at the moment. SH-ist seems to think it's because of the protests that have been going on across the country (and indeed, the world). If you hadn't heard, Bjork sparked an international incident here a week or so ago when she made some politically sensitive statements at her Shanghai concert. So I think everyone is a little on edge. Meanwhile the upshot is that I can't upload my videos to YouTube. Ah well, c'est la vie.
  

Meanwhile - I've gotten just two questions. There's still time to send in your questions, if you have any, about Shanghai, China, my experiences here, and so on. Leave a comment :-)

Tidbits

• Looks like I'll have a chance to see baseball in three countries. The China Baseball League just announced their 2008 schedule. I plan to attend a game in Shanghai on April 19th :-)
  
• Until yesterday, my feet were killing me after every long walk I took. I could really feel the pavement on the balls of my feet after each step. So this past weekend, I went shoe-hunting, only to get laughed out of two stores at the Thumb for having gigantic lao wai feet. However, I was tuned into this place called Decathlon, a sports/outdoors store, and so yesterday I visited and picked up a rather decent pair of light hiking shoes for just 250 RMB. They are Quechua brand, which I assume is Chinese for "of outstanding quality." (And not, as some might believe, an ancient South American language.) So far they are really nice and my feet feel tons better after a long walking trip.
• The Decathlon also had rollerblades in size 47, which is one size below what I need. That makes me think that somewhere in this city I might be able to buy a pair of rollerblades and go skating around Century Park or the Shanghai S&T Mueseum metro plaza. The hunt is on!!
  
• I discovered the Chinese word for "Jewish" is youtai. Not sure what, if anything, that translates to. (My guess: "Super Awesome".) So now I can say Wo shi Youtairen! There's even a book about us -- unfortunately it's in Chinese. I still should try and find a copy, though.
• Speaking of Judaism, one of the Chabads over here recently moved to within a 10-minute walk of my apartment. That should make it more likely that I'll go and visit them :-)
  
• Last Friday, I attended a technical presentation given by a group manager at work. He gave most of it in English, although there were points where he had to continue in Chinese because he didn't know how to describe the relevant terms in English. And actually, it was the basic stuff that he had trouble with in English. Like correlating a sine wave to the rotation of a coil when wrapped around a wire caught between two opposing magnets. He couldn't find the words in English for that. I thought that was pretty interesting. I can't really explain why I think that. Just -- I dunno. An example of how important language is, I suppose. And how extremely difficult it can be to learn one as your second language. As if I didn't know this already :-)
  
• Along these same lines, I was talking to another co-worker today about his English name. It is nothing like his Chinese name, which is Xiangjie. He picked his English name in college. We talked a little bit about whether it felt weird to be called by his English name all the time, at work and such. He said not really, because he was used to it. There are even some people at work that don't have English names - we theorized this might be because some people don't like picking one, but in some cases it might be because their Chinese name is really easy for us foreigners to pronounce. I said it was weird being introduced to a Chinese person and having them say "Hi, I'm Scott" or "Hi, I'm Wendy." Because I immediately want to be like, "Liar!" Hahaha. But I guess not really - because they decide what they call themselves, so it's not like they're lying. I guess I just want them to trust in my ability to remember and pronounce their Chinese name. But of course that will not be the case for all Westerners.
• I'm sort of in the middle of getting my own Chinese name. The first name is set, and I think it's Rui an. Amazingly enough when you plug the Chinese characters into Google Translate, it spits out "Ryan". Haha. So I think this was pre determined by someone other than myself :-) I don't have a last name yet, but since most Chinese prefer names that have a total of 2 or 3 characters, I'll have to pick a one-character last name. I was thinking gao for tall, so that might be it :-)
  
• I was totally going to go to the gym tonight but I unwisely sat down in front of the computer to update my blog first. Now all my motivation's gone -- boo -- and I just feel like making some jiaozi for dinner :-)
• I got another power bill today ... (dun dun dun ....)