"It's raining through my umbrella."

The later spring is rainy season here in Shanghai.  It rains a little every day, and it is rainy for a month or two.  The rain is fairly warm and can pour down like only a tropical rainstorm can.  It's a good idea to keep an umbrella at your home and at your office so you aren't caught off guard.  The air stays damp and the locals try not to wash clothes because this makes the air even more damp in their homes.  You can't hang the clothes outside to dry, after all.

This spring a flu/infection went around that lasted for several months and only cleared up after the wet season ended.  It convinced me of what my Chinese teacher had said each week, that this is a dangerous season and people need to take precautions.  I'm not sure if the bacteria are in the water, the air, or the earth, but it hospitalized several people, and you can hear the people on the subway coughing, probably passing it around.  I had it for almost three months.

No pictures of rain, just the usual smoggy sky as seen from from a shopping center.

I grew up in the tropics.  I like tropical rainstorms, warm heavy rain that, as a child,
I liked to go out and play in.  We used to stand under the rain barrels when they filled with rainwater and get doused with the overflow.  Or stand under the eaves of the tin roofs where the water poured in streams down the troughs of the corrugated roofing.

But one thing I don't think I ever experienced before this spring was the rain pouring through my umbrella.  Maybe because I just played in the rain without an umbrella as a child? Or maybe because in the South American rainy season it rains for a short period everyday and then stops?

On the corner near one of the subway stops on Huaihai Rd. a main avenue, people hang their bird cages out to let their birds sing and get "fresh" air.

In Shanghai it rains for days.  The rain can pour down for hours.  I have to walk three blocks to my subway station.  It doesn't take that long.  But halfway there I looked up to find the rain coming through the fastenings at the center of the umbrella, and raining through the soaked fabric.  "Interesting," I thought, "I don't think I've ever experienced that before.  I wonder if other people have."

This last week a rainstorm again hit Shanghai.  There I was with my parasol (it's hot standing in 90 degree heat on the black pavement, so even though I don't mind the sun on my skin, I get the parasol thing) opened for the rain, watching it rain through the fabric.  "Oh, I remember this," I thought.

Welcome to Shanghai,
Ann

Metro Commute

I changed jobs.  I'm working for an internet startup on the edge of Shanghai.  The office is in a "villa" in the Pudong District. It's a beautiful building with a garden in a closed gate community.  The only drawback is that it takes an hour on the subway and a shuttle bus ride to get to the house.

Outside the villa.

At rush  hour the subways are crowded body to body, like sardines in a can.  It is not comfortable, but on hot days it is even worse, or on rainy days when more people take the subway.  The Chinese know how to push to get the last possible person onto the train.  So you know why they have problems with people getting trampled or suffocated at holidays with big crowds.

There is the MetroTV screen playing advertisements and news clips in each car, and it is a little bit of distraction from the discomfort.  A lot of what they show is advertisements for  the Metro itself.  You see lines of people getting onto the subways and crowds of people standing on the subways, and streams of people pushing their way through the crowds to get off.  And you wonder why the Metro would bother to show you these pictures, because you are living this everyday, and you don't need to see more of it.  Of course some of it is how to act, what you can and can't do, and what to do in an emergency. Sigh! At least they are trying to improve the crowd etiquette.

Then, after a while you begin to think of the hundreds of thousands, millions really, of people being transported across the city daily to start their jobs in the morning.  It begins to make you feel like you are part of something bigger.  The big working of a machine of one of the worlds largest cities, a financial center of a growing economy.  Maybe you feel a little proud to be a little part of the whole.

But that wears off too after a while.  I turn on my music and put in my earphones and watch the people and the subway stations going by like on a travel movie, disinterestedly, or romantically, or thoughtfully, watching time and people pass.

The "Library" at the villa.

I'll be glad when the office moves into the city center.  It will cut the commute time from an hour and a half to, maybe, half an hour.  I will have  a life again and be able to do things in the evening besides just come home and sleeping.

But I'll miss the private garden and the "home cooked" meals at the villa.

The gardens and patio.

But maybe the office building will have some of these things also.

Greetings from Shanghai,

Ann Elliott

Shopping in Shanghai

I've never really understood why in some developed parts of the world it is popular to food shop one day at a time.  While I was living in Songjiang I shopped at the local supermarket/department store, and I could shop for several days at a time.  The refrigerator was large enough to hold several days supply of food, but it was not cold enough to keep it fresh.  So food didn't keep more than 3 days.

Cumquats from the fruit market and flowers from a street vender.

I bought a rolling shopping bag.  They are common here, and you can get them in the supermarkets.  They are sort of like a rolling carry on suitcase, but much simpler.  So I could shop at stores a little farther away and buy more than two bags of groceries.  To tell you the truth, I didn't use it much because I lived right next to Tesco.

So when I moved into Shanghai I thought I would use my little rolling shopping bag.  The nearest "supermarket" is about 5 blocks away, and I thought I would just go down there and buy food for the week.  Which I did,  only I didn't really think about how to get the rolling shopping bag up the two flights of winding stairs.  I just pulled it up behind me with one hand.  I didn't realize until afterward that it was not a good idea.  I had pulled my back out and I was in pain, and finding a western style chiropractor here is not so easy.

So I haven't done that again.  But I am glad to report that the appliances in this apartment are new and the refrigerator can keep food for a week or more.  But...it only holds a few days of food, because it is very small.  So it's all a trade off.  And I am beginning to understand why people shop everyday.

My miniature refrigerator, and the table I usually eat at in front of it (its on wheels, so I roll it out to open the refriterator door).

So morning and night on my way to and from work I pick up some food item.  Sometimes soy milk, sometimes fresh fruits and vegetables.  There are fresh fruit and vegetable shops along the street between my apartment and the subway stop.  I guess I don't really shop one day at a time yet.  I buy enough fruit for several days and carry it home.  Then the next day I buy enough vegetables for the week and carry them home.  Then the next day I go down to the supermarket and  buy soy milk, or paper goods, or anything packaged that I need.

The fruit market

Eating out here isn't expensive, but I want to eat fruits and vegetables and not noodles and rice, so I cook at home and take my lunch to work.  And I have learned not to buy anything more than I can easily carry up two flights of winding stairs.

Vegetable soup fixin's.

God Bless,
Ann

New Beginnings

It's been so long since I've posted.  Things can develop so rapidly.  I began looking for a new job in January so I could move when this contract was up,   I applied to a range of positions, from teaching in Saudi Arabia ( the money is good, and I figure I am adaptable) to other training schools here, to administrative secretary, which I have done before.

I was hired to do application development with an IT company here in Shanghai.  I am now working as a UX designer with a graphics, writing, and programming team to develop new online platforms and products.  It's a great job, reminiscent of what I have done in the past with online learning, but with the added information architecture aspect.  It uses so many of my skills and experiences I can't be sorry to leave teaching, though I miss the students.

Here is a picture of the building I work in, our office is on the 17th floor.  I have been at the new job two weeks and it feels like coming home.  I am now living in the center of Shanghai in a studio apartment and I'm getting to know this vibrant city.  I am enjoying it.

.

 I live in an old 3 floor apartment building and take winding stairs up to my apartment..

 and I walk the subway stairs morning and night for exercise.

I live two subway stops from where I work, and I live two blocks from the subway stop. It is just enough for me to get outside and take a walk and feel part of everything here.

This Saturday I went back to my old suburb of Songjiang and visited with students and went to the Botanical Gardens there again.  It was a great time.  I was invited to a family birthday party of one of my student's father in law.  It was a wonderful experience, and such a privilege to be present.

So much to say, and I don't get back to my blog often enough, so so much gets left out.

Blessings to all,
Ann

My Chinese New Year

Christmas is over, and we have arrived at the New Year.  I was going to write about my experience of Christmas here, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I was at the East Nanjing Subway station area on New Years, a few blocks away from the Bund, when the tragedy at the Shanghai New Years celebration happened.  I was waiting for a friend so we could walk there for the countdown.

I had come in from Songjiang District where I live.  There was no local celebration of New Year in Songjiang, as far as we knew, so many people I know got hotel rooms in downtown to go to the Bund.  I was warned that the subways might be shut down and it would be impossible to get into the city for security reasons.  I was surprised and asked why, if there was a danger of violence?  The Chinese people are not violent,  I was told it was because there were just too many people, and I really didn't understand what that meant.  But the subways were running as usual.  My friend and I knew we would need to get a taxi to go home and that it would be very expensive.

I bought a hat and went to the toilet as I waited for my friend.  The wind was biting, and many street vendors were selling hats and lighted head bands.  As midnight approached there was a rush of people running toward the Bund, but I wanted to wait for my friend, so I stayed put.  Her taxi was held up in the heavy traffic, so I missed the countdown on the Bund, by the grace of God.  There were small celebrations of confetti and lights at the open stores near where I was standing.

Shortly after there were many people walking away from the Bund looking for taxi's and ways home.  There was a what seemed to be a float with a band and music playing down the street from me.  But I don't speak Chinese well and my phone battery was dying so I stayed where my friend could find me.  I was going to spend the night at her apartment, and I knew if I didn't connect with her I wouldn't have a place to stay and it would be too far to take a taxi all the way home to Songjiang.  I had joked with my coworkers that I thought I was crazy to go into the city, and they would probably find me frozen and squished on the sidewalk in the morning.  The temperature was about 0° C.

I was taking shelter from the wind, with several other people, against a metal door of the closed subway exit.  My friend arrived quite a while after midnight and by then the streets were beginning to clear.  We walked to the Bund in relatively empty streets, passing by street vendors and police.  When we got to the Bund, the walkway along the river, it was also relatively empty and we walked along it until we decided to go get something to eat, and then go home.  We were sorry we had missed the countdown to midnight.  I wanted to wait in the downtown area until the streets had mostly cleared so we had a chance at getting a taxi.  Both of our phones were dead by then, so we stood in the street near a corner and flagged down taxis until we found one that would take us for a little less than the extravagant prices the others were charging.

We got to her apartment at about 4 am, and went to bed.  She began charging her phone and received a phone call early in the morning from friends telling her the news and asking if she were all right.  I had to wait until I got home in the afternoon to post on WeChat that I had survived the night in town and was safely home.

For the Chinese, throwing paper money in that crowd is like crying fire in a crowded theater.  It was a criminally negligent act.  Of course people would try to catch it, and in a body-to-body packed crowd it would be inevitable that people would get hurt.

The solution for this would be to set up local celebrations in each district of Shanghai and connect them with a large screen televising the Bund countdown.  Stopping the subways would also have prevented people from coming into the city center.  China is full of people, they are not violent, but as a whole they are motivated by mostly the same thing, prosperity and well being.  It seems to me my suggestion would allow for a peaceful celebration for everyone.