Halloween

Well, it's Halloween weekend and you know what that means.....nothing really. China doesn't really celebrate Halloween and anyone over the age of 23 has no idea at all what is is. I've had to explain what a Jack-O-Lantern is about 10 different times. (Surprisingly, it's a neat origin story, look it up). The only people who really celebrate Halloween are the Expats (Expatriots= non natives). So there are only a few places where you can dress up and go out.

I do however have to dress up for school. We have a Halloween celebration today and we've been preparing for it all week, i.e decorating the school, making costumes for the kids, making trick or treating boxes, etc. And I have blisters all over my fingers from operating a tiny pair of scissors that were designed for 3 year-olds. Apparently we don't have a pair of normal scissors in the whole school, just the kinds that won't cut your skin....or anything else for that matter.
But it should be a fun day however.
I'm either going as
1) A giant nerd. Very easy costume.
2) Yao Ming. I found his jersey in a store.
3) Tide detergent comes in enormous bags over here, so I might cut arm holes and a head hole, wear it, and just wave at everyone. I'd be a Tidal Wave.

My apartment is starting to come together very nicely. I have an amazing couch now that doesn't have a metal spear aimed at my spine under the cushions like my old couch. Plus I got a really nice fish tank. No fish yet, just a fish tank. Which brings me to my next little adventure.

I went to the pet market also know as Hell for anyone in the ASPCA. I felt so bad for a lot of the animals there. Cute puppies are in tiny cages stacked on top of each other. Walls upon walls of birds cramped into small cages. They didn't have any cats however which made me a little nervous because there was a chwar salesmen (meat on a stick) outside.

I'll update my blog again this weekend and take you on an exclusive, behind the scenes look at my overly expensive, under-ly square footed apartment.

Also, I took a picture of the Napoleon Dynamite guy that I work with. The best part was, when I took his picture, he said "You better not be putting this up on some Napoleon Dynamite Website." Technically I'm not....haha.


Things Ezra has learned...
1. The Shanghai-nese equivalent of the middle finger.
2. If someone calls you a multi-colored wolf. It's an insult, not a compliment. It means you get around a lot. (Oh the stuff you learn on the street)
3. There's a guy who rips the tails off of scorpions in this giant bin right outside my apartment for a local restaurant. Bravest man I've ever met. Gonna see if he will let me try.
4. Badminton is cool. (From what I'm told).
5. My Mandarin is getting a lot better, I was actually somewhat able to communicate with the China Tele-com guy who came to set up my email.
6. Everyone can be bribed with a pack of cigarettes or 50 RMB. Cigarettes are cheaper. I got the moving guys to carry up my couch to the third floor for me who were only supposed to drive.

Till this weekend...
Love,
Ezra

Apartment Shopping Triumph!

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated my blog, but I've gone an entire week without internet outside of work; which has to be some sort of personal record or something. Seriously I don't know how people survived and didn't die of boredom before the mid-90's.

I still technically don't have internet. Right now I am sitting in a Starbucks taking advantage of their free wifi and trying to ignore the little Barista glaring at me because I didn't buy any coffee.

Big news! Just when all hope was lost and it looked like I would be couch surfing for my time in China, I found a great apartment. It's in an amazing location near stores, gyms, supermarkets and given its location, it is surprisingly affordable. Granted, I had to go buy everything to fill it up...appliances, utensils, decor, better furnishings, etc. But hey, I'm in China. I pretty much furnished my entire apartment for around $150.00. Now all I need is the INTERNET!!!!

Most of the stuff I got for my apartment is in this place called Old-Town where there are thousands of shops that will all continually try to undercut each other in price while trying to jack up the price to screw over the tall white guy. My new favorite game is pitting two adjacent shop owners against each other while they fight over me. (Well, my money). I went with a couple other native teachers from my school and one of the shop owners actually asked her "Hey! You Chinese! Why you helping the la-wei? (Derogatory term for whites).

Two purchases I'm excited for today are an electric bike for $100 which is going to make my life soooo much easier. Goodbye 30 minute walks to meet people, hello 5 minute bike ride. And also a big fish tank. I always get depressed living alone, but with fish, I'll be depressed with an animal that doesn't care I'm depressed. :-)

Work is going great. We have an entire week devoted to Halloween coming up, even though it is very hard to explain to the natives. For example, I literally spent 30 minutes trying to explain what gravestones were to a crowd of Asian teaching assistants.

I also got tickets from one my my teaching assistants to go to the ATP Tennis Masters in Shanghai! I got to see Raphael Nadal play which was pretty cool. 95% of the people cheered against him and the remaining 5% were teenage girls. No joke, some girl actually yelled "ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME!" I fell out of my chair laughing. Professional tennis is the library of sports. You're in this ENORMOUS arena filled with thousands of people, and it is absolutely silent. It's strangely eerie.

My vocabulary is expanding everyday. I discovered a new podcast called ChinesePod which is great to listen to on the metro to work and learn new common words and phrases.

Things I've learned....

1. The word for "That" is "Nigga." I haven't seen too many black people in China...
2. Chinese T.V. is the strangest thing I've ever seen. It's like everything is done by amateur high school film crews.
3. They really need to open up a big orthodontist clinic in Shanghai.
4. I have a Chinese Name now. It's Gao Fei. Translated: Fly High.
   
5. I need to watch more soccer. It's the only sport anyone ever talks about, and I know didly squat about all the teams.
6. 2/3rds of all Chinese girls don't shave their armpits...that's 3 million sets of unshaved girl armpits in the city, and none of them wear deodorant. Yeah, I did the math

Love,
Ezra

Apartment Shopping Blues

I think the title of this blog basically speaks for itself. The only thing harder then looking for an apartment, is looking for an apartment in a foreign country where you barely speak the language.

I've been in China about 6 weeks now and I have a pretty good vocabulary given the fact that I didn't speak any mandarin before I touched down here. I can speak with cab drivers, order in a restaurant, find the nearest bathroom, sing nursery rhymes (from school), and ask people to talk slower. The hardest part is getting the grammar right. I know the words that go into the sentence, but I always put them in the wrong order. For example, if I wanted to say say "Do you know where the restaurant is?" I would actually say in mandarin ... "You, restaurant, where is?"

Anywhoo, my language difficulties aside, as you read I have been apartment hunting. During the holiday, I have been meeting with agents to find a place to live. Agents basically act as an intermediary between landlords with vacant apartments and apartment hunters. And just when I thought I would never find a place to live, an agent that I met two weeks ago called me out of the blue and showed me a really nice apartment. Nice being a relative term.

For 3,000 RMB in Jing'an Temple, I get a bedroom, balcony, large living room, kitchen, and bathroom; a pretty good price given the size and how the Jing'an Temple area is one hopping place. All I need now is my paycheck which I receive on Thursday(finally!) and I'm moving straight in. One of the downsides, there is absolutely nothing in terms of kitchenware, sheets, bathroom essentials, and everything else that makes this place more then just four walls and a roof.

First paycheck = rent for three months;
Second paycheck which I get in three weeks = turning my apartment into a bachelor pad. :-) Just kidding Mom. It's going towards spoons and everything else I need.

I mailed out a bunch of stuff a couple days ago too. So everybody cross you fingers things don't get lost and keep your eyes on the mailboxes.

Love,
Ezra

Awesome Day! Dead Camera!!

So I had an amazing day yesterday, and I wasn't able to record any of it!

Yesterday I decided to go to the Science and Technology Museum and see what all this hype is about. I grab my camera from my desk just in case there are some photo opps and the battery seems to be working fine at my apartment. After awkwardly ordering one general admission ticket in Chinese and getting inside, there are so many awesome things to take pictures of I was worried about filling up my 8GB card. That's a lot of pictures, I know. So when I turn on my camera to take a picture of a Robot man playing the piano, THE CAMERA DIES!!! Then to top it all off, after the museum my one friend called me asking if I wanted to go to Old-Town. Old town is a section of Shanghai where all the building are from before Shanghai started to get modernize itself and they all still look like stereotypical Chinese houses with the curved roofs. I'll show you a picture...oh wait...MY CAMERA DIED!!! Old town is littered with thousands of tiny shops where you bargain the little old ladies down to 1/5 of their asking price. I've never had so much fun haggling for stuff that I have no intention of buying. i.e. I haggled a giant 500 lbs rose quartz sphere down from 10,000 Quai, to 2,000 Quai. Just getting the practice in.

I'll definitely be going back to both of those places to take pictures and just because they were both amazing places to spend the day.

Since I didn't take any pictures. But here is a list of mental snapshots that I took of some of the cooler things I saw in the museum

1. I crossed a thin bamboo bridge over an artificial rainforest.
2. I wandered through an actual batcave.
3. There was a stone forest filled with giant insects
4. I got to see what germs looked like if they were the size of your dog
5. People were allowed to ride a bike on a tight rope.
6. I went into a haunted mansion wearing these headphones that demonstrated how scary dolby surround sound really is.
7. There was an arachnid room filled with giant 50 foot spider replicas. Felt like I was in Harry Potter.
8. They had lifelike human robots doing some of the coolest things. They could....
a. ...beat you in an archery contest
b. ...play any sheet music on the piano that you put in front of them
c. ...paint a caricature of yourself
d. ...play five people in majong at the same time and win
e. ...identify any object from the smell that you hold under its nose.
9. You could bike or fly in a virtual reality room. (I would have done this but the line was way too long)


Things I've learned today...

1. Cards are a spectator sport. Two people will play in the street and all of the sudden, 30 people will be around them watching.
2. Everyone loves to squat here. People would rather squat than sit down. I blame it on the in-ground toilets.
3. I found the cloth market and I can get a custom-made suit form only about $95.00.
4. Always charge your camera before going anywhere :-(
5. I want a musical, archery, painting robot.

Love,
Ezra