Our ‘hood pt. 2 我们的’罩

It gets dark in Shanghai at around 7pm but all the Longbai shops and food places seem to stay open late into the night. In fact theres a row of shop fronts which have their shutters down in the daytime and only open at night, but thats a whole other subject…!

Shop owners sit out on the street in deck chairs all day anyway but the amount of chairs seems to multiply significantly after dark as people sit outside socialising, getting food from the bike vendors which pop up in the evening and hanging around playing cards.

On the pedestrianised street each evening, seemingly free to join dance / exercise activities take place. Its hard to know exactly whats going on and there are often multiple groups happening at once, with various types of music fighting from PA systems also mounted on bikes and carts. On friday nights there is a small stage with a trio of women who lead large crowds of all ages and in a  bizarre and repetitive slow aerobic/dance routine to what sounds like gangnam style K-Pop. On the opposite side of the street, only really about 8 metres away, older men and women do ballroom style dancing to more traditional sounding Chinese music. They try to make us join in but we’ve been too British to oblige as of yet… and we don’t know how to ballroom dance. There are more groups following instructors further down the way, a smaller one we have seen a few times is all an female group doing sassy dancing with a small rubber ball each, which sounds strange but its really good.

People hanging out outside their shops in the summer evenings.

This shop has a TV that comes outside in the evenings and people bring stools and come watch. It was showing some Chinese world war II movie here. Look how freakishly tall Frank is.

Crowds of people doing the aerobic dance thing. They must come and do it daily because they know it so well.

Bad picture of the ladies and their ball dance.

one of the street vendors selling food

Theres a big Koran community in Longbai and they specialise in Barbeque food. There must be nearly forty of these Korean BBQ restaurants  all on one long street – all always pretty busy. We decided to try it out one evening and walked the length of the street hoping for some kind of idea which one to go into. Outside, workers stoke burning hot coals, there is old coal all over the street. We go into one with barbeque grills and what look like extractor pipes built into the middle of the table. The menus here are all about 100 pages long and have saturated photographs of all the dishes, many of which look identical, especially when choosing meat to put on the BBQ. Raw meat plate number 87 for Frank please.

I think I’m playing it safe by choosing noodles, but man am I wrong. When they arrive they are tiny rice noodles in a delicious but oily sauce and the utensils they come with are tiny metal flat needle-like chopsticks. I thought I could use chopsticks – I have successfully picked up mounds of sticky rice and pickles with the big old wooden ones at Wagamama plenty of times – but these are a different story. Luckily the waitress brought us big lettuce leaves too, so I use one of these like a spoon to help me try and get any of the food from the plate into my mouth. Frank’s having an equally hard time unrolling his mystery meat to place on the barbeque and after watching for a while the waitress comes over and does it for him. She also brings me a large pair of scissors and a spoon which I take gratefully as an alternative to the hell needles. The staff stand around us watching us struggle the entire time – perhaps in an effort to be attentive in the name of customer service or maybe, more likely because they’ve never seen such a poor display of motor skills in their lives. We are muddling through the meal albeit slowly when another waitress emerges from the back of the kitchen looking triumphant with a child’s snoopy fork for me. I accept graciously, thinking that I must take a leaf out of my friend Chris’ book and carry a spork around from now on attached to me with a chain to avoid further embarrassment. I’m getting better with the chopsticks now – we bought some for home and I eat my porridge with them.

Crocs are an essential part of the dont-care-what-I-wear shanghai style.

GOOD FRIEND! The only english words in neon in Longbai – haven’t been there yet!

standard menu board

Frank scissor grillin’

UTENSIL SHAME

Karaoke, or KTV as it’s called here is HUGE. They’re everywhere and it is the go-to thing to do for social nights out amongst the Chinese, who take it pretty seriously. You get your own room or booth to yourselves and they bring you beer and food apparently. We have three within a 10 minute walk, but one is RIGHT by our flat. I’d been looking forward to forcing Frank to go with me and wacth me hog the mic and sing man in the mirror over and over again but the scantily clad ladies who appear in the doorway at night and the reputation for some of the KTVs as sleazy put us off going in. I asked one of Frank’s science team friends who lived in Longbai last year about it and apparently, yes, its a brothel. KTV is not a company name like I’d assumed but just the name of the activity so they come in many forms.. ahem.
A mistake I was glad someone else made first. I think the one in the mall is reputable, I’ll post about it once we’ve gone…

KTV with benefits.. can I just go alone and pay a woman to sing with me?

The same mall, next to the metro station at the end of our street,  has a small cinema too. We went there this weekend (national holiday – mooncake monday) because Frank was desperate to see the new Planet of the Apes movie. NOTHING is written in english in the cinema and we had to resort to doing a monkey mime to communicate which film we wanted buy tickets for, so we were pleasantly surprised when the film was in English, not dubbed. All the apes’ subtitles were in Chinese though so we we’re half in the dark, but we followed it fine – a better film for not being able to know exactly they were saying I think. It was good! Stupid but good.

Chinese poster is way cool.

The mall where you can buy shonky knock off designer goods! A pretty great array of sunglasses actually.

ah, the best day of you life. This is one of many weird motivational poems written on the front of a cafe in the mall.

and just incase you want to dress your newborn baby up as a bride/groom and stage them marrying someone else’s (I hope! Not siblings) newborn baby, theres a shop especially for that too.

Just the top right please.

Our ‘hood pt. 1我们的’罩

We didn’t have a choice in where we would be housed once we arrived in Shanghai – the school rents our apartment on our behalf in a convenient location for Frank to get to and from work easily and still be in reach of the city centre. Most people move out before the summer and go find a place to rent more centrally, with a living allowance from the school. We’ll probably do the same, but for now Longbai is home.

I had tried to find out about the area online before we arrived but there wasn’t a lot written about it other than it having a large Korean community. It’s not an expat heavy area as I’d thought it might be – on the contrary it feels like a very authentic local neighbourhood.

Most of the buildings are mid-rise residential blocks in compounds like ours with shops and food places lining the main roads. Adjacent to us is a “pedestrianised” street (motorbikes still use it heavily) which is always busy with people no matter what time of day. Huge groups sit under the trees and play cards in the daytime and in the evening various public dance and exercise activities take place – the music starts at around 6pm and goes on until late – I can always hear it in the kitchen if I’m cooking. 

Tree lined streets of Longbai – loads of people carry umbrellas in the sunshine for shade.

Poles to dry your pants on – these are everywhere here. You see makeshift washing lines strung up between trees on the street with underwear drying on them but no apparent owner.

Men playing cards from morning til night. Can’t figure out which game it is.

This street also leads to the local wet market, which isn’t easy to find unless you know where it is. For such a vibrant and busy food market which operates seven days a week, there is no sign posting whatsoever –  you have to walk through a large open car park which appears to lead nowhere until you see the entrance. These market halls sell fruit and vegetables at a fraction of the price of the supermarkets as well as fresh fish sitting out on giant ice trays which gradually melt and tip water all over the floor.. I’m not sure if this is why its called a wet market but the Longbai one certainly turns into a paddling pool as soon as you hit the fish section. They used to sell live animals too but this is less common since some recent scares to do with the spread of disease. I was glad to see our didn’t have much in the way of living creatures, as China is making me increasingly squeamish. They did have some live eels though. How would I even take them home??

Entrance to the market. Knowing is half the battle.

Amazing veg! Stuff I’d never seen before and oh so cheap. I filled my backpack with enough for the whole week and it cost less than £5.

Mystery fruit. Are those lotus pods?? Sorry Sofie if you’re reading or any other Trypophobia sufferers. These are all over the place in China. Don’t know how you eat them.

I made the mistake of showing an interest in the squid by photographing it, which lead to the vendor rushing over and excitedly trying to force one into my hands to see the quality of it. I managed not to scream but was put off photographing the more horrifying delicacies on offer. Some seriously freaky fish.

Out the back of the market hall are more food stalls selling grains as well as cooked meat. Be warned, more sights to make you shudder..

A lady selling pig snouts outside her shop

The bin next to one of the chicken stands out in the open and stinking. This was next to a huge bin of live crabs that was overspilling onto the floor. I wanted to ask how much for the whole lot so I could take them home and set them free. Or keep them in the bath.

After taking these pictures I hurried off with my big bag of vegetables, never planning to venture down the meat street again. There was a strange looking shop just outside with a man asleep in it (also a common sight here, but it doesn’t mean the shop is closed)  so I went in to see what he was selling. A huge array of bizarre objects made of paper. I couldn’t figure out what they were… surely not toys? Paper cigarette packs, paper “iPed”s and iped cases, paper hairdryers and cosmetics, paper bars of gold. Talking to my mum about it later on said maybe it was a shrine shop, which would make a lot of sense actually as he was also selling incense and candles and had a tombstone menu on the counter.

Shrine man asleep in the shrine shop

Cigarettes for the gods. Everyone needs a lighter.

iPed 5, top of the range. I know what I want for Christmas.

The other Longbai market I had heard about was the flower market. About 20 minutes walk in the opposite direction, it proves just as difficult to locate, but once you’re there it puts London’s Columbia Road flower market to shame. there is a row of outside stalls from which delivery bikes will ride anything you buy back to your address for you so there’s no limit on the amount you can carry. There is an inside hall with maybe 100 more stalls inside selling every kind of plant or tree you can imagine for very reasonable prices. Bonzai trees with strange dioramas built around them are on offer next to bamboo boats, more orchids than you’ve seen in your life and all manner of plants and pots. At the very back of the hall are various household, craft and furniture sellers.

One of many outdoor stalls

The indoor market goes on and on and on

birds and small animals are in cages randomly throughout the stalls. sometimes just on the floor. Rabbits, turtles and even some caged kittens Crickets are common pets here too – sold in tiny balls of woven grass, you can buy beautiful wooden cages for them.

These talking birds have more mandarin vocabulary than me 😦

I’m considering some of these to make tiny scenes from Robin Hood and Lord of the Rings beneath.

But, which way to the Handicraft?

Furniture shops where you’d expect to find the Jumanji board. No such luck.

Watch this space for a sequel post about Longbai at night, the shame of being brought a kiddy fork in a restaurant when you can’t use the chopsticks and the trials and tribulations of going to the cinema in China.

Our apartment 我们的公寓

Our apartment is part of Frank’s work package – rent free for as long as he’s working there, we just have to pay the bills. We weren’t sure what it would be like at all and had requested a 2 bedroom if at all possible so that people could come and visit from home comfortably but the allocation team said there were no guarantees.

We’ve lucked out – Its twice the size of our flat in London and actually really nice. Sure there are some questionable light fittings and yes I did have to buy some neutral throws to cover up the DIAMANTE STUDDED sofa, but all in all not bad for nothing, hey?

It reminds me of our flat in London with similar angles and a corner sofa and the built in furniture. I thought we’d done fantastically until one of Frank’s colleagues said that she had a piano in hers!! Others said that they had red and gold walls though so I’m glad ours is white.

We’re about five minutes walk from Longbai Xincun Metro station on line 10 which will get us to downtown shanghai in about 25 minutes. Here’s every nook and cranny of the apartment if you’re interested:

living room with balcony and our bedroom to the left

massive TV we cant work out how to make work..

I think its some kind of game table, it has four little drawers but no pieces inside. We’re just using it as a table anyway. Answers on a postcard..

view in the opposite direction

Our new friend the water cooler and the sliding door which leads to the kitchen

our kitchen with very low surfaces! That big thing under the wok hobs that looks like an oven is actually a plate warmer..(?) People don’t have oven’s here so we now have that microwave sized toaster oven for tiny rosating and baking.

Washing machine area

2nd Bedroom. It’s got all of yer names on it.

TINY BATH! Frank can’t fit in it 🙂 A disappointingly high shower though. I wanted him to have to squat like Bill Murray does in lost in translation.

Our bedroom.. theres nothing for scale but this is the biggest bed I’ve ever slept in. Emperor size. It’s also rock solid but we’re getting used to that..!

My work room waiting for my desktop computer to be freed from the mad people at customs

Precious things made it safely from home in my hand luggage. Need to get a frame for those setlists still. The Bob collage has migrated now from my room into the living room where its better on display.

 

See ya, suckers! 见你 傻逼!

After a long weekend of goodbyes we finally left London and traveled a total of 20 hours from Anita and Thom’s house in Hackney to our new apartment in the Minhang district of Shanghai.

We’d booked our flights so late that we couldn’t afford the direct one, so had a one hour stop in Hong Kong airport for a connecting flight.

After a long groggy night trying to sleep in a plane seat (Frank had no trouble, of course) seeing the unfamiliar Hong Kong landscape as we started to descend was pretty exciting. Somewhere between the view, the announcements in Mandarin, Chinese writing everywhere and the Cathay Pacific air hostesses’ Star Trek uniforms, I started to get the feeling that I had left my home planet.

View of the storm which delayed us for 90 minutes as we took off from London Heathrow.

Franky doing what he does best…

First views coming into Hong Kong

It really looked like we were going to land in the sea – the on board entertainment system feature of “outside cam” which showed the view from a little camera stuck to the bottom of the plane didn’t show any signs of runway either until we were on it all of a sudden.

Landing in Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport was less spectacular looking – its very flat and the airport is quite a way out of the city, so we didn’t see any bright lights. Despite having been delayed at every step and arriving finally 4 hours later than scheduled, getting through security and into the country was less dramatic than I’m used to (yes I’m talking to you Morgan Daniels) and with little hassle were over the border with all of our luggage in tow.

Two women from the international school where Frank will be working were waiting for us with a comedically gigantic banner on a telescopic pole. They took us to a bus and said we would have 10 minutes to drop our bags off at our apartment then we were being taken in the bus to a bar on Hongmei Lu for dinner and drinks with new and senior members of staff. We were so late arriving that we had missed the civilised three hours to hang out in the apartment, have a shower and get changed window… having to go straight out seemed like a stressful idea but once we started driving closer to the main city adrenaline woke us up as the non stop neon began and we got our first glimpses of a city very different to where we’d come from or anywhere we’d ever been.

By 8pm as the bus pulled up outside our complex on Qingshan Lu, it was completely dark out and the lights of the pathways, gardens and fountains (!) that lead from the main road up to our building looked like a movie set. We were given keys and shown into our entrance, up 3 flights in an elevator and to a front door decorated with bizzare Chinese Year of the Horse decorations. Then we were left alone.

The huge arch leading to our complex from the Qinshang Rd

Thats our building in the front of the shot, the complex is 10 tower blocks all together.

um… welcome home?

 The apartment felt HUGE compared to what we’d left in London –  with two big bedrooms, an office/studio room for me (!!) a large open plan living room/diner, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room and balcony. We got changed as quick as was physically possible and then went back out to the waiting bus.

Hongmei Lu is a neon lit street of ex-pat bars and restaurants selling imported beers and chicken wings at ex-pat prices. It’s not the kind of place I imagine we will be looking to go very often as we’re keen to explore local life here and also to save money but it was a good spot for the occasion. With a big buffet and a free bar put on by the school, we had a few gin and tonics and met lots of people Frank will be working with in an informal setting, as well as some of their partners who, in a similar position to me, are waiting to see what the next few years will hold for them. It was nice to feel like we weren’t the only ones stupid enough to up sticks and move to China with no previous experience of Asia and when the time came to get a ride back to the apartments it was a good hour to finally be going to bed to try and sleep off the jet lag.

The Bamboo Bar on Hongmei Lu where we met the gang. The summer evening weather and this kind of bar just makes me feel like I’m on holidaaaaaay.

And so ended the longest day ever. There was new bedding left for us in the apartment so we made the bed, turned on the air conditioner and passed the hell out.

So long England! Ni hao for now, China..