I’m off to Guilin and Yangshuo (close the the Vietnamese border) this evening, see you guys next week!
Back in Budapest, many many years ago, legend had it that there was a “dummy floor” in my uni dorm building, inaccessible by the elevator and common folks, reserved only for cables and wires and god knows what. I’m in total lack of an engineering mind but wonder what 2 entire floors could be hiding or was it just that the lift makers ran out of some buttons when they installed it? The theory of the general aversion toward the number 4 doesn’t stand as there’s a number 4th floor!
See my point? I first smiled at this, especially at the idea of contrast of how the two instructions were handled, but then I fell for it – whereas I still have no idea what they are asking here, I, more-or-less, get to learn the pronunciation of the characters (pity they don’t come with the tone mark, too). Same idea with the street signs, worth staring at them while waiting at the traffic lights! Thank you, people!
Some of you have asked me recently to write more about my life so that you can imagine how I really live here. Well, here goes one on a special day of mine. First, guess what I had for dinner last night. English Pork Pie and red wine! Ah, the simple pleasures of life. (Diet starts tomorrow - read the sticker on the paper bag.) It didn’t look that good, yet tasted all the better, so no picture of that.
My student’s school, Dulwich Int. Shanghai, organized their first ever foundation day yesterday and her family invited me to join them and spend the afternoon there together. These guys actually feel like my family here, since they are some of the friendliest and most welcoming people I’ve ever met. I had a great time, enjoyed watching the school junior fencing, the Scottish dance and even the skinny scary clown who bobbed up every now and then in the crowd. His rubber mask had some creepy fake teeth on it that were hanging over the little guy’s real teeth. Dared not take a close up of that! On the way out, we bought some British delight made by the school staff and sold by a hunky volunteer at the exit. Before I searched for a cab, I managed to spot a wine store at a corner and got a bottle to accompany the porkie later back home. (I couldn’t help but wonder about yet another multiculti experience – as a Hun chick, I was sipping some great Aussie wine, eating English pork pie, followed by a Japanese cigarette, while overlooking the Shanghai skyline from my window.)
More my stuff coming up soon, promise. Going to Guilin and Yangshuo tomorrow (close to the Vietnamese border) so more on that later, too.
Be good and be inspired!
To me? Light years from it. It was someone else’s fresh prince, in designer glasses and a white low-neck, arriving in a white, many-a-horse-power BMW sport, proposing to the apple of his eye. (He parked his pride super near the candle-lit rose-petal heart to provide some romantic soundtrack by dunno boy band.)
This is the largest and most famous residential compound in Shanghai, counting roughly 100,000 people in it, where many a strange things can and will happen on a daily basis. Unexpected, magical and chaotic occurrences that leave a lasting memory of impressions and keep playing on your senses. Like falling trash from a 22nd-floor window, Chinese Christians sharing food for charity or you just need to cross through the pungent steam of stinky tofu far and about the street vendors. I teach 3 girls in a cafe Friday evenings and while having the class yesterday, at one point they suddenly grabbed my arm and dragged me outside to see this.
The whole thing took about 20 minutes but while people, blush-blush, including me!, were anxiously waiting for the bride-to-be to come down from her flat, tension was growing, with one of the excited spectators falling into the fountain where everyone was watching the show from. It was a wee bit tacky and it’s still surprising to see locals kiss each other on the lips in public, but well, cynicism there or not, I liked the flower-crackers that blew up hundreds of rose petals in the air, the little kids helpfully lighting up some of the candles and the groom-to-be was accompanied by some seriously handsome wingmen in the crowd. Plus, I’ll give my iPhone a pat on the back for taking some quite decent photos in such darkness.
I just found this and love the whole site.
Clap you hands! Jee I think I now see my angry eyes. You know, some usual rhapsodies, nothing out of the ordinary, just one of those days when my bad hair day coincides with my peers’ bad hair day and there’s this mega collision of animal instincts. Yes, and now I have fire in my brain.
If you’re angry and you want to share it: this way.
