I spent the first Sunday by my lonesome. Took the subway to Puxi and wandered down Nanjing Donglu, the flashy pedestrian strip between the Bund, Shanghai’s famous row of European riverside edifices, and People’s Square, the city’s massively huge central park/museum space.
I was extremely impressed to find that since I was last here two years ago the complicated overpass system that both hindered and enabled safe travel between Nanjing Donglu and People’s Square has been replaced by a more straightforward and aesthetically uncluttered underpass, which also provides a new entrance to the subway. It must have been a massive undetaking. The project is mostly done but still incomplete and in classic Chinese style pedestrians think nothing of walking directly through the path of ongoing construction and climb piles of rubble to reach several unfinished but evidently more convenient exits.
Since I was strolling, I decided to keep going. I tuned into my mandarin-on-ipod and toured the city. I walked from Old Town to the Jing’An temple, and then back to the Huangpi Nanlu Metro station through a large swatch of the French Concession. And I can tell you this: Shanghai is very, very big. In the week since my stroll I’ve been informed of at least 10 additional neighborhoods that I should explore, and none of them is anywhere close to where I walked.
Two months is just enough time to get wet, and sunday was a toe in the water. It gave me a good flavor for the place though; I found a few parks worth exploring and with a little more orienteering I’ll have this place mapped in no time.
Speaking of maps, I had no idea, until now, just how integrated into my lifestyle online cartography has become. Without google to guide me to my destination turn by turn I’m practically lost. Rediscovering the joys of unwieldy folding paper is not something I’m keen on.
Feed Me More, Feed Me Less
So, I’ll admit it, I got a little frustrated looking for food and ate at Subway. I never quite found what I was looking for during my hours of wandering (a good lamian stand, kebabs maybe) so finally, after walking through lunch, I made my way back to familiar ground and spotted a tolerable fast food: sandwiches. I’m just as sorry about this as you are. Really I am. It’s shameful.
I grant you my search efforts were illegitimate: I stuck to main roads for ease of navigation when we all know that tasty noodle shacks cluster in side streets and small alleys; still, this city has an awkward layout. It clumps like unwoven silk. Cocoons of human activity are knotted haphazardly throughout the city. And me without a map. Between the major commercial centers lie tangles of parks in various states of renovation, and shabby boulevards lined with communist-era high-rises. Most of the roads are ugly and grey; more than a few streets are shadowed by elevated super-hiways. neighborhoods are replicated ver-building on almost every block: clothing store, hairdresser, grocer, pharmacy, bike repair; repeat.
My failure led me to these two dopus dildox observations:
1) Reading Chinese is critical to eating well.
2) Just order what the guy next to you is eating.
The problem with not reading chinese is that eating in this country becomes difficult, expensive or haphazard.
Western joints all speak english, or provide a translated menu, but for all of its advances, and with the exception of fast food establishments like KFC, western infiltration to this city remains concentrated in a smattering of specific locations, most of which are far away from where I live (Pudong, the other side of the river) and most of which I plan on avoiding anyway (except to pilfer free internet… Thanks Coffee Beanery!). Not to mention expensive. A bottle of water from a swanky cafe in Xintiandi costs 24 kuai. Two blocks away, the same bottle sold by a Chinese grocer costs 3. Aai-yoh.
You could also argue that I should stick to ordering what I know. This is modestly true, but it doesn’t bear out well in practice. For one thing, China has an incredible variety of cuisines: 14 majors and many additional ethnic sub-genres. I’m talking about cuisines. At the dish level there are probably over a thousand distinct recipes. Seriously. What Americans know as “Chinese food” is really just a small and westernized selection of largely Cantonese food. Except, possibly, in San Francisco and Vancouver.
Add to this the realization that my knowledge of Chinese food is pitiful. At best, even after living in Yantai, I max out at 20 dishes. And dag-nammit if they aren’t all specialties of Dongbei (东北 — the Northeast). Much like driving and directions, I realize now that we had it easy up there and never really absorbed the facts. I rarely had to order for myself and when I did, it was the usual favorites (di san qian, gan bian yun dou, gong bao ji ding, ma po dou fu…. can I here and Amen?). On the occasions that we ventured beyond the ‘known restaurants’ (all introduced to us by experienced locals) we inevitably ended up at a street market where it’s plainly obvious what you’re ordering or trolled for the eateries who litterally display the entirety of their kitchen’s ingredients in baskets and tanks at the front of the store. Ordering was a simple matter of pointing to something which you could be reasonably assured would return to your plate in much the same state, only steeped in boiling oil.
Here in Shanghai, away from the cleansing ocean breezes, the streets seem far too dirty to support that kind of establishment. And if I walk into a place, the odds are 1 in 50 that my waiter has even heard of what I’m talking about. Wandering the city looking for 东北 above every restaurant is an impractical crap shoot…. the walls and signage of this country are awash with characters.
As for ordering what the guy next to you has. It works, just as long as you like what you see.
So really, I see only only two options: surround myself with people to order for me; or learn much, much more Chinese.
Local Happenings
Harry Potter has hit Shanghai in a big way. Local bookstores are awash with expensive and legitimate copies of the hardcover. Interestingly, the British version is cheaper. I’m a fan, whatev, but I’m trying to resist the easy read and stick to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel (by the by, Shanghai in 2005 is a thoroughly apropos location to be reading this book in a relevant context… you can literally see History happening here)
Speaking of which, what exactly is this all about? And how does one objectively measure a pig’s physique? It all sounds very Margaret Atwood, Oryx & Crake.
Unrelated to most anything else (except, almost incidentally, China) this man is my new hero and his project is a fascinating SIMS-gamer fantasy come true. Please sire, be my mentor.
This one’s for you TC
