A love letter to Shanghai

Frankly, after bottle of wine and so far the two best movies of 2008 (The Dark Knight and Kunsten a tenke negativt) it is appropriate time to write a love letter. Therefore; I love Shanghai because of...

...arteries clogging traditional Chinese breakfast (Vermont cheddar found its match). Although, most of the Chinese people will eat bowl of noodles for a breakfast, I had a pleasure to be treated with traditional Chinese breakfast (more popular in northern part of the country). These contain oil-soaked & deep-fried baguette-resembling thing which actually tastes good although heavily heavy. Furthermore it contains various kinds of dumplings with meat and other fillings (health warning for all those calorie counting losers).

...Chinese kitchen with all its varieties. Besides noodles, fried noodles, fried rice, vegetable dishes, dumplings of 1,000 kinds you have also province specific cuisine. Shanghai is heavy on seafood, Beijing on a duck, Sichuan is spicy and Hunan is absolutely hot. Besides that you can fill yourself up in Korean, Japanesse and occasionally European style dining eateries. What is the most important for all us - budget constrained students - it is all sooooo cheap :) Besides unbelievingly cheap university canteens (huge three course dinner/lunch can be purchased for 13 kuai - 1.5 euro) restaurants are fairly inexpensive (all fair-skin warnings and toilette rush alerts apply!). Those who dare, can eat on street for virtually nothing - in total for cost of higher toilette paper consumption.

...tailor market. The best place for clothes shopping in Shanghai is offering tailored shirts, suits, coats and anything else made from fabric for reasonable prices (depending on your bargaining ability). I do not know about any other place where you can buy tailored shirt for 85 kuai (9 euros). Eventually you end up buying suits and shirts you really do not need - just for the fun of it (I'm thinking of getting made two button suit - Paul Smith style :D - in addition to five shirts I have already bought). Anyway, my biggest problem is how to get all these clothes back home as I flew in 15 kilos overweight already. Only possible solution I can envisage is that anybody coming for a visit will fly in light-weighted (meaning one empty luggage) :)

...fake market. The best place for "super brands" shopping anywhere east of Paris. And what is the best - it is all fake and really really cheap (again depends on your bargaining ability). You can buy Fred Perry, Paul Smith, Louis Vuitton and anybrand you can imagine here (I do not even dare to start about watches :) ). Of course you have to be careful as quality of fake can be deceiving. There are several levels of fake; from really cheap ones which would last up to first "stress test" or which are easily recognizable as fake by close look, to those which are virtually same as original. All above is reflected in the price of fakes.

...bargaining. Anything can be bargained for and unless you are rich and do not care, everything you should bargain for. Usually it takes three walk-outs from the shop and shop attendant chasing you in the halls till you get reasonable price (the one you asked for the first time :) ). Furthermore, unlike in Europe or Americas, you can try and taste the fruits at the market so you know what are you buying - at least the taste of it. As a "fair skin" you have to watch out all the time as you are easy target for the sellers to ask/get more than from the natives.

...People's park Sunday dating sessions. In one of the People's park meeting points each Sunday meet people who post their profiles (one page flyers) on surrounding benches, trees and strings in between them. Usually these people are 40 and above (all the way up) and allegedly you can meet concerned parents searching for the future bride-to-be. As I was told such parents are worried that their only child is not able to enter the relationship and a "little" nudge is needed. This is Chinese version of western civilisation internet dating scene :)

...non-drinking Chinese students. Virtually, you can get drunk only with your fellow international students as Chinese people do not drink or their drinking stamina is fairly low. On the other hand when drinking they drink till the bitter end :)

...my student life. I almost forgot how good it is to drink beer and wine freely at noon. Luckily I was reminded this week at Czech National Day celebration organised by Czech consulate. I almost forgot how good it is to study and torture your brain. Luckily I am reminded everyday as my Chinese lessons require plenty of preparation and students here are just used to study like crazy and spend their weekends self-studying in classes - I follow their example (occassionally) as I prepare for all the crap I signed up for. I almost forgot how good it is to visit lectures of renowned professors and rise on the intellectual ladder :D Unfortunately I was reminded by a lecture given by prof. Kenneth Arrow at Fudan. Unfortunately any further rise is prevented by my duties at least until end of this year. Then the ascent of the monkeys will continue!

...doing sports. Unfortunately I am getting beaten all the time and it becomes more and more frustrating :)

...difficulty of Chinese language. Although nowhere near of being a lingua franca, Chinese is spoken and understood by c. 1.3 billion people (the highest estimate quoted as there is c. 1.4 billion people living in China these days). After 5 weeks of studying Chinese and 20 characters a day I come to conclussion that whoever submits himself voluntarily to intensive Chinese course he is either crazy, masochist or plain stupid. I guess the third option applies to me as I did not climb the IQ ladder high enough. On the other hand, it is very nice to see the actual results of your studies in a daily conversation (so far one-to-two word sentences).