Teaspoon of China

Let me spoon feed China to you.

Shanghai itself is massive, 8 times the size of NYC, and full of technicolor lights and vibrant skyscrapers with experimental architecture. It basically feels like I'm inside a video game, or at least a ridiculous amount of candy stores. Elderly people swarm the local parks early in the morning to do Tai Chi. Telephone numbers have 8 digits. The sidewalks have dimpled strips in them so that blind people can feel where they are going (which is an extremely considerate touch, in my opinion). There is a store here that copies and binds books for such a low price (as in, I took some textbooks today to have copies made...something that is definitely illegal due to copyright laws in the U.S....so I am trying to understand and discern the relationship between legality and morality, and what is right and wrong for myself in a country where basically anything goes). I also encountered a store called the Scent Library, a perfumery, which sells aromas such as Play Doh, Dirt, Grass, Pink Lemonade, Paperback, Rain, Baby Powder, Earl Grey Tea, Smelly Boys, etc. What a beautiful concept. 

Most of the desserts are made with mango or black sesame or green tea or red bean (seriously, red BEAN), with very little chocolate involved, and very little good taste involved too, haha. The other day I found a Dairy Queen, so immediately I purchased an Oreo blizzard…I’m not sure I’ve tasted anything so satisfying and magical. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Chinese blizzards don’t fall out of the cups when turned upside down, either.

On the subject of food, I have experienced a vast array of—shall we say—interesting concepts. The Chinese have mastered economic cooking – they allow nothing to go to waste! There are jellyfish dumplings, and fish head soup (a delicacy), and fried chicken feet, and chicken gut soup, and chicken blood soup, and chicken necks, and chicken cartilage, and chicken heads, and sliced mutton, and lotus petals, and smushed crab, and frog legs, and tarantula legs, and mooncakes with egg yolk, and green tea Oreos, and mango shaved ice. The beverages match the city – colorful and exotic and strange. I drank fruit tea the other day, an orange concoction brimming with apples, giant purple grapes, kiwis, and oranges. Presentation is key. Apparently, the Chinese are very adept at deception, and can therefore make food appear devastatingly delicious when it is, in fact, not. For instance, a seemingly chocolate and caramel scone at a bakery down the street turned out to be a pork roll. Ahaha…I still laugh out loud at that story. And then, a friend of mine ordered some sort of apple berry tea, which arrived in a mammoth flagon of a cup, only to discover that over half of the cup was hollow and contained only a portion of the drink it appeared to contain.

In non-food related news…

Several nights ago I went with a group of my fellow students to a giant shopping/night life street, where we found a "guide" to take us to the underground "fake" markets in China. This basically consisted of darting through dark alleys, behind shaggy curtains and into bright white rooms FILLED with Louis Vuitton, Coach, Rayband, Rolex, Lacoste, Nike, etc. products. Purses! Watches! Sunglasses! Shoes! All fake, all incredibly expensive looking.

And. We bargained.

My friend Molly bought a gold Rolex watch that would cost about $8000 in the U.S. for THIRTY dollars.

Ha.

We also haggled a Louis Vuitton bag from 32,000 yuan (Chinese currency) to 340 yuan. Good deal.

I tell you this because it was rather interesting, and partly hilarious, and just a good slice of China, though I actually care NOTHING about all of those brands and wouldn't buy their products (real or fake) if they were for 0 dollars. Haha.

Well. That is enough for now:) More updates will follow on various aspects of my new life here…stories, happenings, heart issues, thoughts, etc. Read on to find out!