Free Falling

As first, I couldn’t tell if it was real or if I was dreaming. It sounded like a small alarm, followed by some yelling. I opened my eyes, but I didn’t hear it anymore. Then it came again. A long ringing sound, followed by some chattering.

I got up, pulled on my pajamas and went out into main room. It rang again. I looked over to the door. I’d bolted it shut before going to bed but someone was fighting against the deadbolt. If it was a break-in, they weren’t being subtle.

I went to the door, pressed against it to relieve the tension, and flipped the bolt to unlock it. Pulling it open, there was a Chinese lady wearing a green uniform standing in the door way.

“Ni hao,” she smiled.

She was the maid.

“Ni hao,” I said.

She began quickly talking to me in Chinese. I remembered how to say “I don’t speak Chinese” but I couldn’t find the words in my head…shoe jong wen…something like that…apparently I REALLY don’t speak Chinese when I first wake up.

She continued talking. I smiled, shrugged, and shook my head a little. Reaching behind my door, she took the placard off the doorknob. Flipping it back and forth, one side was red, the other was green. She handed it to me. I pointed to the greenside. She nodded and said, “this afternoon.”

When she left, I went back to my bed. After a few seconds my phone beeped. It was a text message from Jessica suggesting we go grocery shopping at 2:00. I agreed that sounded like a good plan. After journaling a little about the night before and saving some pictures to my laptop, I got dressed to head out and wander around.

I’ve learned over the past week that men do not wear shorts in Shanghai. Actually, that’s a bit of an overstatement. A better way to put it is that it is less socially acceptable for men to wear shorts in Shanghai. Girls area almost always wearing shorts or skirts, but most men have on jeans or capris. The men that are wearing shorts are usually tourists from other parts of China.

So, after two days of wearing shorts, I decided to try an conform to jeans.

I retraced our route back towards the subway station to where the bakeries were. I found one with an orange awning and stepped inside. Lots of different people greeted me and started smiling. I smiled back and began looking around. There were all kinds of tasty looking rolls and cookies. I found a large bun for 5 yuan and settled on that. Pointing at it through the case, a bunch of people sprung into to action, pulling it out, packaging it, and handing it to me.

“Xiexie,” I said (which means ‘thank you’ although I feel like I butcher it every time I say it.)

The girl behind the counter held up 5 fingers. I handed her the 5 yuan note and thanked her again. Outside, I opened the package and tore off a piece. It was really sweet with sort of an almond flavor. Little yellow seeds filled the inside and tasted great!

As I walked back, I got a few dirty looks. Was it my red plaid shirt? I’d seen plaid shirts already (not a lot of them but a few) so I figured it was okay. Was it my unshaven face? I was a little scruffy but not noticeably so in my opinion. Or maybe it was the fact I clearly was not form China, and I was getting the typical tourist treatment.

I was also unbelievably warm. After being outside for just 20 minutes, I was starting to sweat through my jeans. I quickly got back to the apartment so I could change into shorts.

When I got back, the maid was in the process of cleaning our room. I sat on the couch while she finished changing the linens in my bed room. When she moved to Nate’s room, I went in and changed.

Jessica texted me and said that her friend told her everyone takes suitcases to the grocery store to carry their groceries (since they charge for plastic bags.) I unpacked the rest of my rolling suitcase and took it to her room to meet her.

“Where’s Nate?” she asked.

“He’s meeting us in the lobby at 2:00,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Well the directions to the store are kind of in Chinese.” I went down to get him and he set about translating them.

Outside, I carried the suitcase next to me over the brick paved sideway (I was not about to be one of those people rolling a bag on cobblestones—cobble-bricks rather.) We crossed over the street in front of our building (which I have nicknamed the “busy street of death” due to the erratic traffic patterns) and headed down one of the side streets. There were a lot of really cheap restaurants with awesome looking food all over the place. I think we probably live in a really affordable local neighborhood.

We however did not find the grocery store. We paced back and forth a few times (probably looking a bit suspicious to the guards outside the Belgium consulate) but didn’t see the store anywhere.

Nate found a larger convenience store that sold some basic food and toiletries. He haggled with the owner for a large bag of rice while I found laundry detergent. Shopping in a foreign country is always really fun. I picked out the detergent by finding a bottle that showed a rainbow behind a white t-shirt (I’m assuming the label says something like “protects colors and whites.”)

We also bought Kleenex, hand soap, Q-tips, a few Mirinda, and some Chinese candies. There really wasn’t a lot of other food besides microwaveable stuff to be bought. Nate and I split our bill while Jessica just bought some soap. We then went back to the apartment to see if we could find better directions.

After looking online for about an hour, we realized we were running out of time before the show Sabrina was taking us to tonight. Ericka and Akeena texted us about going to the bank so we decided to go look for that instead. Crossing the street of death again, we wrapped further back into the neighborhood this time. We found the bank right away.

The ATM was actually really cool. Each machine was in a stall with a door that locked behind you to ensure your safety and privacy. The machine was pretty much in Chinese (with a few English subtitles) but it worked like any other ATM and was pretty easy to figure out.

We needed to get dinner before we met Sabrina for the show. There was a restaurant right next to our hotel that advertised “7” something. Assuming it meant 7 yuan special, we figured we’d go there.

But on the way back, we found a unique shop that seemed worth stopping in. It was filled with pirated DVDs and software. They had rows of documentaries, operating systems, and Hollywood blockbusters (I bet you could even find Star Wars VII if you looked long enough.) Rosetta Stone for Mandarin was available for just 7USD.

We didn’t make any purchases, but rather laughed at cheap everything was. Running out of time, we hustled back to restaurant. Walking in, the atmosphere felt like more than a 7 yuan special. We took a seat and started thumbing through the 4 different menus. When the waiter came and asked if we wanted tea, I looked at the menu. Everything was at least 100RMB. I smiled and pointed at the cheapest (98RMB.) He shook his head.

“I don’t think it’s 7 Yuan,” Nate said. “I think it’s a 7 course meal.”

Our stomachs sank. We needed to meet Sabrina in 30 minutes….this was clearly going to be expensive.

A lady dressed in a pink, silk outfit came to our table with a tray. She prepared our tea in a glass teapot and poured us each a glass, leaving plenty in the pot for two or three or four more glasses each.

“When the waiter comes back, I will tell him our boss called and needs us at a meeting,” Nate said. Meanwhile, we sipped our tea, and I have to say, it was fantastic! I mean for 98 yuan (about 15 USD) it should be fantastic, but this really was amazing.

Eventually our waiter came and Nate started talking to him. He looked at the tea and at each of us. He and Nate were going back and forth as the waiter’s face became more and more distraught. Finally, he walked away.

“He wanted to know if our boss would like some tea,” Nate explained.

“He probably would,” I said. “He’s always been a pretty big tea drinker.” We all laughed nervously.

Paying the bill, we left quickly, pretty sure we couldn’t return to the restaurant even if we could afford it. At the Family Mart convenience store, we bough some junk food and took it back to the lobby to snack on.

“Can’t we just take it to the show?” Akeena asked.

“It’s actually rude in most Asian cultures to eat on the go,” Nate said. “Food is very formal and so eating informally is not really correct.”

That would explain the dirty looks I got earlier.

We regrouped with the rest of our entourage and followed Yvonne (Sabrina’s colleague) to the show. It was an acrobat circus, which apparently Shanghai has always been known for, even back in the days when it was a shipping port to Europe.

Our seats were in the very top row of the theater (which probably had somewhere around 30 rows. It was hot in the rafters, but we had a great view of the entire circular state. And while the show started a bit slow, it picked up and really was impressive. The first few acts were contortionists, which admittedly were impressive. One sat on the stage in a twisted pose while the other balanced on one hand and twisted her body, all while balancing on a pedestal that rose and fell above the ground. I think the story they were conveying was one of waking up and meditating in the morning, with the guy on the ground representing body, and the moving contortionist representing their spirit during meditation.

The next act was a balancing act. Two characters acted out a story of a servant trying to impress a princess by balancing on a board and ball while flipping various glass objects off of his foot and catching them in a stack on his head.

This was followed by a karate demonstration with crazy flips and flying kicks through various size hoops that were stacked to different heights. After each flip—some of which were several stories into the air—the performers always landed in a somersault. rom various contortionists, to karate demonstrations, rope tricks, and this amazing zero gravity wheel, the whole thing was awe inspiring.

The finale of act one was a giant wheel that looked like something from a hamsters cage. Along the inside edge of the giant wheel, were three smaller wheels, about the diameter of a tall man. Three performers, swung down from the rafters dressed in full armor. They began spinning the giant wheel. Once it was spinning they each jumped into one of the smaller wheels and ran around. The motion of them running in their wheels kept the larger wheel spinning. As they rotated around, there was a brief second at the top where the runner would experience zero gravity and could perform a brief stunt.

“They have no safety harnesses,” Nate pointed out. “If they mess up, they die.”

“I just want one of those wheel things for our living room,” I said.

It truly was the most entertaining act, topped only when they switched and began running on the outside of the larger wheel. That was topped with juggling fire, jumping rope, and doing flips, all during that brief second of zero gravity at the top.

There was then a brief intermission, after which, there were some more traditional acts such as springboards, trampolines, and hanging sheets. The finale was a metal death cage that eight motor cyclists road around without crashing into each other.

That’s not a trick I thought. The real trick is crossing the street in front of a motorcyclist.

After the show, we made our way back to the apartment. Nate and I stopped in the Family Mart to get microwaveable dinners and took them back to eat. As we did, we talked late into the night about travelling Asia and seeing various cultures.

From eating with my hands on the go, to never finding the grocery store, to botching a 100 Yuan tea ceremony and skipping out on a five star meal, I made a few mistakes today. But I’m excited. Without Sabrina, Emma, and Yvonne, it is getting harder. Seeing acrobats is fun, but I came to China to understand the culture. I want to understand why life in China is so different and mysterious. And while I’m far from understanding anything, I am starting to see some differences. Which means now I have a starting point to learn more.