Kung Fu Master or Chicken Fried Rice

I dig this dude. With my horrible Mandarin and his terrible English, I think we agreed that he is going to be my new Martial Arts Master. Either that or I just ordered 6 weeks of sweet & sour pork and chicken fried rice……

The Pajama Patrol

We finally did it! After 9 months of living in China we are truly submersing ourselves into the modern Shanghainese lifestyle by buying bikes (and risking our necks while we do it)! We finally got the courage and confidence to brave the streets of Shanghai. For about $60 USD we got our Chinese bikes with all the fixins’ at our local grocery store and are now officially in the mix of the populous.

Shanghai is completely flat so everything is accessible via bicycle, the big concern is more about what kind of risk you are willing to take. The two biggest ones being: getting lost and not being able to find your way back home because the city streets were designed to replicate a bowl of spaghetti or getting hit by a taxi, scooter, motorbike, pedestrian or even someone’s spit. It’s chaotic and dangerous out there…but it’s also very liberating to be out on the streets. They even have these cool raincoats for both you and your bike so you can ride in the rain.

Not only did Christina and I buy bikes but so did our neighbors and some of Christina’s co-workers. We’ve replicated our “bike gang” in good ol’ Pasadena! We call ourselves “The Pajama Patrol”. The name is derived from this unusual but funny fashion quirk that the Shanghainese have which is to wear your pajamas out in public like a suit. I mean they wear their pajamas everywhere like grocery shopping, window shopping, university and even going out to dinner. From what I was told, pajamas are a status symbol because not everyone can afford them. We decided that one Sunday we would all wear our PJs hop on our bikes and go to brunch, hence the name “The Pajama Patrol”.

Now the adventure truly begins….

Wo de Zaoshang Pao: My Morning Run

I love my morning runs! I hate my morning runs!... Well, I don’t really hate the run itself, it’s the waking up at 5:30 in the morning to hit the roads of Shanghai that I hate. Why 5:30 am you may wonder. Well, running in Shanghai at any other time of the day is like sucking on an exhaust pipe of a car that’s had it catalytic converter removed. In fact, even at 5:30 am, after my run I feel like I've had my breakfast of toxic minerals and heavy particulate matter.

Regardless, the reason I love Wo de zaoshang paos are simply because of the intimate access it allows me of an honest City before it awakes ( I’ve mentioned this before). It’s raw, it’s beautiful and it’s honest.

The Laundry Index: Wedding Dresses

I love these pictures! I’m bummed that the only camera I had was my camera phone.

The Chinese have recently adopted the concept of a “Western Style Wedding” (I’m going to write more about this on my on going Delicate Sense of History Series) so the idea of buying a wedding dress is new. Currently Brides rent them only for the Big Day and for the Wedding Pictures.

These pictures were taken outside my friend Jeff’s apartment which is next to a Bridal Rental Shop. I guess they have a big weekend planned and had to wash all the dresses. Good times….

The Shanghai Revolving Door

One of the biggest ironies of living in Shanghai is how easy it is to make friends and how easy it is to loose friends. Unlike LA, Shanghai is a place where it is very easy to meet people and make friends. I’ve met some really cool folk waiting for a cab, in line at the grocery store, Starbucks, walking on the street…wherever. I think Westerners are drawn to each other here because we are all in the same situation.

On the flip side, this week I had 3 of my closest “buddies” leave. One back to Colorado, one back to San Francisco and another back to Norway. This has been a depressing 2 months because the exodus started in April. Since then I’ve had to say goodbye to about 7 people that I’ve totally bonded with here in China. The bright side is that now I have friends all over the world I can visit.

To mitigate this depressed state I went to play basketball at the local playground with my last remaining friend Cole. Anyway, before Cole got there I was shooting around and this Chinese dude in perfect “Californian English” invites me to play with his friends. Turns out they are all from Newport Beach!

Anyway, I’ve made some new friends but this time I made sure to ask them before I begin “dating”… errr…I mean… hanging out with them how long they will be in town.

Chang Cheng Ma La Song [ The Great Wall Marathon]

I have a couple of friends in LA that are some of the more successful entrepreneurs that I personally know. The thing that they both have in common is that both of them barely made it through high school and never went to college. On separate occasions both have mentioned that they believe that they are successful because they were just too dumb and stubborn to fail. The reason I bring that up is because I just ran the Chang Cheng Ma La Song (The Great Wall Marathon) and was just way too dumb to know what I was signing up for.

I figured, “I’m in OK shape…I’ve done a couple of 10ks in my life. What’s a couple of more 10ks strung along together”. So I took this IIB “Ignorance Is Bliss” training regiment to Beijing. The night before the race we have this big “Carbo-load” Pasta Dinner with other runners and I met this really nice Australian guy Sam. Well Sam and his girlfriend just got back from the race pre-inspection (what!!! there’s a race pre-inspection! – this was consistent with my IIB training) and was telling me that maybe that was a good thing that I did not see the section of the Wall that we were going to run. Evidently it was hellish and would have scared the bejeezus out of a novice like me. Sam then proceeded to ask how many Marathons that I’ve run before. I smile and sheepishly say that this will be my first. He looks at me…was about to say “WTF”…he stops himself and gingerly smiles and says ...”ummm…you’ll be fine”. Did I mention that Sam is an animal? He just finished both the Boston and New York Marathons and to fast forward to tomorrow’s race, Sam came in 8th in the Great Wall Marathon. Needless to say, I had no idea what I was about to do.

Race day…the bus pulls up and I see this section of the wall that literally goes vertical about 500 feet (That’s a 50 story high rise building) and I joking say to Jerome one of the guys that ran it last year, “hey I guess this is where we start”. Jerome looks at me laughs and says “no, this is where we start and finish”!!!

Well…I ran the race… I finished the race (somewhat within the time frame that I set for myself)….it was one of the most amazing experiences that I’ve had to date….it was one of the more difficult experiences that I’ve had to date. The Wall was rough. 4000 steps climb and to do that after your legs are cramping and feel like jelly at the 20 mile mark was tough. Running through the local villages, farmland and country side of rural China was beautiful. Crossing that finish line with the wife waiting with a beer and a subway sandwich was absolute Heaven.

I think everyone should use the IIB training method in life…..

The Delicate Sense of History: The Silent Voice of Fashion

I liken the aesthetic in China to that of a person with no money that just won the lottery. The first thing they do is buy everything that is silky and shiny. In this case, good taste becomes very subjective. Those on the receiving end become subject to really bad, over the top, ostentatious crap. There is no place where this is more evident than in Shanghai and more clearly manifested than in Shanghainese fashion.

Shanghai is like Hong Kong in the early eighties. There is so much “flash” because it’s now the financial center of China. With all this “flow” people are embracing consumerism with arms wide open and eyes shut tight. To exponentially exacerbate the issue, if you can’t afford the exorbitant prices of Western goods, no worries, there are multiple stores on every corner that sell knock offs and fakes.

There is a fashion designer that once said the way you dress is to put your whole ensemble together, do a quick turn in front of a full length mirror and whatever catches your eye first, remove. In Shanghai I think it’s the opposite. I think they get dressed in the dark.

I took the bus this morning to work and as I looked around, everyone was wearing multiple items of name brand fakes and nothing matched. It was a smorgasbord of fake Prada shoes, Gucci handbags, Versace sunglasses….its revolting! Then there’s how everything is put together. The guys go for this 80’s punk rock look with the ripped jeans and tattered shirts yet have a little cutesy puppy dog doll hanging from their cell phone. Not only that, they have a cool Celine Dion ringtone too! Then there are the girls. They dress with a ton of accessories, really short shorts and high heals and everything is tight fitting. They have no idea of the slutty connotation (maybe they do…who knows). I think women have been silenced so long that they are using their cloths to scream their sexuality. To bad they are screaming silently with no real message.

Clothing has always been an expression of who we are. I was once told by my art history professor that if you ever want to figure out who you are or where you are in life, open up your closet and ask your cloths. China and the Chinese are still trying to figure out who they are, where they are and where they are going……

…to be continued…..