So, this is a thing. (Found it fascinating as a student of all things bell.)
“Taco Bell features a vast and eclectic menu, featuring a plethora of tacos, burritos, nachos, quesadillas, beverages, and other often delicious food items.”
Bonus points for hedging with “often delicious” and for the allusion to ¡Three Amigos!
Things that have secretly delighted me to hear my Shanghainese cubicle neighbor Daly try to pronounce:
It rained today. The first time since I’ve been here.
Despite my Shirley Manson attitude toward the rain, I’ve always hated how the tip of every rib of every umbrella hits me exactly at eye level. But not here in China. It’s all Gene Kelly, as far as I’m concerned.
Last night, went to a North Korean restaurant.
Knowing ourselves, Eli and I agreed that we would each pay Xiaohan 100RMB for any Team America references and 200RMB for any mentions of The Interview.
The restaurant was nothing like what I expected, but exactly what I ought to have expected. Gaudy chandeliers and gilt mirrors. Permanently smiling waitresses in rainbow colored robs. (One of them — smiling the whole time — slowly lowered Xiaohan’s hand as she started to take a picture with her phone. Photos inside are forbidden.)
There was a girl band. Accordion, bass, drums, and keyboards. They mostly played Communist anthems and public domain songs, presumably out of respect for American copyright laws.
This is my closest market:
Despite the dubious punctuation, I’m told it’s the Chinese equivalent of Whole Foods. And, no, even here you can’t escape the “Whole Foods? More like whole paycheck” joke.
City Super always has music playing that sounds like the score to Ocean’s Eleven. Walking through the aisles keeps warping my intended shopping lists:
All that being said, I fucked up. Proving once again that I am neither “smart” nor “a computer guy”, I am currently in possession of two, expensive, Apple-brand doorstops.
My theory was that I could just waltz into any Apple Store and buy Chinese power supplies for my Mac Mini and Time Machine. Yeah, no.
I was in a bit of a rush to pick an apartment because reasons. I checked out an order of magnitude fewer places than some of my coworkers did before picking one. I quickly opted for a serviced apartment in cosmopolitan Xintiandi rather than a funky lane house in the hip French Concession. It met my major criteria:
But lately, I’ve been starting to question my choice. Was I basically living in a hotel, far from an authentic Chinese experience? The only thing that I was sure I liked was that the lobby smells like a pretty girl.
On Sunday, my “air shipment” arrived. Got my guitar. Books. Framed pictures of loved ones. DVDs. Waiter’s corkscrew. I spent last evening putting things away.
Yes, my bookshelves are woefully anemic, but every volume was agonized over and carefully chosen at the expense of its dozens of siblings. (Fucking Sophie’s Choice.) These are David’s books. Unambiguously.
Even the kitchen started to feel like David’s kitchen.
The bedroom is nice, with big, David-sized windows facing south.
Granted, the bathroom is like a hotel. But that’s just people-talk for “nicer than I’m used to.”
I even have a small room with a washer/dryer which is spacious enough for storage.
All that to say, I’m starting to feel at home.
This is my favorite thing in all of Shanghai. Subway directions on the (low) ceiling.
I pointed it out to a Shanghainese friend. She said she’d never noticed.
We think they meant mushroom. Actually, we hope they meant mushroom.
I know recycling isn’t part of foreplay but it is still very important.
Here’s the recycling “center” at my apartment building.
China never met a problem it couldn’t solve by throwing people at it. There’s a service here called Sherpa’s where you go to their website, pick a Shanghai restaurant, order from their menu, and a daredevil scooter messenger brings the food to your door.
It’s kind of ridiculous.
I wanted to try a place called La Strada Pizzeria which a coworker had recommended, but I was too lazy to ruin my three day weekend by actually going outside. I ordered Sherpa’s. Ten minutes later, a guy showed up at my door with two bottles of wine. Twenty minutes after that, a second guy showed up with a Caprese salad and a pizza.
Which is totally awesome. Except that it ruins the first chapter of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash where he asserts that America is the best in the world at…
On the tray with my check at the noodle shop:
More polite in English than in Chinese (which only has one “please.”)
My mantra for China has been “make new mistakes.”
Today, I tried cooking at my new place for the first time. Mushrooms, potatoes, and (expensive, because Asia) steak. Discovered — until my air shipment arrives Sunday — that I don’t have any pans or skillets.
Cooked in a pot. Close enough. Tasted good. Make new mistakes.
Played Cards Against Humanity at the party last time. It was fun but took forever. You don’t realize how quintessentially American the game is until you play with Chinese people and have to spend every round explaining Maury Povich, Aaron Burr, Adderall, Viagra, women in yogurt commercials, and why buying “a tiny pony” with 200 prison cigarettes is hysterically funny.
A Chinese coworker won by a landslide, but had no idea why we kept picking her cards. It was like the manatees writing Family Guy by randomly choosing pop culture references.
This is the street I just trudged down for 45 minutes in the freezing cold. The vanishing point is about a third of the way to the small expat party I was walking home from. A taxi, a taxi, my kingdom for a taxi.
The party was nice. At midnight, we all went up to the roof and saw fireworks in the distance. Fireworks. In China. Now I’ve seen everything.
Happy New Year, everyone.
