I got up just before 7am with really no discernible jet lag. The highlight for today is to have lunch with my step grandma. So between 7am and 11 I have nothing to do but to sit and twiddle my thumbs. Top signs of a boring vacation:
5 Reading the Ikea catalog
4 Browsing online for the next vacation
3 Playing solitaire
2 Trying to book an earlier ticket out of here
1 Wishing I was home in TRF
If Shanghai is Manhattan, going to Grandma’s condo is like going to the outer boroughs. Aunt and I spent an hour on the subway and then walked for another 20 minutes from the station. The area is relatively nice by Chinese standard and the condo has two rooms with just the bare minimums. Grandma recently fell and broke her arm but she’s slowly recovering. Although in a good spirit grandma appeared weaker and much slimmer than before. Even though I’ve visited my mom side of the family a couple of times in the recent years, it has been 15 years since I last saw anyone from my step father’s side. Grandma was very happy to see me. The first thing she said to me was “You’ve gotten fat! You’re much fatter than before!” These words were not meant as complements. What a nice dose of Chinese honesty! Few minutes later she looked at me more thoroughly and said in a concerned voice, “make sure you don’t get any fatter.” Once my uncle arrived we went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. In China it is customary for whoever paying for the meal to order the food. Most of the times when dinning with relatives I never get to choose the restaurant and would be extremely lucky to even see the menu. This meal was no different. Uncle ordered and I gladly ate everything. As people say in English, beggars can’t be choosers. When the bill came uncle peeled off a few Chinese hundred dollar bills from a stack of easily ten thousand. Not sure why anyone need to carry so much cash these days.
In the afternoon uncle dropped us off in downtown so we can walk to the historic district. It is still quite warm in Shanghai these days and all the people and traffic is really wearing on my patience. The place is more or less the same as I remembered before. We did not linger and by 4pm we were on a taxi back to aunt’s place to rest a bit. When in a vehicle here it is best not to pay attention to where the driver is going. Dinner was once again ordered by the same rich uncle with some of the same dishes we had for lunch. Personally I’m not a big fan of Shanghai food or Shanghai in general. Lack of flavor. Uncle insisted that we visit his newly decorated condo after dinner so we complied.
Chinese dialogues vary much more drastically than the north-south divide in the States. Even adjacent cities have different dialogues. Shanghainese is characterized by its high pitched syllables and exaggerated phrases. Consider yourself lucky if you haven’t experienced it but for me, not so lucky. I’ve been experiencing it for two days now and tonight I get to hear it in stereo effect. Except when dinning with Kyle, who moved back here after spending 7 years in the cold Canadian tundra known as Winnipeg, everyone else conversed with each other in Shanghainese throughout the meals as if I was completely invisible. For outsiders the Shanghainese dialogue can be extremely difficult to understand. Even having lived here for half yean back in 96 I can still only understand two third of what’s been said. People only stopped occasionally during a meal to switch back to standard Mandarin to ask a question. It’s rather strange to be a guest here. I guess in Shanghai one can never really feel like an insider without being born and raised here. I fell asleep on the couch at uncle’s condo over loud Shanghainese conversations in the background. I’m looking forward to take the train back home to Changsha tomorrow.
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