September 2005 Archives

Cryptic aren't I?

I went through my 6 month probation interrogation meeting this week. And needless to say, I was feeling pressured about it. This explains the lack of posts in the last couple of days, and also my falling website hits.

I'm going to write more about this in the future, but the first thing is that I'm relieved that its over. And, for all of those out there that care, I did pass my probation period.

I am now an official cog in the big machine.

Hoorah for individuality!

I had a lot of people helping out this week, and big shouts out to Lozza & TheBigFella for edumacating me in the way of corporate double-speak, interpretation and communication.

More serious stuff later....

WTF - 6 months! Gee the time here has flown.

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Shanghai

I have mentioned in this blog my current madness for sport. I'm now participating in two sports teams here in Shanghai - basketball on Saturdays at the SIBL, and I signed up for the Autumn Ultimate Disc League on Monday. But what's grabbed the attention of those people back in the Antipodean lands, is my submission to Table Tennis Fever. Its a tough one to fight.

AndyO commented in my blog the other day...

Well Andy, you asked.... Here'ya go land lubbers!

Y'ar!!!

There's a comp on at work in 2 weeks. I think I might dress up as the pirate & how that goes down. Now, where can I find a parrot...?

Technorati Tags: Basketball, China, Shanghai, sport, TableTennis, UltimateDisc

Yum... The burger was fantastic.

And the beers were good too.

Just what I needed. Its been a big week so far.

It was an interesting night. Lozza got fired up and got medieval on an expat's @ss, we fobbed off the Chinese Mandarin School fella that hangs around SHExpat Mixer nights, talked to more Aussies, and found out a left-field piece of info from Matt-man.

Crazy night. Must be remnants of cosmic hangover from the Moon-Festival last weekend.

Completely stuffed. Time to crash.

I've been working long hours lately, and tonight's no exception. But, I will be going to the SHExpat drinks at Malone's tonight.

I need a Bluecheese and mushroom burger.... It has been so long... Need burger...

And the RMB25 bei of pijiu helps too (500mL, AUD$4.00).

More later, I promise.

As the final Golden Week Holiday for 2005 is approaching fast, I thought it was about time I wrote something about the last Golden Week Holiday that occurred back in May. This laziness, combined with my failure to learn flash movies, and competitive "I can do that" resolution after reading Linda's great Sichuan Holiday documentation efforts, I thought it was about time I posted this little story. Its only been written for about 3 months!

I've finally got around to writing a post about ALL the digital photos and movies that Linda and I took during our holiday back in May. Some of you may have noticed these images up for a long time, but hey, I'm a busy lad.

There's two albums to check out. The first album contains various photos and movies taken around Shanghai during this week. Primarily, we spent the bulk of our time walking around the city, exploring the sights, and well, just bumming around. It had been such a long time since I had a true break from some kind of work or responsibility, so I embraced the sloth within. Linda worked pretty hard to get me out of the door on occasions, and in hindsight, I don't have too much too complain about. There's only so many DVD's you can watch in one sitting. This album has scenes from the central Shanghai city area during Labour Day Holiday (delayed 1 day as May 1st fell on a Sunday this year). There's a few snaps of our walk to the central CBD area of Puxi, Nanjing Dong Lu. This place is perhaps the biggest pedestrian and shopping mall area that I could imagine. And, not surprisingly, it was packed full of people. Have a good look at AVI movie look at the Flash movie I recorded detailing the sea of people Linda and I observed that day (Note: its 3Mb, so it will take some time to download over modem lines The Flash Movie is a little dodgy, but you get the drift, its about 700Kb).

There's also a few images from our Thursday trip down to the Shanghai 'Old Town' area (commonly known as Nan shi - South City) to visit a Fabric market where I had some new shorts made in time for summer, and some alterations to other clothes performed. Later that day we went off to Yuyuan Gardens and Bazaar - a true tourist destination within Shanghai. It was once home to rich merchants, but now is home to rich merchants and a whole lot of tourists. While we didn't visit the Gardens, we spent a lot of time wandering around playing 'name that smell'. Nine out of ten times it was the stinky tofu on sale. We had a fantastic tea ceremony while we were there. We did not have tea at the famous Mid-Lake Pavilion Teahouse (with its 9-point bridge), but at a well-hidden roof-top tea house. It was a pretty good day.

The second album details our 2 day, overnight stay in Suzhou. Suzhou is a smaller city located 100km west of Shanghai. It was once a central location on the old Silk Road, known for its artisans and textiles, in particular silk. Hence, it was also a rich city. Having squillions of Yuan to spend, many of the richer merchants and administrators created elaborate gardens in various styles - and luckily many are still present today! There's a heap of garden photos - so grab your Mum and let her check it out. I think it would be perfect place to send Mum for Mother's Day. Maybe next year? Suzhou still has a thriving manufacturing and arts centre, and is definitely the place I would hunt around looking for souvenirs and clothing.

Hope you enjoy it!

Technorati Tags: China, culture, Nanjing Xi Lu, Puxi, Shanghai, Suzhou, Yuyuan Gardens

Its not often that a whistle-blowing power-mad Park Officer comes up to you and tells you...

"Bye bye! You are beautiful & I love you!"

This all came about when Lin & I decided not to waste the glorious Saturday that was presented to us yesterday. Lin proposed that we go to Jing' An Temple Park (nestled inbetween Nanjing Xi Lu, Changshou Lu and Yan'an Lu) to have a mid-afternoon drink whilst enjoying the park's surroundings.

We found a nice bar/restaurant, the Laguna Bali, which is perched overlooking an artificial pond surrounded by a fabulous Chinese garden setting. We were joined by DaDan & Lozza, and with a few cool drinks and good company, we talked about Dadan & Lozza's recent holiday/work in Malaysia & Singapore, life in Shanghai, career direct, what we wanted to do, and many other serious things (and yes, monkeys).

However, our conversation was drawn at times to the slightly askew Park Officer, his propensity to blow his whistle (when shooing people away from the grassed areas), and his saluting and hat-tipping of us as he passed. We all thought he was a little odd, but hey, its nice to stand out in a population of 1 billion plus.

So as we were leaving, he's trundled over to us to say stuff in Yingwen... "Bye bye, Goodbye". Nice. We talked back in Zhongwen... "Zaijen, Ni Yingwen shuode hen hao!", and then he revealed his inner bag of butterflies to me and professed his love. As we were leaving, I didn't need to invoke a chant to produce a protective ring of lesbians (Toina will recognise the power of this circle), but rather smiled, waved, pulled Linda close, and asked our group whether I had just been propositioned. The collective answer was yes. I graciously declined in my cowardly way as I didn't want to invoke his wrath. The man had power and a whistle, and this was his turf.

Coming from a Western culture, and indeed Australia, where anything a little prissy would get you labelled as a 'insert gay insult here', Shanghai is a little refreshing to be isolated from that. The Shanghainese man is immune to the connection of prissy acts that would label you a bag of butterflies. Yes, you do see guys walking around town with their arms draped across each others shoulders, men giving men shoulder rubs, the odd manly pat on the shoulder that lingers uncomfortably long by western standards, chatting in the men's room (including urinal staring). But from what I can discern, none of this would label you as a homosexual. Homosexuality is not cool by Shanghainese male standards. Owning a man-purse is ok, but no man-man action.

It must be a lonely place for our Park Officer.

Shanghai - it will always surprise you. I love this place, but unfortunately, not the Park Officer.

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Jing'An, Shanghai

I've been enduring a long, arduous week - and needed something lighter to close the working week. So Linda, myself, Kate & Matt-man (he's a superhero you know) attended the Shanghaiist launch party last night at the British Bulldog Pub.

I like Shanghaiist - its a nice read. And I like beer, bar raffles, and the ability to listen to live music. Some of my favourite things collided in time and space, so I wasn't going to miss it. It was a good night, with good company - and most importantly, I won a prize in the raffle - a Beverley Hills Polo Club backpack. I now feel like one of the elite...

"No, I can't attend the charda's tasting Bunny, I'm off to the fields for a pukka or two... TTFN!"

In reality, I'm just about to leave our apartment (on a glorious Saturday morning I might add) to head off to Team Reign's first, and hopefully successful, basketball league match. Then, maybe a beer.

This week, I'm listening to...
Beauty and the Beat by Edan
Silent Alarm by Bloc Party
Autumn Flow by Lior

Technorati Tags: blog, China, expat, Shanghai

Bubble's sent me this....

The tag-line on her email was...

Fear not, citizens of New Orleans....George Bush has sent in his best man....

Pure gold.

Technorati Tags: humour

...and now can't access my website or email through standard means.

Ugh. I'm searching for the offending link/excerpt/random keystroke that will alleviate this problem. Don't worry, I'm still writing and living in Shanghai (although i think 'they are watching'...).

* shakes fist - grimaces *

In a previous entry, I wrote about the greenspace that taunted both Linda and myself from our apartment window.

Inside my mind, I have personalised the Phantom Fields... Please don't form an opinion on my sanity from this brief excerpt; just base it on the below personalisation and my unhealthy Hoff obsession ;) .

Come down and enjoy my open grassed space. But no, you can't find a way to get to me.... eh eh eh eh....

(Just think Mad Anne from Little Britain...)

That field has been p#$%g me off. Linda and I have previously investigated a way to get into this area but with no success other than finding more and more interesting stores, facilities, and other such things (and smells) on the streets of the Jing' An district.

But, I now announce - we have cracked the fields! Well, ok, Linda announced it the other day, but I'm the one obsessing over this!

But first, we spent our Saturday morning doing the following....

• chores
• having breakfast at Kabb cafe surrounded by (but not with) the expat trendy set (along with models I might add - male models that made Lin gasp. Lozza, think of Vin Diesel but cut - but that's an inside joke that no one else but her and I will understand)
• accompanying Lin on her bike-purchasing crusade
• vege'ing out at home
• finally sending Robbie's belongings back to Brisvegas (I know where you live now tiger...)

Luckily, Rob's 15kg box didn't need to travel all that far from our apartment - only 2 blocks away, 2 blocks distance that was also the approximate location of the Phantom Fields. After much hullabaloo and few hundred kuai later, Rob's package was sent. Lin & I just wanted to go home and perform some spine-bashing on the couch. But, I felt a little adventurous. Walking back along Changping Lu, we passed the local Night-College (literally-translated, Jing' An Sparetime College) and decided that this must have an access point to the Phantom Fields. We walked in like we owned the place (expat confidence exuded), and went about finding a spot to access the fields. We found out that indeed the fields were raised up, as we finally spied the open grassed fields on the 2nd floor of one of the college's buildings. But alas, we couldn't see an an access point from the college - we did however see a staircase in the far distance that gave access. We needed to go further down the block. While we tried to leave, the friendly employees of the college decided to point us to the building we must have been looking for, so we followed their directions while looking for a way to quietly slip out of the college. We came across another Lowai, Morten - a teacher at the college - that told us he knew nothing about the fields, but kinda liked looking at them. With our distraction at hand, we made a direct line to the College's exit, and proceeded along Jiaozhou Lu to find the entrance.

We found it. Again, with expat-confidence (or arrogance) we entered the site - a waterworks! The guard there rightly stopped us and told us we couldn't enter - but with Lin's ever improving Mandarin, she asked if we could 'have a look - possible not possible?'. He agreed, and pointed us on our way. We were pretty surprised by what we saw - a nicely manicured and landscaped garden leading up to the 'fields' area. This was the find of the day. It would be an awesome place to have a picnic or just to read the paper. Really really cool. But, we had purpose, and we had to see the fields close at hand. We walked down the path to that led to the fields, climbed the staircase, and the fields were revealed. The fields were actually the roof of the water-treatment works. The grass on the roof was lush, yet the field was lumpy and littered with access points, piping and other such components of engineering. It wasn't suitable to kick a footy around on, nor play frisbee. My dreams were dented. But it was cool though - we finally discovered what was taunting us from our apartment window.

Happy in our discovery, we walked towards the exit - where a nasty cleaning lady yelled and shouted at us to leave. Once again exuding expat-confidence, we said we were 'just looking' and left via the nice guard's exit.

Mystery solved! Sometimes the little things can mean a lot.

You can check out some images of the Phantom Fields in my Gallery album.

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Jing'An, Shanghai

Yes, Yes I am. Trust me. I've played 2 games - and I ROCK!

So what's this post all about?

My workplace has several recreational facilities available to its employees. This includes a gym - with a regularly appearing personal trainer , darts, a mini mini-golf course, and outside basketball and volleyball courts. But the most popular with the employees - table soccer and table tennis.

The aim behind this is simple. Make people want to stay at work, and they'll work longer hours. "Hey, why not go lift a few weights for a while while this computer program/experiment/data analysis runs? I can STAY and enjoy myself". As one visitor to our centre said, its a throw-back to the dot-com boom - keep the employees happy, and they'll want to work. Give a little more, get a lot more back.

The recreation centre has one specific rule - opening hours. The sounds of play might be too distracting for work during general working hours, so the fun is isolated to lunch time and after 5:45pm each day. The time leading up to this is a little comical. Once you have a table, its yours to do with it as you will. Hence, baggsing a table is really important. The very eager players wait, paddle & ball in hand, ready to pounce on the dawdling unsuspecting game arena, impatiently waiting for the minute hand to tick over. Then they players EXPLODE in Table Tennis frenzy when the recreation areas are open for business.

I've been watching this for the past 5 months (yes it has been that long) - and have found it mildly amusing. One thing that quickly dawned on me was the popularity of Table Tennis in China. Its HUUUUGE! Darryl Eastlake HUUUGE!). Its the national sport - its shown on prime time TV - and seemingly everyone has trained as a Table Tennis player at some stage.

I am now a Table Tennis player too. In my second match, I actually won 1 set. Won points in others. I'm hooked. I had an audience watching me play. I think know it had more to do with "... the Lowai's playing table tennis...?", but my ego demands it was because my play attracted the crowd. Or they were waiting impatiently to use the table we were playing on. I choose the former.

As I mentioned previously, I bought an expensive paddle the other week, all RMB10 worth. Its my 'Dream Machine'. My colleagues thought it was worth about RMB200+, but no, they misunderstood. But I am imagining what I could do with a RMB200+ table tennis paddle. I think I could take over the earth with such a dreamy bashing tool. Truly, I do.

Now I have to introduce Beer Pong and Australian Rulz Ping Pong (must be played with a stubby of beer in your off-hand, and preferably a few stubbies inside your gullet) to the workplace.

Image Taken From the USA Table Tennis Website.

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Shanghai, TableTennis

Not much is happening right now - except for work. This may explain the lack of 'interesting' posts of late. Interesting by my standards at least.

My desire to participate in the life of this city is falling away, and even the thought of hitting the streets of Shanghai is dwindling right now. I'm really enjoying heading home each evening and doing mundane, standard life events. Like cooking dinner or watching a DVD. Its a nice escape from the pressures of each day. Lin will dispute that I have done nothing of the such lately, as I haven't cooked this week and I invariably fall asleep while watching TV!

Expat life isn't all glamour - its finding select the best pieces of your old life and jamming into the best bits of the new one. I've been really lucky in my move to China, as most of the desirable items of my former life can be readily accessed here in Shanghai. Who knew I could buy 'Fat Pizza - The Movie' from a street vendor.

Now that's fully sic. Gee I miss SBS. And the cricket. I could go on.

Check out more wallpapers (like the above) at the SBS Fat Pizza website!

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Shanghai

I've become a Sports Billy over the last few weeks.

Its no longer ridiculously hot - just hot. So Shanghai has served up some excellent weather that will allow my mind to drive my body into the dirt in the pursuit of fitness. Excellent.

I've been a somewhat regular at a twice-weekly basketball pickup match - and that's been a lot of fun. I spent a better portion of my teenage afternoons and evenings shooting hoops, so I've a definite soft-spot for the sport. Its been good, and in particular, playing with other expats and locals that have a good basketball IQ. Its tough to make it to the courts after work, and Sunday afternoon is one of those, umm, yeah, I should go, but I have this paper to read/emails to write/phone call/beer to finish.

I've enjoyed playing so much, that I agreed to join a weekend league here in Shanghai. The competition starts next Saturday. So while Lin & I spent today walking around Jing' An District, I was keeping an eye out for my essential basketball supplies - ice pack and ankle guards. My rickety joints (known for waking people up on occasions) will need it, particularly as I don't want to spend any more of my life in plaster. I'm looking forward to big match.

I've also been playing Ultimate Disc each Monday at the Jing'An Workers Stadium (conveniently 1 block from our apartment). While I haven't been able to grasp the intricacies of the game, I have ascertained that it involves 2 hours of sprinting and running. Needless to say, you could get quite fit playing this sport. I'll be aiming to keep up with it. After months of running, I should then be able to refine the skills of the game. I didn't think chasing a floating piece of plastic was this difficult, but there you go.

And then there's other transient sport stuff. Like my year gym membership. I should really learn about buying these things. I've also hit golf balls with DaDan, intended to hit squash balls with DaDan (my new RMB100/AUD$15 racquet should get me over the line there), and - hold onto your hats - Table Tennis!

I had my first hit on Friday afternoon after work. After a long week of work, I submitted to temptation and joined my workmates on the green tables. I was told I had talent. I initially thought it was my ball retrieving skills as most shots I attempted failed to hit the paddle - or its just the nice kindly Chinese way of saving face/giving encouragement. It was fun. I tried to introduce the Australian-rules version, but I couldn't find a cold stubby of beer to counter-balance my swing. I knew something was missing from my game. I'll know better next time.

Image Taken From The BeachComber Website

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Shanghai

Actually I do.

I have an 1 hour trip from my door to my workplace each day. So, 2 hours commuting on a train in Shanghai? Well, its not so bad. After I work I generally score a seat since I'm at the terminal station, and I usually manage to score a seat from Puxi by using a 'target selected' mode of stalking seated patrons that only I know will leave at People's Square. I'm a seat-targeting machine! Pointy elbows stop the pesky older people or zippy kids from nabbing your seat too. Bags are a good blocking tool as well. I'd like to thank the 1000's of Shanghai commuters that shared and practised this technique upon this person to show me the true path of Shanghai commuting.

But last week was weird. I met more and more weird people on the train. Like the guy who had horrible, horrible, horrible garlic breath - he was essence of garlic. I think I reeked of garlic just from being inside the same carriage as him. Then there was the ADD kid, who thought nothing of hovering 20cm from my face (while I was seated), staring at me like I'd just popped over from Saturn for a day trip and a pinacolada on the beach.

Commuting on Metro #2 is a dream, compared to the experiences of my monkey-obsessed friend Dan on Metro #1 that is.

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Shanghai

Its been a while since I posted, so I hope this makes up for the drought.

Linda and I have been collectively sick and tired of hooking up our computers to our apartment's TV so we can watch DVDs. For the uninitiated to Shanghai's Expat culture, DVDs are the Number 1 escape mechanism from CCTV9 - unless you're hooked on dodgy satellite TV beamed in from overhead.

It was getting tedious. At the moment, Lin and I are hooked on Lost. We've powered through the series in the last 2 weeks, and now there's only a few episodes to go. We also wanted a remote for f#ck sakes!

So, on our usual weekly/fortnightly/we have no food trip to the Wuning Lu Carrefour, we purchased a new DVD player. All RMB400 worth (about AUD$60). We bought an Oritron-branded DVD player, it looked sweet. It was a lemon. We took it home, hooked it up, and our problems started.

Firstly, our apartment's TV rear input plugs don't work. We found this out the hard way before. Luckily there's side AV input ports that work a treat. Secondly, we should have checked out the player in the store - as countless people have told me since. My smallest gripe was that the remote was entirely in Chinese, there were no English menu controls on the DVD menu. I could live with that. It might give me the opportunity to absorb more Hanzi (YESSSS! I can now recognise the Chinese characters for 'Frame Advance'! Now that's handy!).

My major gripes were as follows. It wouldn't turn on. Well, you would plug it in, and the player power button wouldn't work - most of the time. Unplug, wait for 5-10 minutes, and then it would work. Strange. The converse was also true, you couldn't turn the thing off. Unplugging it was the main way we got around this. No worries right? Nah. The discs we put into the machine would stall, cause the player to crash, and other such petulant behaviour. Annoying.

But the crux of our decision was the fact that a lovely surprise was included inside the player. To our delight, we were given the added bonus of the 'Adult Tempt' DVD. Lovely. It had several, suspicious, greasy fingerprints on the bottom side of the disc. I think 'the playa', as it will now be known, had seen some action. Startled at this, we had a good laugh. Lin later put the DVD on for some comical Asian porn plots. It was pretty cheesy - that lasted all of about 1 minute before we tried episodes of Lost. The Playa apparently only liked the porn disc, but what would you expect from a machine that has been around the block several times.

The sum of all parts meant that I wanted to take it back. And I did this last night. Carrefour happily took back the player, despite the fact I forgot to bring the remote with me. The truthfulness in me blurted out 'I forgot to bring it!' when the shop assistant asked 'It didn't have a remote inside?'. (And no, my Chinese comprehension isn't that good, he spoke English quite well). Despite this, they accepted the refund, we got our cash, and then a one-on-one personal service to ensure we got a good DVD player at the store. We picked up a Desay player, checked it out in the store. We were happy - now we are capable of DVD watching with a remote! Yeah!

We picked up a few things, waited in the checkout line for ages (mental note - no Carrefour trips after 8pm at night EVER again). We got home just before 10pm. Hooked up the DVD player, got our Lost fix, and dreamt of sweet DVD watching experiences.

No, I didn't dream about the watching the porn DVD thankyou very much.

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Shanghai