The New (niu or cow) Year and some carpets to muffle the noise

My last lab mate will be leaving today, so we’re going to have breakfast to send her off and then I’ll be on my own. In case I didn’t mention it before it’s coming up on Chinese New Years, the year of the Cow, and since I’m quite fond of cows I feel this new year will be a good one. There are large red and gold cows all over the city. Paper cut-outs sport multiple floors near the shopping districts and banners, lights, and slogans are draped along streets competing for attention against the backdrop of the thousands of pairs of drying clothes that always seem to be present. I wonder how the Chinese would feel if they only knew that across the border, the Indians (from India) do a much better job with the cow decorations, allowing real cows to walk and wonder the streets (see the picture that tops this page). India probably makes the Chinese feel a little sheepish about their worship of the cow, but I guess you do what you can with the resources and society you’re given.

I’ve decided to stay in Shanghai for the break, partly because I just got here and also because a friend Lily who was one of my roommates in undergrad will be coming to visit her parents, who live in Shanghai. It will be nice to relax a bit and not have to worry about travel, but also get to experience a little bit of tradition. So on the 25^th which is the day leading up to the New Years I’m going to have dinner with my friend Jenny’s family (who are also Shanghainese) and then the 26^th, which is New Years, and probably a few other days I’ll be with Lily’s family.

I recently bought a small hand-made rug from a small shop that I discovered. Actually I’ve been to the shop before to chat and have tea with the store-owner. So two days ago I stopped by and told him it would be lovely to have a small carpet to put in my room, so I gave him my price and we picked one out. I came across his store while walking the neighborhoods and almost decided not to go in but I had never really seen quite a carpet store like this before. The store was a bit small for the number and size of carpets he had, and attempting to roll out a carpet to show a customer was a bit of a challenge. In fact on entering I again almost left because the door seemed to be locked, but the lively shop-owner quickly moved carpets out of the way freeing up the path of the door and it quickly swung open. Carpets were strewn everywhere, so that it was impossible not to try them out a bit and stomp around. Hanging on walls and in piles above on second floor loft were more beautiful carpets. Aziz, the owner said that eventually he wanted to move to a large place where he could have an area to sit down and drink tea, the windows, walls and floors would all be decoratively displaying carpets and customers could come chat have tea and buy carpets if they chose. It turns out Aziz comes from Xinjiang, which is the western semi-autonomous region of China where there have been some crack-downs of supposed anti-government terrorist organizations. One of the main Muslim populations the Uighers are mainly targeted in these anti-terrorist campaigns and recent laws have limited the length of services at Mosques and the gathering of Muslims. The Uighers are actually probably a lot more Turkish than anything of Chinese decent, in fact a recent discovery of human remains dating back to the pre-Roman area suggests that it was not the Chinese that first entered this area but was traders from the West. This research is very controversial because it invalidates the historic claim to the land that the Chinese maintain control of. While there is little information about what is actually going on in the West, it does appear that there are some violent pro-independent factions that the government probably does have reason to be silencing, but I still don’t agree with the measures that infringe on people’s right to practice religion and customs and live relatively normal lives.

As for Aziz when I asked him about his situation, he claimed that he came here for work, after spending a few years in Shenzhen. He married an Itialian and opened his carpet store in the French concession of Shanghai. The art and craft of carpets have always been a passion of his and willingly explains the meanings of different symbols and styles. Many of his carpets are from Afghanistan (he joked that I should join the army so that I could get some nice carpets! bad joke), but he also has some from his home in Xinjiang, which is what I decided to buy. They are a little more simple than those from Afghanastan but have a rustic feel that which may represent the dry dessert area of Xinjiang. (I’m probably delusional though).

An interesting and unfortunate aspect of life as a Chinese citizen is that is often hard to switch your official residency or hukou. Aziz owns a house in Shanghai, is married, and owns a viable, legal business, but he still does not receive any benefits of being a Shanghai citizen, including certain health rights and schooling for children (I believe he still has access to health and education but it is not covered by his residency). Therefore his attempts to travel with his wife to Italy have been impossible because he cannot get a passport. Because different regions have their own governmental bodies he has to apply through the Xinjiang government which he claims is non-functional. Being from Xinjiang, likely doesn’t help with his efforts to convince Shanghai or National government bodies to help him, as people from Xinjiang are usually associated with drug-dealers and thieves. In fact Aziz himself reiterated this position to some extent – saying that many of those from Xinjiang that come to large cities get involved in illegal business’. In fact my experience with people from Xinjiang has largely been positive. They usually man roadside meat kabob shops that while questionable in hygiene are extremely tasty. So it’s tough to tell what to believe. However I do think the stereotype has truth behind it, but like any stereotype it cannot be extended to all from Xinjiang (i.e. Aziz himself).

I told Aziz I'd likely be back, although I will probably not buy another carpet, your welcome for tea anytime he said and he also invited me to come by the Mosque to enjoy the scenery and the many different types of food that have integrated themselves into the life of the Mosque. And I hope to go to Xinjiang someday, so I might tap Aziz for suggestions. As I left the shop I greeted him happy new year, and he replied in a tired look : I dont know how I'm going to make it through this new year, it's too too loud... at least these carpets will muffle the sound. This just shows how different Xinjiang actually is from the Han majority Chinese. In bed that night I was startled by loud explosion and colorful lights... now I new what he meant. The new year has started... I'm actually a little excited...

Lively chickens and a cold but bearable kitchen

I’m sitting in bed under covers and a lovely warm cup of peet’s coffee. Next to me is a radiator I bought recently, which gets my room to a bearable temperature. I’m actually getting used to it all – the cold that is. Yesterday I made some soup, and found that at least in the day light the kitchen temperature quickly warms with both the sunlight and the heat of the pan. The night before one of my colleagues took me to the local fresh foods market – like a farmers market but found daily from sunrise to sundown in every area of shanghai. Not sure how they’ve changed since big supermarkets likes Carrefore (French) and it’s Chinese competitor Jiadeli have moved in. Maybe I’ll turn it into a side project of mine – to understand where food comes from in China, particularly the food sold by these fresh food markets and small informal vendors that spot the city. The chicken I bought was a small, young male – looked healthy and the lady told me he’d be good in a stock. She grabbed him as he squawked and fluttered pointlessly and then as he calmed down quickly weighed him, brought him to the side of the room and over a bucket away from costumers quickly and cleanly snipped the neck with a pair of scissors and sent his lifeless body away to be cleaned. The process wasn’t without some gory bits, because as she handed me my change I got a small piece of bloody flesh hanging onto what seemed to be baby feather. After I was given my once very lively chicken, now stripped of his clothes and all individual characteristics, we grabbed some very nice looking vegetables, including leeks, fat healthy carrots, scallions, and some tasty shitake mushrooms. My colleague now friend shared small bits of wisdom about how her mother picked certain ingredients – how the shitakes must not be pulling away from their edges revealing the underside ribs, how ginger is better when it’s old but with very fresh almost transparent skin, and of course her favorite type of chicken. There seems to be a great difference in chickens. The chickens you buy at the fresh market are of course alive, but they also have many different types, which at this point is lost on me, and color of the meat and fat is completely different – yellow fat and more pale brown never completely white flesh. I’m guessing it has something to do with the process, the diet, environment etc. The fact that we produce millions of chickens, who have probably been genetically modified or at least selectively breed, in factories may be the biggest difference. In supermarkets like carrefore you do not find the fresh market chickens, only the prepackaged very white and sterile chickens, with choices of tote sized bags of wings or just legs, and sometimes the whole bird. I’m not saying one way is better – because although my stock was amazingly delicious, I wasn’t sure the meat tasted any better – but there are certainly differences.

I’m off to try something out in the kitchen and then head to work.

Back... physically... trying to find a warm community in Shanghai

So it's been a month or so since my last post (my friend Jon pointed this out from Uganda), so if you do actually like to read my scattered thoughts, I'm sorry....

I’m back in Shanghai, not settled – neither mentally or physically – and hopping from café to café searching for a place to access the internet, get work done and rest out of the cold in between my walks through Shanghai neighborhoods. Shanghai has turned out to be a lot colder than one would expect. Or maybe it’s just the experience of the Shanghai cold. Although the coldest days only ever slip into the high 20s it’s difficult to ever find a place where you can thaw out. Your body is constantly in life-saver mode, neglecting the extremities so that fingers become num and lose dexterity. I’m over-stating this of course, but even now as I type away in a supposedly heated café, a feeling of Russian Siberia has seeped into my brain (and fingers). I’m still wearing my large winter coat, under which I have two layers of long-sleeved shirts, one a thick woolen sweater. I warm my hands every so often on a glass of hot water and slowly sip on a coffee (although not to slowly otherwise it will turn cold). I have visions of Ivan Denisovich, scratching away (or in my case typing) at a cold piece of paper chronicling his days activities. Ok, so I’m not jailed in Siberia and my walking, apartment shopping, and researching is not quite as tiresome as what Ivan discovered in the labor camp, but by being a little dramatic I might just give you a picture for how cold it can feel.

As for apartments, I did finally find one and moved all of my stuff – two big heavy bags worth – into a completely empty but extremely spacious apartment this morning. I am far from settled – there are still things like beading, furniture, cookware that need to bought, and then cleaning to be done, but I’m looking forward to being a little more dependant. I just need to get some internet and then I’ll be nearly satisfied. I did buy a 2500W electric heater that will hopefully make me less conscious of my breathing which is currently very visible. My worry is that the apartment, which is very drafty, will not be able to contain the heat, that it will all just float away out of the porous walls and doorways. Enough of the negative lens though. The apartment is actually extremely spacious and relatively cheap. In a city where space is limited and prices are among the highest in the world, I really lucked out. It’s in an old retiree community, speckled with some younger families. I soon found that foreigners either like the new high-rises where they can live in a world much like the one they came from, or in re-buffed European style housing that was constructed by the French or English back in the colonial days (for Shanghai this was the 1930s). I was looking for some quaint old house, because they are quite cute and cozy but discovered that demand had pushed the prices up a little too far. So the best bet if you actually want to live in a Chinese community that still has a feeling of community is to find a 小区 (xiaoqu – literally small area/community but meaning neighborhood) built in the 60s or 70s. These consist of 5-6 story apartment complexes that while not designed for optical pleasure are havens for Chinese community life (at least from the brief perspective of a short-sited foreigner). Ever morning the elderly walk about, some practicing taichi, other chatting or yelling at each other, but most doing daily chores. The buildings and telephone wires are nicely decorated with hanging/drying clothes, and public spaces quickly fill up with a vender or two, a poker table, a small make-shift garden, drying vegetables, hanging/curing meat… etc. (I’ll add to this list as I get more familiar). So like any good community, it’s not the architecture or beauty that makes it livable, it is the people. My hope is that I can truly become part of this community (to the extent that a very different ‘other’ can). As I dragged my very big black travel bag through the middle alleyway that serves as the entrance and meeting place of the community it was hard not to notice the stares and suspicious glances that I received. Not sure if this will ever not be the case but maybe someday, I will walk through and receive one or two hellos. A final thought – as I walked towards my apartment for the first time as a card-carrying tenant I noticed that I was following an all too large rickshaw filled with condoms which then stopped at the small community service station to unload. Just a few years ago this site would have also been followed by questioning, suspicious eyes. Change is possible, and luckily I have my own voice to use in changing the minds of my neighbors.