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.