Tag Archives: chinese friends

May 2014: One Year Later…

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Me, Bron and Rachel at the Bund

Me, Bron and Rachel at the Bund

“They” say you should never go back; that returning only serves to diminish, never enhance a memory. Bron and I decided to ignore this, returning to Shanghai almost a year after we left.  We stayed with Andrea, an American friend we’d met during our year in China, herself shortly departing to start a new job in Singapore. Andrea’s apartment is one block behind our former Shanghai house, practically overlooking both the house and our nearby local bar: a melancholic view from our temporary bedroom window.

Our Friday night in Masse

Our Friday night in Masse

We landed on Friday, and with our time in Shanghai limited, we went straight out after a quick freshen-up. We’d invited a few of those who’d in some way played a part in our short time in Shanghai – friends, former colleagues, former language teachers – to meet with us in our favourite local bar and were overwhelmed with the turnout. Chris (co-owner of the bar) agreed to let us use the terrace for our little gathering (arranged whilst in the UK via the medium of a Chinese social messaging app). Thanks to all who came to see us; we know the “Former French Concession” area involved a fair amount of travel for some of you.  For those of you who have also left Shanghai – we’ll no doubt see you over the next couple of years.

With the married couple

With the married couple

One of our main reasons for visiting Shanghai over this particular set of dates was to attend John and Erica’s wedding. A brave attempt at reading his speech in Mandarin was greatly appreciated, with the pace sufficiently slow enough to allow even Bron and I to understand elements of John’s tales of how he and Erica met.

Buffets at Chinese weddings are not a particularly good idea, unless you’re prepared to cope with everybody seeking food simultaneously. Not so much a mass brawl as a mass panic that food may run out very quickly. All in all a great evening, including spending time with Shawn and Andrew, the first people I met in China back in 2010.  John and Erica – many congratulations.

The ladies by the mysterious building

The ladies by the mysterious building

Sunday saw us take part in another Shanghai tradition for ex-pats – the boozy Sunday brunch (with free flowing alcohol). Initially with Rachel, Andrea and Grace, we were later joined by Isaac and Chong before staggering back to Andrea’s apartment over a very familiar set of streets. Andrea – thanks so much for letting us stay at your place.

On Sunday afternoon we just about made it (post brunch) to one of Shanghai’s huge railway stations to join Anny on a trip to her current residential town of Wuxi. A feast was waiting for us at Anny’s apartment; never any danger of going hungry when we meet up with Anny’s family.

Making fresh noodles

A man, making fresh noodles

Noodles for breakfast in China is normal as cornflakes, toast or sausages to a Westerner. And they’re always fantastic. In the smallest of restaurants, for around 50p, one can experience a true taste of China.  This we did each morning whilst in Wuxi, taking full advantage of being accompanied by somebody Chinese – absolutely no English is spoken (or written) in these tiny establishments.

Bron and Anny meet a rather large Tao statue

Bron and Anny meet a rather large Tao statue

With a little sightseeing and the arrival of Linda and her 8 year old daughter, Cake, we had a couple of days that I can only describe as being authentically Chinese.  We experienced fighting to get on buses (I resorted to swiping a man with my bag of Chinese vegetables as he tried to push Bron out of the way), wandering around a huge indoor market with giant stacks of fruit and veg that you’d struggle to get in an entire city’s worth of British supermarkets and a somewhat hectic meal in “Grandma’s kitchen” restaurant.  I have enough trouble coping with kids in England, so being abandoned with Cake in the restaurant whilst everybody disappeared to the loo en-masse felt like the longest 5 minutes of my life.  My rudimentary Chinese was met with a mischievous unwillingness to understand and shouting “no” to somebody who doesn’t speak English is quite tricky when the person is attempting to rearrange the table decorations in a fairly precarious manner whilst waiting for her Mum to return.

As ever, great to spend time with Anny, Linda and families.  The Virgin Atlantic credit card will hopefully help to ensure these meet-ups continue for many years.

We arrived back in Shanghai on Wednesday evening to spend a last meal near the Bund with Rachel, Andrea and Rachel’s two Eric friends.  Rachel’s favourite restaurant in Shanghai seems to feature the rudest waiters:

  • Waiter takes my side plate away as I’m eating bread.
  • “But I haven’t finished my bread yet!”
  • “Your main course will arrive shortly sir”
  • “I’m sure it will, but I’m still eating bread at the moment.  Can I have my plate back please?”
  • “No.”
  • Impatient Brit instead grabs plate from empty table nearby and plonks bread on it.
  • A different waiter serves for the remainder of the evening.

Our year in China – truly a year like no other – has left us with a like-minded group of friends, now scattered all over the globe. In some cases originally forced together through the necessity of seeking commonality in what still sometimes feels like a different planet, we know we have friends we will meet across the continents.

“They” say you should never go back. They have no idea.

 

October 7th ’13: (Inflatable) Starfish in the Seychelles

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SAM_2165Kazakhstan,  geographically and politically positioned halfway between China and the UK, seemed an unlikely location to meet up with Rachel, our friend from Shanghai with whom we’d experienced many a Chinese adventure.  So we settled on the Seychelles. Not halfway, but an equal pain in the arse for all of us to reach.

The guidebooks (well, TripAdvisor.com) refer to the Seychelles as perfect for those seeking the best beaches in the world.  ‘Best’, is of course subjective, with some visitors preferring near-shore coral, some seeking white sands to reflect the sun’s glare for that complete tan, or some demanding beautiful scenery for the perfect photography backdrop.  Our perfect beach was just outside our hotel in Mahe.  Three grown
adults, floating in the sea anchored to an inflatable starfish, drinking flavoured rum purchased from the nearby Regatta festival.

Probably the closest I’ve ever come to a ‘beach holiday’; we spent most of our time in the water. I doubt there are many places in the world where you can rent a car, go for a random drive and find so many completely deserted beaches.  In one location, we had a local takeaway meal on the beach before once more deploying the starfish.  A picturesque scene entirely for us until the old couple turned up and proceeded to get changed out on the beach.  White bottoms reflecting the sun beautifully.

View from Burj Khalifa - it's real, honest.

View from Burj Khalifa – it’s real, honest.

Before reaching the Seychelles,  Bron and I had the bright idea of spending a day in Dubai, since that’s where our connecting flight originated.  A bright idea until the 8am arrival time (6 hour flight from the UK = no real sleep) and the 2am next day departure started to take its toll.  Dubai is as I think we expected; sandy yet curiously clean; hot outdoors but freezing indoors; ostentatious yet reserved.  A curious mix of cultures and styles,  where the world’s tallest man-made structure allows visitors to clearly observe the Sim City approach to building all that lies beneath it.  We landed on a Friday, the Islamic day of prayer. I assume the locals choose their mosque early in life, as a churchgoer in the UK does likewise.  Otherwise the multitude of simultaneous calls to prayer from the minarets’ loudspeakers would cause a degree of cognitive (religious?) dissonance given the sheer number of mosques to choose from.

We met up with one of Bronwen’s old university friends in the evening, as you do whilst in Dubai, and explored one of Dubai’s few but densely populated drinking districts.

Waiting for us in the Seychelles was Rachel, having arrived a day earlier.  Very fortunate for us as for the first time in 2 days we had a bed to sleep on, sneaking into Rachel’s hotel room before checkout. I say sneak; Rachel’s ploy of giving us the wrong room number didn’t work as we had the foresight to check.

Apparently one of the most photographed beaches in the world (La Digue)

Apparently one of the most photographed beaches in the world (La Digue)

We spent our 8 nights in the Seychelles on three different islands; Mahe, La Digue and Praslin.  Mahe is like paradise,  if paradise were run by the most grumpy staff on the planet. A place where asking for a menu is met with silence and a 180 degree turn away from the customer.  A place where cocktails with missing ingredients are served without apology (“You want me to go all the way to the kitchen to find chocolate syrup for your chocolate cocktail”), and where requests for additional contents are met with “You want this?  You want this?  YOU WANT SOME OF THIS” (I’ve never before been so threatened by a bottle of Angostura Bitters).  A place where the local language is supposed to be Creole but turns out to be a series of sighs.  Our hotel had a casino but an attempt to gamble at 7.30pm was met with shouts of ‘We closed! We closed!”.  Another more helpful member of staff explained: “Sorry, he’s Korean”. Bizarrely, a local law (not hotel policy) decrees that men looking to gamble after 6pm must wear long trousers.  Our helpful member of staff explained: “It’s OK, 3/4 length trousers would be fine”.

As well as vampires, we discovered the Chinese only come out night.  With perhaps only a few exceptions, dusk on the beaches heralded the arrival of Chinese tourists, safe to enter the sea without exposing skin to the sun (since a tan on a Chinese person is considered a very bad thing in China).

After three nights in Mahe, we took a two-part ferry journey to La Digue, the smallest island of the three we were to visit.  An island so small that cars are rare and cycling around the whole island in a single day is possible (as we did).  A beautiful island, made all the better once our upgraded room had been awarded (long, protracted story, better explained by Rachel’s blog.

Our final three nights took us to the island of Praslin, home to some of  the world’s most photographed beaches.  With the current too strong to deploy the starfish, we headed out on a “private” day trip with 6 other people we think were also expecting a little more privacy.  From giant tortoises roaming free to fighting crabs that walk forwards, not sideways, Praslin and its smaller neighbouring islands gave us the opportunity to experience a little more of what the Seychelles really has to offer.  And with wonderfully warm and welcoming staff, Praslin definitely wins as the place to visit in the Seychelles.

On our last night we eschewed the bars and restaurants, instead settling for a few hours sat on the edge of our semi-private pool, finishing what was left of our snack food (Monster Munch gets everywhere) and our remaining rum.

The snorkeling wasn’t a patch on what Bron and I had experienced in the Philippines,  but we think the Seychelles wins for beaches, calm waters and local rum (and in Praslin – the people).  A fantastic 10 days away, and of course great to spend some time with Rachel, despite a few funny looks from the honeymooning couples.  Ben – that’s what happens when you have to work during Golden Week…

August 24th ’13: Gong Fangrong in the UK

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“Would Paul Sims please contact immigration”.  Not the friendliest of welcomes for Anny at Heathrow airport, as she’s taken to one side and quizzed about her reasons for visiting the UK.   I kept my natural predilection for sarcasm suppressed as the immigration official asked questions such as “Are you expecting anyone at Heathrow today?” (“No, I just hang around airports hopefully”, I didn’t reply).

Since my answers matched Anny’s (How did I know her, what’s her Chinese name, what’s her situation in China, how long was she here, etc.), they eventually let her in, only an hour later than planned.

Our house became the temporary holiday home for our Chinese guest, privileged as we were to entertain Anny on her first ever trip outside China.  Olney lived up to our description – no questions now on why we want to stay here rather than move closer to London (where Bron and I are now both working).   A two week trip to the UK which saw Anny explore our small market town of Olney, as well as Cambridge and Oxford (Anny being determined that her daughter should study sufficiently hard to gain entry in the future – either would do), London and Maidenhead for a stroll along the Thames.

Our house now feels a little empty; Anny – you were a perfect guest, and entertaining company as always.  Plus, we had an added bonus of having a few home-cooked Chinese meals ready for us upon our return from work.   We’re sure you’ll be able to visit us again in the future.

May 20th: “I Love You” Day

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Dancing with the staff

Dancing with the staff

Being serenaded by dancing staff is fine; being serenaded and then asked to join in with the dancing is less so.  For probably our last meal in a Chinese restaurant, Bron and I met up with Anny in one of the branches of the Haidilao Hot Pot* restaurant chain on Monday evening.  Towards the end of our meal, Anny was approached by one of the waitresses asking if they could perform a dance routine for us.  The explanation was a little tenuous: the Chinese for “I love you” is “Wo ai ni” (pronounced “woah I knee”).  The date for our meal was May 20th, which in Chinese is “Wu er ling”.  Apparently they sound sufficiently similar to warrant declaring it “I love you” day, and hence a strange need to serenade foreigners.  We weren’t complaining though…

Until we were asked to join in that is, performing a dance routine in the middle of a restaurant.  A couple of other Chinese diners joined in to help us, somewhat less embarrassed than us.

Yet again, another memorable night – but dancing in a restaurant is something I won’t be looking to repeat any time soon.

Farewell to Anny...

Farewell to Anny…

A sad farewell to Anny then – a close friend who we will sorely miss.

*A Hot Pot restaurant is one in which diners choose a type of soup (or soups) and then cook raw ingredients in it at the table.  It’s one of my favourite styles of Chinese food – we need more of these in the UK.

April 14th: Taking in Nanjing

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Two things never to attempt in Nanjing on a Saturday night:

  1. Hailing a taxi after 10pm. Never mind the fact that the taxi’s colour indicator is the opposite to that in Shanghai (where green means available for hire); there just aren’t any available taxis.  Even if there were, you’d be fighting with far more savvy locals. Instead, get the number 7 bus.  It worked out perfectly for us (although having Anny to guide us probably helped).
  2. Booking into certain hotels if you’re not Chinese.  Either the hotel staff in our selected branch of Home Inn took an instant dislike to me and Bron or the government’s rule about needing to certify each hotel’s capability for accepting foreign guests is genuine (as was the hotel’s apparent lack of such certification).  I would like to know what tests they have to pass to achieve this status since, for example, if I can’t speak enough Chinese to book a room it isn’t the hotel’s problem and it certainly isn’t the government’s.

Memorial to the Nanjing MassacreOn probably our last outing of this type, we joined Anny’s extended family along with Linda, her husband & daughter for our trip to Nanjing.  Another of China’s former capitals (until as recently as the 1940s), it’s a city of contrasts, from the combined natural and man-made beauty of such sights as Dr Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum on Mount Zijin to the memorial for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of civilians and disarmed soldiers at the hands of Japanese invaders in December 1937.   The latter explaining many of my former co-workers’ feelings towards Japan (in part caused by a perceived reluctance by the Japanese state to fully acknowledge and apologise for the massacre).

The memorial is incredibly and deliberately evocative, with many written and photographic graphic exhibits revealing the events leading up to, during and after the six-week massacre.  The chilling sight of the proportion of the ‘Pit of ten thousand corpses’ on display, with skeletons upon skeletons, some scattered and some intact, leaves the visitor (well, definitely me) wondering what happens to a fellow human such that they could maim, torture, rape and brutally execute other human beings.  The ‘Forgotten Holocaust’, as it has been called by some historians.

Looking downhill from Dr Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum

Looking downhill from Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum

The Memorial visit was on Sunday; Saturday’s climb to Dr Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum was a far more uplifting experience.  Shortly followed by a meal and  a little rice wine with all, and a late night game of Chinese style poker with Anny.  Playing Chinese poker with a Chinese expert when you’re a newcomer to the game is always going to be a bad idea.  And a costly one.

Anny and Linda – you and your families have once again been more than gracious hosts.  We hope to be able to return the favour one day when you visit the UK.  Soon.

March 17th: Sichuan

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In Shanghai, people from all over the world congregate to explore, experience and be entertained by China.  But Shanghai isn’t really China.  It’s like somebody living in London for a year and then claiming they’ve fully experienced life in the United Kingdom.  Shanghai is a cosmopolitan city, easing foreigners into life in China with its mix of local and Western brands, restaurants and shops*.

Shengtian, hidden away in the depths of Sichuan province, is about as far removed from Shanghai as Huyton is from London.  On Friday March 15th, we flew into Yibin City airport with Anny for a weekend of visiting both the natural and man-made beauty of the surrounding area, and also to explore Anny’s home town of Shengtian.

A couple of the random people we met that asked to have their photo taken with us

A couple of the random people we met that asked to have their photo taken with us

I think it would be fair to say the area was not overly familiar with foreign visitors, particularly in Shengtian.  Bronwen and I (well, Bronwen in particular) now feature in many more photographs than originally intended.  Some none-so-subtly taken by people walking past, some taken by people asking for us to pose with them.  All very friendly though – and again, so far removed from life in Shanghai.

The Chinese Way (as Anny puts it) is to make guests feel like royalty and attempt to prevent them spending any money whatsoever.  This is the generosity imbued in the personality of most Chinese people we’ve met; to ensure guests have the best possible time without allowing any such nonsense as sharing the bill, paying an entrance fee or buying a round of drinks.  We stayed at Anny’s sister’s house in Yibin, along with her husband and son (now with the English name of “Tom”).  Hospitable and accommodating, they vacated their bed for us, fed us and watered us.

P1040574On Friday evening we met up with a few of Anny’s school friends who took us to a hot pot restaurant followed by the ubiquitous KTV (karaoke) bar.  Initially bemused at how small the beer glasses were in the restaurant, it didn’t take long to realise I was going to be unable to sip the beer quietly, instead having to down each glassful in a salutation with somebody else around the table.  A great bunch of people, and very touching to see a relaxed and temporarily carefree Anny catch-up with her old friends…

In keeping with the focus on family and friends, Anny had kept in touch with one of her old teachers, whose son volunteered to help drive us around for the weekend.  We had an early-ish start on Saturday for a trip to the “Bamboo Sea of Southern Sichuan”, an area of outstanding natural beauty elevated between 600m and 1000m above sea level.  Being somewhat scared of heights, Anny did well to make it to the top of the pagoda and to later walk around the sheer cliff edges by Xianyu Cave.

With Anny's extended family

With Anny’s extended family

A perplexing amount of relatives were in attendance for a feast on Saturday night at Anny’s grandmother’s house.  As is normal, a huge variety of dishes on offer, most of which I think would go down incredibly well in the UK.  Again, as is normal, we ate far too much, drank far too much (never again will I attempt to match a Chinese person at rice wine drinking, despite my worry about committing some kind of cultural or social faux-pas by refusing) and slept too little.

P1040665Feeling a little groggy on Sunday morning but awoken by an excellent batch of mixed dumplings (I can’t do this justice – dumplings here are not like anything I’ve had in the UK; they even work towards curing hangovers), we set off again to see Anny’s home town.  This time Shengtian was  far busier, with seemingly most of the residents out and about in the warmth.  A beaming Anny took us to a local tea house (equivalent of 10p for a “bottomless” cup of tea) and to a rice wine shop for us to buy a very Chinese souvenir to take home with us.

Anny’s teacher cooked us lunch (8 dishes served up in the amount of time Bronwen and I would probably need just to make rice) before returning to her sister’s house and the reluctant return to Shanghai.  With suitcases and carry-on bags almost entirely full of local food.

Another of my favourite weekends in China (I have several now)**;  we were made to feel welcome by all and great to see China in a more authentic way than is really possible in Shanghai.

*And it’s just that that makes Shanghai such a great city to live in – as long as Westerners don’t kid themselves they’re fully immersed in Chinese culture just by nature of being here.

**I need to cut down on my use of brackets (parentheses).***

***Not funny, I know.