The Results

No Parking

no parking
Originally uploaded by sherryworld.

Xujiahui, Caoxibei Road

The Latest Stunt

Rules Pillow Fight

1. Tell your friends about Pillow Fight.
2. Tell your friends about Pillow Fight!!
3. Wait til the Times Square clock strikes 19:00.
4. Don't hit people without pillows.
5. Don't hit people with cameras.

枕头战斗规则

1. 告诉您的朋友关于枕头战斗。
2. 告诉您的朋友关于枕头战斗!!
3. 等待时代广场时钟碰撞19:00 。
4. 不要击中没有枕头的人。
5. 不要击中有与照相机的人。

One Foundation

http://www.one-foundation.com/index_en.php

I just applied for the position of Director of BD. Fingers are hecka crossed.

Sortesvin: Liquid Crack

I can now add the following to the list of experiences I am amassing here in Shanghai:

sortesvin (aka liquid crack): A black-hued homemade Danish liquor that starts out savory, goes down licorice sweet and finishes buttery. Three shots of this stuff and I still found myself stumbling three days later.

rickshawing: Riding on the back of a Chinese garbage wagon at 2:30 in the morning singing a ballad about Carolyn's left Stuart Weitzman shoe.

skalipping: What happens when you try to skip down the road to retrieve Carolyn's left shoe while drunk on sortesvin. You start with skipping but end with slipping. Ska-lipping.

Fish

nemo 2
Originally uploaded by sherryworld.

Official I Hate China Day

It's an I-hate-China. In fact, I am inaugurating today, May 8th, as official Sherry Hates China Day.

This morning I had to take my precious life-force to the Apple hospital. Two days ago, I got slapped with the blue screen of death by my iBook. Nothing has been the same ever since.

The air this morning had the ominous promise of an offensive summer to come. As I stepped out my door, a big, throaty rumble assaults my ear, and out of reflex I cringe in anticipated disgust. I turn to see a middle-aged waterboy hock a really nasty loogie right next to me. Ok, whatever, I thought. It's still a nice day outside, I can handle this. As if someone heard me thinking, a second man, a security guard, walks up to me and expels a white globe of spit from his mouth. I practically tripped over my own nausea.

After a moment of near-hysteria, I stopped by the local dumpling shop to have some xiaolongbao. At smaller foodshops that are cheap and tasty, its often that you'll have to share tables with other patrons. As I scanned the tiny room after ordering my food with the register lady, I realized today was one of those days.

Looking around, I noticed a few dirty old men staring straight at my chest. Great. Not sitting there, there, or there. I chose a couple that looked fairly non-intrusive. They were quietly eating their dumplings, and it looked as if they were half finished.

Due to the lack of space, the tables were small and narrow as well. By the time I sat across from the husband, I was practically staring right up his nosehairs. I dove into my dumplings, savoring the juicy soup and soft, thin skin. Halfway through my second dumpling, the wife's phone rings. She answers, but gets up to go outside to talk. How considerate of her, to get up and walk outside so she won't disturb the other restauranteers. I should have seen what was coming next when the husband's phone rang. It being hate China day, he picks up the phone, and screams out the loudest, "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaai!?!" I have ever heard in my life. Shrinking back in fear, my neck tenses with apprehension of the onslaught to come. Particles of skin fall off my face from the sheer force of his decibal waves. This lasts for 8.5 minutes. I look at my chopsticks and imagine myself stabbing him. Somehow, I fell into a wormhole today and nobody sent me the memo.

After escaping the restaurant, I run off for a meeting across town. On the way, another eight guys hock loogies seemingly AT me, one after another. (Even as I sit here typing this entry, 24 floors up a building on the Bund, I still hear someone hocking one. That's how bad it is.)

I am fairly tolerant most days. But right now I am taking myself to my little cave. I imagine a little coffee shop in the Bay, with the delicious aroma of coffee and freshly baked cookies, surrounded by non-hocking patrons that smile and say, "it'll be O.K." I've clicked and I've clicked but my red ruby slippers aren't working today.

The Sassoons: First Major Drug Dealers in Shanghai

Shanghai Triad. When looking up the yesteryear of this cosmopolitan city, one will often find a deeply rooted history of gangsterism for this city of the East. They take it so seriously that filmmakers even made a movie on the subject. So it came as a surprise to find that the first real gangstas here weren't Chinese, but those that rock the Star of David.

Took a sidetrip last week with Carolyn to Garden Books on Changle Road to get a bit more edumacated about the city I dwell in. Amongst the books I grabbed was one titled "Jews in Shanghai" by Pan Guang. The most interesting subject to note is a Jewish family that settled in Shanghai by way of Baghdad and Bombay, who were synonymously known as "the Rothschilds of the East." Their claim to fame, besides building an expansive empire in trade via the Silk Route, was their notoriety for trafficking shipping opium from the West. The Sassoons leave behind a lasting legacy that still stands in a number of historical buildings here in Shanghai, including the famous Peace Hotel. Now that's gangster. A brief article on the subject here.

China Discovers 7.3 BN Barrels of Oil

China discovers an oil well that's got the equivalent to 7.3 billion barrels of oil, giving this nation what is equivalent to half of Qatar's (you know, that really rich country that's super bling bling because they made it bigtime selling petro?) oil reserves.

http://www.energybulletin.net/364.html

WTF? Here's the Green response.

Of What Are We Made?

I still, in many aspects, try to live like a local. I buy groceries from the local market that has their produce spread out on the ground as if its just been waxed squeaky clean with twenty tons of germ killa. I take the bus/metro whenever time allows for it. Hell, I even eat from the sidewalk restaurants from time to time, dangerously risking long unwanted visits to W.C. of yours truly. But I can tell that it'll take me much more than eight months of living here to truly even begin to glimpse what Chinese life really is like. I recently came across an article in the New Yorker by a bi-cultural journalist named Jianying Zha. It provides a very detailed and intimate look into the complex life and thoughts that shape a Chinese political idealist. It shows a man and his convictions that his sacrifice for a cause he believes in is necessary for the greater good. Not surprisingly, the article reminds me how low-scoring the little details I call "issues" really are on the scoreboard of life. I remember at one point growing up I wanted to make a difference. I still do. (Vivian, I WANT that email!*) Do we somehow forget what it is that truly moves us deep within? Or do we just grow out of these "phases" of life, eventually settling down to a job that pays well and moving through life as it "should be?"

Fakery

China challenges me everyday. First off, the language barrier is a pain. As a Cantonese speaker, I get absobloominglutely NO love here in the lovely Whore of the Orient. Lately, I've been affected more and more by the rampant "fakery" that plagues this dear place I call home. Sure, I've gotten used to the fact that I'm watching bootleg dvds from the corner shop that sells them for 7 kwai that, for the record, I did not buy (ahem). Clothes with the notorious labels such as "G-Satr" (Chinglish for the Dutch brand G-Star) have somehow found a way to my closet. I even eat chicken sandwiches from a knock-off KFC here.

Which is why, with eight months into my stay in Shanghai, I am starting to dearly miss that little Bay I call home. I yearn for proper swimming pools that won't cause an unknown infection on my right leg. (condolences to Carolyn's cousin) Some clothes that might fit. Medication that's not possibly fake. I crave mouth-watering burgers made with real cow meat that I can safely eat medium well. I look forward to the day I won't have to buy fruits and veggies that haven't been carefully soaked in chemical pesticides. Oh, and how about not eating meat that is known to be 20% cat meat? Ok, I know I am ranting right now, but for some unknown reason, the cab ride home tonight really inspired a case of homesick-ness that needed to get out. I just miss substantial anything dearly right now.