Adventures in Food Shopping, SISU and SCIS
From Urban Press
Adventures in Food Shopping
Woke up, hungry as. Apart from breakfast on the plane, I didn't eat much of anything the day before. I ate two of the nutbars Mum put in my carry on (thanks Mum) and then went looking for real food. I knew from some research on google the night before that there was a Chinese supermarket just up the road, and a Western gourmet one a little further on, called Pines. I also had google tell me where the closest Carrefour was, as I'd been told this was an expat institution in China. I had a look around the Chinese supermarket first, but couldn't find anything I especially wanted. The butchery looked like it might be worth checking out on the way back home though. On my way to Pines I passed several expats, including a group of pregnant western women standing on a street corner presumably following their coffee clatch. On the one hand I was pleased to be in a neighborhood where Expats were so thick on the ground, but on the other every time I see an expat I feel guilty for not giving them a card, or trying to get them to participate in the research. Eventually I decided that I was going to allow myself the luxury of a couple of days to settle in before beating myself up too badly about not having the guts to try and recruit every white face I saw.
Pines was quite expensive and so I decided to grab lunch at the bakery across the road and then walk over to Carrefour. Crossing streets in China is an experience. One would think that the zebra crossings at every intersection, and crossing lights at almost every intersection would make this easier. But most cars just ignore the lights, and scooters are even more dangerous, zipping out from behind stopped cars and into your path with very little warning. Coming from a country where we drive on the right side of the road (pun intended), this is doubly disconcerting because my natural instinct is to look first left and then right…which is likely to get you seriously injured here.
All the customers in the Sunflower Bakery and Cafe on Anfu Lu were westerners. Most of the staff were Chinese, but had excellent english, which isn't that common, even in the french concession. So far I've managed to make myself understood, in broken Chinese, or via mime, but even so I'm still always a bit nervous that I won't be able to get my point across and am always obscenely grateful when people do know some english. I ended up being served by a scandinavian guy anyway, possibly Swiss, who I took for the owner. He asked me where I was from and I said New Zealand. He told me their butter and cream cheese came from NZ. I asked if he was the owner, and he said no, he was just there helping out a friend, and that he'd thought it would be a good opportunity to work on his Chinese.
The walk out to Carrefour was instructional. I got lost several times, overshooting my turnoff or going left instead of right. Passed a very posh looking housing development. Glass panels a alternated on the surrounding fence, saying "harmonious" and then "family" over on over again. I don't know why but the thought occurred to me this would be a fun fence to climb on. Generally speaking these are not the thoughts I act on anyway, but as soon as it entered my head I noticed a sign which said "pulse voltage - please do not climb" in english and chinese. Nothing demonstrates the tensions in the new China like a fence with Harmonious Family on it under an electrified security fence. Google maps told me that the Carrefour was on the corner of Zhongshan Lu and Changning Lu, but as I came up on the intersection, which is a busy four lane interchange, I realized that I didn't know which corner it was mean to be on, and crossing four lanes of traffic was, for reasons already discussed , an intimidating prospect. There was a big mall on the corner closet to me which seemed to be connected to the train station on the opposite corner via a pedestrian over bridge, so I decided to try my luck in their first.
The Zhongshan Park Mall is insane. Just mental. Firstly its on something like 7 levels not including the 2 basement levels. Secondly when you first enter the mall you walk into a giant atrium which stretches up to the roof of building, and you look up to the levels above, which encircle the atrium, and the room starts to spin a little. Its so overwhelming in its size it literally gave me vertigo. There are three or four more artia just like the first, only a little smaller, in the same building. More on Zhongshan park another day though. At this point I wasn't even sure the supermarket was in the building. Then I spotted a sign by one of the escalators pointing down which said Carrefour, so I went down. No Carrefour and no exit… back up the escalator to check the sign again. It says Carrefour B! and B2, so although its not in this basement its clearly in a basement. I keep looking. Eventually I find a more reliable sign, in fact a series of signs, which lead me to the entrance. Carrefour is like Walmart, or the Warehouse if it also sold groceries. If you come in to the Zhongshan Carrefour at its B1 entrance you end up in the section with everything but groceries, which was initially a bit confusing but worked out fine as I was also considering buying a fitted sheet. The ones I'd brought with me were for a single bed (as that's what I'd been told was in my room) and my room contained a double mattress. I decided against it though, partly because they were so expensive there and partly because I couldn't browse effectively whilst being interrupted every two minutes by the abundance of Chinese shop assistance who were all hanging out in exactly the aisle I wanted to look at. Eventually I found the grocery section, along with most of my home comforts which I then purchased for a very reasonable 384RMB or slightly more than $70 nzd. More than I'd spend on a weekly basis back home, but not bad considering I was stocking my larder from scratch. While waiting in line at the check out I got a text from Steve saying he wouldn't be able to meet me till after my conference registration at around 5pm. I carried my groceries down to the Taxi stand and got a 4 dollar (20 RMB) taxi ride home.
Conference Registration
The conference is being held at Crowne Plaza Fudan, which is a 30min taxi ride away from my house. Halfway there I realise I don't have the SISU address card with me, and so will have to be creative when the time comes to go and see Steve. The programme says registration is from 3-5pm, but there are no social things listed so I don't really know what to expect, or if I will be able to get to Steve before 5. The registration process only takes 5 minutes though and I realise I probably could have done it the following day anyway and saved my self the 35RMB my taxi cost me (about $7 bucks). I phone Steve and ask him for the address. Then I get the hotel concierge to write it down for me. I give the address to the taxi driver, he grunts and we hit the road.
There is a lot of honking involved when driving in China. Drivers don't so much honk to say get out of my way, but as an announcement that they are on the road. Cars are still out numbered on Shanghai's roads by scooters, mopeds and bicycles. Avoiding these, as well as other cars and the occasional pedestrian walking nonchalantly down the middle of the road, and getting your passengers where they need to go in a city the size of Shanghai is an art form in itself. Shanghai Taxi drivers manoeuvre their vehicles with aggression and precision. Every miss is a near one, and after a while you start to feel like maybe accidents are rarer than common sense might dictate. Having said that someone recently told me she saw three in one morning.
SISU
When I get to SISU the Taxi driver tries to take me straight in through the gate. The security guard yells at him, then peers through the window to check who's inside. When he sees there's a Westerner inside he quickly changes his mind though, and makes as if to wave us through. I tell the driver "Zheli Hao", here is good, and decamp on foot. It's a moderately sized city campus, certainly by Chinese standards, and I have an hour or so to kill before Steve will be ready to see me. First things first, something to eat. I find a little roadside place, and successfully order a chicken burger and an iced lemon drink. The chicken burger is delicious, spicy and distinctly Chinese. I tell the girl who serves me as much, in my pidgeon Chinese, "hen hao", very good. I'm dripping sweat again in the 30+ degree heat, so the lemon drink also goes down a treat. I try to make it last and go looking for some shade.
There is an ornamental garden in the middle of the SISU campus inhabited by a tribe of cats. I find the one bench not occupied by a stray moggy and sit down. It reminds me a little bit of the oriental garden on the Waikato Campus, with the cats switched for rabbits. A family of Russian tourists wander into the garden, take a few photos and then leave. I wonder what about this garden made them want to photograph it, with its concrete tables and benches tarted up to look like granite. I wonder if this is the closest they've come during their stay in China to what they think of as something authentically oriental. Then I find myself compelled to ask the same question in return, what am I doing here? But, beyond the compelling need to find somewhere out of the sun and smog, and the novelty of a family of cats in the middle of this city where nothing non-human lives unless its on a leash or in a cage (or is a rat or a cockroach), a little peace after two days of mind blowing chaos strikes me as justification enough.
Steve calls me at about 4.30pm to say he's just arrived. He is very gracious, despite the fact that he is leaving for Germany the following day. He shows my around campus, and his building, and we talk about my potential contribution to their programme. We end up at his office, and while he works through a check-list of things he needs to collect before his trip, I start to talk about the crisis of representation in anthropology and my masters research. I ask him for the contact details of one or two people I will need while he is away, and remind him that he was going to email me the addresses of other academics who have worked on the expat community in China. The former is rapidly forthcoming, but the later I suspect, despite his assurances to the contrary, will only emerge once the dust settles following his safe arrival in Germany. Its creeping up on 6pm by this stage and Steve has a driver waiting, but before he goes he takes me to a local locksmith and he gets me a set of keys cut for his office. I naively ask whether the locksmith will still be open, and he assures me that street front shops are open to all hours most days. After that's done, he tells me that if I wait till 7pm the nearby entrance to the expressway will open up, which will mean a much cheaper cab ride home. I stop in at a local pizza joint to kill time till 7pm. The Pizza is 40RMB (about $7), but is undercooked and has odd toppings. I eat it as I am starving, then flag down a taxi and head home.
