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Published: February 26th 2011
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Making Jaozi, Yangzhou
Class 3-10 making traditional steamed dumplings Photos:
…..the figures from last year's census in China are still being analysed but it seems pretty clear that Shanghai's population has been underestimated & is almost certainly over 23 million, probably about a million or so more than the total population of Australia. It's not difficult to see that it's on a different scale to my little town of Yangzhou, with only Sydney's population. I am in Shanghai to renew my passport at the Australian consulate. ....
…..it's common in all large Chinese cities I've visited to stack the main roads, the original highway at ground level overshadowed by another road supported on concrete pylons. Shanghai has more & bigger elevated roads. On Nanjing Lu, (a popular shopping street) I notice a tangle of roads where the Yan'an elevated road meets Bei Nan Lu, (North South Road). I take a 5 minute detour to have a look at the Puxi Viaduct. Lacking the space to spread out in the classic cloverleaf pattern the approach is to tie all these huge roads together in an intersection stacked on five or six levels. I try, unsuccessfully, to take some photos that will give an impression of what that entails.....
Pudong, Shanghai
The business centre, across the Huangpu River …..a lot of people engage you in conversation in Shanghai. Leaving aside the ones who want to sell you a watch or visit their shop, there are others who just want to practice their English with a native speaker. I end up walking along Nanjing Lu talking to three university students. They're interested in Australia & the world in general & between my Chinese & their English we manage pretty well. They mention they are buying tickets for an acrobatic show in the evening. I mention I'd like to see that. The young guy gets his phone & talks for a while. We wait five minutes & a girl turns up with their tickets, plus an extra one he's ordered for me. They point me to my destination & are quickly lost among the 23 million people in Shanghai.....
…..in the evening I don't see the students at the large theatre near the Jing'an Temple. Naturally any Chinese acrobatic show is full of impossible feats of balance, gymnastics & contortion, usually by large groups of people simultaneously. I wasn't expecting the finale to be the Ball of Death. I thought it was a cartoonist's invention, a variation on
Old and New, Shanghai
Tai Ji near a bewildering road interchange, the Puxi Viaduct, the Wall of Death, where a motorbike rides horizontally round the inside of a circular wall. This one is a spherical steel cage, about five metres in diameter, so the bike can not only go around but loop over the top. Then another bike, & another, until, by the end there are five motorbikes tearing round the inside of the ball. Pretty impressive & maybe an indication of the population density in a city this size. The video above ends just as the fifth bike is ready to enter.....
…..a few hints if you're heading for Shanghai. On exiting the carriage on the subway stick your elbows out, put your head down & push like hell, The concept of waiting until the passengers get off before those on the platform get on is alien. If you don't like steps remember the subways sometimes have escalators going up but not often going down. Some of the interchange stations are huge & you will get a lot of exercise. As in most Chinese cities there are millions on the streets & all are walking, or dawdling, stopping & changing direction, as though they are the last person on the planet.....
Puxi Viaduct, Shanghai
An attempt to get a 6 level stacked interchange into one photo. FAIL... .....a QQ call from Miss Piggy, who tells me she's having two weddings, one in March in Guizhou, the second in her home town of Jiangyan, about an hour east of Yangzhou by train. When?, I ask her, thinking it will be a week or two later. Next year is the answer. I have been invited, in among the apologies for the lack of information about the state of the farmyard living quarters before I went to visit during the spring holiday. No problem, it was a good story!.....
…..I get a call from Dr. Wei, whom I haven't seen for a while. “I have some news for you, I was married 10 days ago”. I tell her that she could have sent me a text message at least! She's calling to invite me to the celebration (belated reception or casual gathering for friends not at the wedding, I don't know yet), next Monday.....
…..it's still painfully slow but I continue to notice Chinese conversation becoming a little easier. In Shanghai, in the shops, at school, explaining classroom issues or talking about holiday trips. Don't let me give the impression this is anything like fluent, just that the
Seafood, Shanghai
Just another pavement display 5% I understood before might now be approaching 10%. QQ conversations & text messaging is getting quicker & more complex, though without my electronic dictionary I'd be struck dumb.....
…..a check of my written vocabulary, not impressive but improving. Over 200 characters I can write without a prompt & quite a few more I can recognise from the list of alternatives that appear when using Google Pinyin on the computer or sending an SMS. Type in the letters for the character, say, “dian” for “electricity”. Then associated characters will appear, for “dian hua” (phone), “dian shi” (TV), “dian ying” (movie) etc. It's easier to recognise a character from a list than to conjure it up from among hundreds of similar looking ones out of my notoriously inaccurate memory.....
…..we have a new teaching system, which we in grades three & four are testing. It's based on the Sesame Street characters & aims to slow down the amount of vocabulary offered but ensure that the kids are fluent in what they do learn. It involves large, colourful posters & role playing with different voices. Despite my initial misgivings it seems to be working well. Time will tell.....
…..this
Jing'an Si, Shanghai
An elegant temple on Nanjing road, main shopping street week's movie recommendation, (after Red Cliff last week), is The King's Speech, the story of King George the Sixth & his struggle to overcome his stammer after finding himself unexpectedly king after the abdication of his brother Edward, (who preferred Mrs. Simpson to being king). No car chase or shoot-out but Geoffrey Rush & Colin Firth are outstanding. Thanks Peter for lending me the DVD.....
…..in a small Xinjiang, (a large, western province), restaurant in Shanghai I see they have picture menus, always a drawcard for those of us struggling with Chinese. As I'm waiting I browse the tattered menu. The menu is in Chinese &.....English? Despite being a cosmopolitan, modern city, with bilingual signs everywhere, some of the items on offer are:
Colourful air-dried meat
Dry speeding haggis
Pleurotus clear speculation
Yippin wild strains of pot
Russia's head (can be steamed)
Cephallomappa lily pot of Aberdeen
& the piece de resistance:
Sensation in the small cock.....
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jackie smith
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Thanks
As usual Dave, an informative and amusing tale. We anticipate your observations with relish. Really admire your fortitude at the farm.............. It's Fringe time here - I doubt the Garden of Unearthly Delights could compete with your Ball of Death. Keep 'em coming. Jackie