ISpyShanghai

I’ve found a way to get a load of my old posts back- the ones that were deleted when my hosting firm went beserk.

Hopefully now we can all draw a line under what has been one of the darkest chapters of Human history.

Beause May 1st-7th is a public holiday, many people in China (including me) have been working on Saturday, Sunday and now today. The eighth straight day of clocking in. And it’s raining. I don’t think I’m exagerrating when I say this is the greatest injustice known to man. Not drinking on Friday and Saturday nights was a real struggle for me, struggles which I abandoned at about 8pm. I feel absolutely wiped out and can’t wait for the holiday to start.

On the upside, yesterday we got a free can of holiday coconut juice!

Now I know what you’re thinking:
“That’s probably just a load of smashed up coconut magma, with a bit of essence thrown in for zip”
however you would be wrong:

And that, mes amis, is why “Orthodox Coconut Juice” is the best damn Coconut Juice on the market!*

*not suitable for people with allergy to cat hair, some monsterism may ocurr.

Last night I went for mexican food in Zapatas with some friends who are staying at my apartment. This is a place where I normally end up dancing on the bar after having tequilla poured down my throat (please see here and here for details).
Yesterday was much more sedate- even though they were holding a pretty wild salsa dancing class downstairs, I just had my food, nearly fell asleep face-down in the refried beans, then went home.

Tomorrow though the holiday, and the binge-drinking, begins in earnest.

Within walking distance from my office, there’s a small supermarket [in fact, scratch the "super", they don't even have orange juice] there’s a market where we sometimes go to buy snacks, ice-cream and emergency underwear.

On one of these shopping expeditions I spotted a box of man panties with a disturbing box.

It seems a little unfair to me that this guy- with his ample bosom, striped shirt / mickey-mouse tie, and extra-long pinky fingernail- can legitimately call himself an underwear model. Something I imagine he probably does at every given oppourtunity:

“Hello snookums, how d’you like to come to Daddy’s place for fun time?”
“Not even if you were dipped in honey and covered in money. Stop stroking my wrist with your fingernail.”
“Aw come on sugar plum! You know in China, I’m an underwear model- I can get free samples…”
*eyebrow jiggle*
“You’ve got a piece of catfood stuck to your chin. And if you don’t walk away right now, it’s mace-o-clock. ”

Sweet dreams.

Spoon lampshade

During my recent two-week outage, when I lost the last three months worth of posts (AKA ‘The Fortnight Where I Wished I Was Dead TM‘), I had some time to reflect on what it is that would make a blog about Shanghai worth reading.

The answer soon became clear: photos of lampshades made out of spoons.

This is at Bella Cafe, a place where they’ll soon be having a photo competition called “China Next: China’s Future”.
My entry is this thought provoking piece entitled

“Future leaders; making their mistakes today”

I’m pretty hopeful of at least 3rd place.

beef jerky

My workmate Jay just gave me a handful of these to keep the hunger pangs away.

I think he bought them at a practical joke shop, but they’re actually pretty keen. Spicy, chewy, meaty, what’s not to like?

Saturday morning I awoke a nervous wreck. Hadn’t managed to get a wink of sleep all night because I was worried about the very  critical security situation in my province. Most of you will have already learnt about this from the 24 hour news bulletins and special editions the International press have been putting out, but just in case you’ve been living in a cave, here’s the 411.

To try and regain some inner peace (and pick up concert tickets), I rode my bike down to Wukang Lu, about 10 or 15 minutes easy cycling from my place. The air was sweet, crickets were singing in the trees and shoe thieves were the last thing on my mind as I rode around this lovely old French Concession district.

Sometimes you come across a place where it’s hard to believe you’re still in Shanghai (although slightly easier when you ride around the corner and some fellas is using his bike to tow a cage full of live chickens).

blind busker

@Qibao

Thurstons feet

Last night I went to see a band. The band were the long-running experimental art-rock set up Sonic Youth, the venue was a classical music concert with full seating. This was a bit weird.

I’ve wanted to see Sonic Youth ever since I listened to them whilst doing my paper round- back in ‘92. When the tickets were announced I called up the same morning, so my seats were row 1, right in the middle. I was so close I could smell Kim Gordon’s shampoo (Jojoba).

Not for long though, the kids rushed down from their seats to the front of the stage and the security could only hold them back for a song or two before they rushed in and filled the gap between me, Emma (my date) and the stage. Just as well really, as Emma said
“Now it feels like we’re at a gig instead of a private audience with the Sultan of Brunei“.
At least that’s what I think she said, some sweaty guy with a beard was shouting “We loooove you Sonic Yooooooth!!” in my ear.

In case you haven’t heard them before, most Sonic Youth songs go like this:

• Bass guitars and drums pound out rhythm
• Guitars come in sounding like R2D2 getting a hand job
• Guitars and bass start to play a tune together
• Cool sounding lyrics
• Guitar freakout which sounds like an electric toothbrush being dropped into a bath full of copper wire
• 3 second drum solo
• Bit more guitar
• Fade out.

My Dad’s a big fan.

Some of the guitar freakouts were spectacular, Thurston (a pop singer) rubbed his guitar all over the PA stack at the side of the stage, then threw it up there, and nearly took out the security guard getting it down again. Lee (a pop singer) and Thurston later rubbed their guitar necks against the other a bit like in Ghostbusters where they cross the beams. Kim (a pop singer) meanwhile was dancing around and driving all of the kids in the audience crazy by letting them touch her hands.

At one point they played some tinny music over the PA, everybody looked at everybody else trying to work out what was going on until the Canto-pop lyrics kicked in. Everyone kind of laughed and cheered, then starting booing and sticking their middle fingers up- straight afterwards they launched into a really poppy version of “100%”- the first song of theirs I ever got into. It was, you know, a special moment.

By the end it was a total free-for-all, people stage-diving into the 4 person deep crowd between the stage and my seat (I fell backwards into my chair about 8 times), people going crazy trying to touch the guitars and hands of the band.

Kim said something to the audience right at the end, the guy next to me didn’t catch it:

Guy: What did she say?
Me: She said “You’re one of the best fucking audiences we’ve ever had”
Guy: Oh, she’s very polite!

Thumbs up.