This seems like a good moment to recap.

I reckon that the first 3 months of living in any new place is the hardest. No-one understands what you’re talking about, you have no friends and, most of the time, no idea where you are. It’s a bit like being in the Royal family.

Thankfully I’m over that rough patch now and am starting to piece together some knowledge about this crazy city and exceptional country. So buckle up and let me take you on a white water rafting ride into my Class IV river of fact about Shanghai.

dressed as a Chinese emperor

FACT 1!
There are lots of people here

Some stupid numbers for you, there are 10 million bikes in Shanghai (the last time I checked I own one of them, but its theft is imminent). Ten thousand people are working on the construction of the new airport terminal (the last time I checked I was one of them, but my sacking is imminent).

qibao street

There are twenty million people or so in the city (although no-one seems to know for sure)- the Chinese have a saying for a large crowd that translates as:

“People mountain, people sea”.

You need a lot of people before you come up with that kind of phrase.

FACT 2!
Stuff is cheap

On Saturday the chain on my bike broke so I took it to one of thousands of guys on street corners who’ll fix it for you- I left with not only a new chain but also two 0.5l bottles of beer, and the bill was 10RMB (75p).
The Chinese guy before me got it cheaper too.

Booze on the go
This 50% volume alcoholic spirit costs about 30p, and fits right in your lunch box.

FACT 3!
Sometimes, the Chinese copy things

If you walk down one of the major shopping streets in Shanghai, you can expect to be offered the more obvious knock-offs (“Hello! Watchbag?”) every 10 or 15 steps. Without really going out of my way to look I’ve seen counterfeit golf clubs, tennis racquets, Ferrero Rocher and restaurants.

“Lost” Season 3 is on the shelves even though the episodes haven’t been filmed yet, I’ve bought several albums that have included a ‘bouns CD’ by a totally different band, and I met a girl from Beijing who told me her cousin is called James Chreegan (true story!).

FACT 4!

Food here is unusal

Roast duck’s chin”, “fried cow’s penis”, “boiled pig’s intestines”. Sometimes I wonder if I’m reading a menu, or the Vet’s report after a barnyard fire.

mum and daughter
A young friend of mine eating a duck’s head

FACT 5!

The language is complicated…

…but, not as complicated as I first thought. There’s a smashing logic to it sometimes that just makes you laugh- take the character for tree:


木


It actually looks a bit like a tree right?

Now put two of those together:

林

That means ‘forest’.

Put three of them together and…well I don’t want to blow your mind…but it means, ‘really big forest’.
I’m taking lessons after work, and last night I managed to write out my first full sentence (“What will the weather be like tomorrow?”) and it only took me 47 minutes.

curr jae ming

On Saturday I used my Chinese to buy a Pineapple from a guy in the market. Admittedly I was trying to ask him to call an ambulance because I was having an asthma attack, but Pineapples are nice too.

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