ISpyShanghai

When I was at Harbin, I noticed one slight crack in the otherwise flawless Olympic hype-machine ra-ra.

白京 2008?
Now I’m no speling expert, but I suspect someone needs to get busy with a pot of water and a chisel.

The snow is getting beyond a joke recently in the city of lights and spit. I was eating at a restaurant on the Bund Monday night and they’d built (real) snowmen on their terrace. It all looked very pretty from inside the restaurant, so after finishing the meal (and a couple of beers) I went out to take a few photos.

A shiny new penny for anyone who can spot the Pearl Tower in the background

Disaster. My shoes were that posh type with a flat leather sole- difficult to walk in at first, but once they’d been coated in a layer of ice it was unbelievable- like a hilarious scene from “Home Alone” (or, to a far lesser extent “Home Alone 3“). Flat on my back, flailing like a turtle, a passing Japanese guy tried to rescue me- and he ended up going A over T too. 

Then of course when you get outside, you can’t get a cab, because apparently Shanghai taxis dissolve in the snow.

At least you could see the Aurora building through the fog

Humph. Anyway enjoy the photos, they nearly killed me.

My workmate Steven got married at the weekend.

Having been to a Chinese wedding, I now realise that my brother’s nuptials at Christmas were great and all, but missed a whole bunch of things that a real wedding (like Steven’s) has:

• a bubble machine
• fireworks on the tables
• menu including fried snake and jellyfish in chili oil
• small ornamental tree covered in good wishes from your friends and family
• three changes of wedding outfits culminating in a karaoke performance from the bride and groom
• a trivia quiz with questions about the happy couple (”What year did they first meet?” etc)

Tradition dictates that the bride and groom drink a toast with each of the 20 tables (200 guests, it was a big do) and since Steven is a bit of a lightweight in the booze department, he had asked me along to help him out with this drinking in the official role of King Drinker.
I was a bit nervous as I had images of burly northern Chinese fellas forcing me to neck huge glasses of rice wine, but it turned out I wasn’t needed. Steven cleverly prepared a red wine bottle filled with Blackcurrant juice which he used as a decoy- (it really is a different world isn’t it?).

Emma chats to the parents of the bride as fireworks in the center of the tables take out children’s eyes

It was a lot of fun and I went home with a beanbag frog (don’t ask). Totally different from a western wedding though as everything happens in a restaurant (religion not being as popular as food here), the whole wedding certificate and photos were already finished weeks before the big day, so the remainder was a mish-mash of old Chinese traditions (red clothes, packets of festive cigarettes provided on the tables), and things they’d seen on “Friends” (a champagne fountain, ring ceremony performed by a friend of the couple).

It was lots of fun, and if you’re reading this Steven- enjoy a long and happy life together with your lovely new missus!

Bit of a heavy weekend this one. Sae-Jin, my mate from Korea was visiting; drinking ensued.

On Friday night we ate at a duck restaurant which is so famous it gets a mention in my Chinese text book. Quan Ju De on HuaiHai Lu is one of a chain of restaurants (most of them in Beijing, home of the doomed duck)- and they certainly do a lovely bird.

Since it was raining, however, we couldn’t get a taxi for love nor money (and believe me, we were prepared to offer both) so ended up walking all of the way from the restaurant to the pub- pausing only for a pint of ale and four B52s to keep the cold out.

We spent the rest of the night in the Eager Beaver, and (after a cocktail tour of TMSK, People 7 and Arch) ended up back there again on Saturday night. Learning from mistakes made the previous day though, Craig had thoughtfully provided a selection of hats for the long wait for a taxi.

SaeJin steps in to help a lady in distress

Mr Wiggans, Dr Meakin, SaeJin and Me

Last night was fun, I went to a big knees-up for people working on the IT systems for the new airport terminal.

Hot lobster

There was a prize ceremony with gold, silver and bronze awards given out to subsystems that the gods are currently smiling on, followed by a banquet. One of the dishes was lobster covered in some kind of batter which tasted so good I’d like to take on a romantic weekend to Rome and sit on the Spanish Steps listening to a gypsy play the guitar as we stare into each others eyes.

Wine flowed like water, much of it down my gullet, and all was going gangbusters until suddenly at 8pm the main boss stood up and said it was time to go home.

My boss Adrian collecting our prize for “Marvellous work”

As well as prizes (which included a big bundle of cash I might add) for companies, there was also a prize draw for 10s of thousands of RMB. Unbelievably, all four of the people from our company who attended won in this draw- I got 500RMB and one lad, Jay got an envelope stuffed with 3,000.
Not a bad reward for attending a free pissup I’m sure you’ll agree.

Jay and Xiao Xi working the crowd

One drawback to the money however, was that you had to sing a song in front of about 100 people to claim it. I did a very emotional version of “Yesterday” which, I’m pretty sure, moved several of the network guys to tears.

One of the first things most ex-pats learn about in Shanghai is the “Fa Piao”- the tax receipt.
These bills come in preset amounts (1, 5, 10 all the way up to at least 5,000 and probably beyond) that don’t describe the goods and services you’ve paid for, just how much you paid for them.

It’s a daft system that’s wide open to abuse, thus providing a useful introduction to Chinese culture for the new arrival. Examples of places you can get a Fa Piao include:

• market stalls selling fake hand bags,
• girly bars,
• people on the street who will sell you whatever amount you want for a 5% cut,
• KFC.

To encourage people to ask for these things, (and thus to force businesses to put everything through the till) there’s a little scratch-and-win silver panel on the right of the ticket, that I’ve ofen scratched and never won. Until last night, eating in a Turkish restaurant with friends, when we hit the jackpot.

Read it and weep (or get someone to translate for you) suckers- 10RMB!

The restaurant swapped the ticket for cash, we split the booty 6-ways and hit the town. P Diddy style.

YaoHua with the loot

It’s not all frostbite and wondering whether you’ll be able to find the fly of your trousers quickly enough in Harbin. They’ve also got a town that’s full of shops selling fake Russian goods (tip for fake vodka producers: don’t drink the stuff before you try to glue the labels on straight) and a beautiful Russki style church.

Inside the church was a bit odd, there’s no altar, a gift shop at the entrance and for no apparent reason a choir wearing dinner suits (and ski trousers) got up to sing “Santa Lucia” in Chinese [which is something that happened very rarely at my parish church in Doncaster].

As I was warned, cameras freeze up fast in the cold weather. By the time the sun went down and the mercury hit -25 C I was lucky to get a couple photos off before the battery cried for mercy and I had to warm it up again down my trousers.

I did manage to take this video clip though, and they say that a video is worth a thousand photos. Featured in all its glory here are the people enjoying horse and carriage rides, Westminster Abbey, umm the moon- oh loads of stuff.

Emma’s camera did better than mine. Firstly it’s mostly plastic on the outside, no doubt frequenter commenter dingle (who has a phD in plastic- I kid you not) will tell us why that makes a difference- and secondly it can take normal AA batteries, replacements for which she bought from a shop/hut inside the festival which she said was
“Like the first Christmas. There was straw on the ground and a donkey passed the batteries to me”

I don’t really know what else to say about the festival except that in the public toilet cubicle there was frozen pee just about everywhere you looked.

So, how to survive that kind of cold? Well as I learn from NASA, it’s all in the layers*

Harbin Ice & Snow Festival. Entrance 150 RMB for grown ups, 75 RMB for nippers. Should be on until end of Feb

[*warning, video may contain footage of me in my underwear].