ISpyShanghai

I don’t know if any of you are planning to go to the Shanghaiist party tonight, I’m excited about it, got my costume sorted and everything.

If you see a guy whose feet are cut to ribbons, that’ll be me- say hi.

Photo by Nad

I see this warning sign every time I go into the lab where we keep our servers.

Is it just me that finds it terrifying? I imagine the room filling with clouds of noxious fumes as a klaxxon goes off.

Masked men with oxygen tanks on their backs step on my spluttering, sputum-flecked face in order to rescue the backup data tapes, before they seal the room forever and leave me for dead.

I’ve bought some horrible stuff at Shanghai’s various fabric markets. Shiny blue jackets that I’ll never wear, an ice-white linen suit that saw a brief outing at one of Dingle’s fashionable BBQs, and numerous pairs of trousers that developed holes at just the wrong place and time.

Still though, winter is coming up and I can’t be seen wearing last year’s coat- what would the neighbours say?

Here then is my timely guide to getting a good price at the Fabric market:

Act like you’re not bothered
Only suckers act like they really want to have a suit made, suckers who get ripped off. You really haven’t decided whether you’re going to buy today, maybe you’ll buy a hamburger instead.

This is a hard act to pull off when you’re specifying fabrics, number of buttons, extra-crotch reinforcing etc. so pretend to treat all decisions hypothetically;

“Assuming I was looking for a jacket, then maybe I’d like you to copy this one that I’ve brought all the way across town in a plastic bag.

Perhaps I would want you to make the waist slightly bigger, because it’s possible that I eat a lot of mashed potato and gravy at KFC“

Subtly imply that you don’t have much money

“You don’t need to make the pockets very big, usually all I carry is a bus pass and some stale rice“

Speak Chinese
The more the better, but at the very least you need to manage a passable ”Aiyo!” when the first tentative prices are being floated around. Extra bonus points are added for a

“Tai gui le!” (too expensive!)
or a
“Wo bu shi ri ben ren!!!” (”I’m not Japanese!”)

If you’re white / otherly foreign, then speaking Chinese is basically a way of saying that you’re not a tourist, and it also gives the stall holders something fun to laugh about when your back is turned.

and a free health check too

Speak Shanghainese
Slightly more tricky to pull off, but expat wisdom suggests that whilst stupid old whitey always pays more than the Chinese, out of towners also pay less more than anyone who can speak Taxi-driver talk.
(fixed 30th Oct, ta Liam)

Don’t blink first
Market stall holders can spot a sucker at 30 paces, but if you’re following the steps above it’s going to take them a bit longer to work out what kind of sucker you are.

Prolong their realisation by point-blank refusing to name a price that you want to pay. Let them name a price (which you should find both hilarious and horrifying) and have them come down a couple of notches first.

Ideally you should have the clothes hanging up in your wardrobe at home, with patches of wear beginning to show from a few seasons of regular rotation before you call up the tailor and make your first low ball offer.

Remember: stay vigilant at all times

Do the walk off. (But not that walk off)
Everyone knows the old walk-away-in-disgust technique- where the stall holder is supposed to chase after you in tears begging you to come back and pay whatever small coins you have in your pocket.

Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t- but there are few things more embarassing than doing the walk off and then having to come back shamefaced because you can’t find another stall that’s willing to make a lace girdle for a 30 year old man.

If you do decide to go this direction, then pretend that you’re breaking up with someone. It’s not them, it’s you, you want to think things over, you can’t help thinking that somewhere out there is a piece with better quality, a cheaper price, or sleeve buttons that actually fasten (hmm, this metaphor needs some work).

Finally

Always remember that the following phrases have no meaning whatsoever and should be ignored:

• “Friend price”
• Final offer
• Ohh handsome!
• Where are you from? Oh I like England/USA/Botswana very much!
• Please put underwear back on! Do not touch fabric like that!

There are two main fabric markets in Shanghai:

South Bund Soft Spinning Materials Market
399 Lujiabang Lu (near Nanpu Bridge)

Shiliupu Material Shopping Market
Dongmen Lu near Zhonghua Lu

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

You might know this and then again you might not, but either way-I used to live in Korea. I was there for three years and had a splendid time. 

High Heel Scooter

When I first arrived I thought the place was kind of backwards in the fashion stakes- the middle aged men there wear their belts higher than I thought humanly possible, and most of the guys my age had pointy shoes that extended 9 inches past the end of their toes for that Rumpelstiltskin vibe.

Strawberry Slipons

Now though, Korea is something of a fashion leader in asia and it’s very common to see hangeul writing on jeans / handbags and t-shirts for dogs here in Shanghai.

I haven’t been back for a while but I keep abreast of all the latest trends by looking at the flickr stream of close personal e-friend / flickr contact / guy I’ve never actually met Superlocal.

Superlocal’s job seems to involve doing what I do for a hobby: finding weird stuff in asian cities. Presumably in his spare time, he sits in 3 hour meetings about airport information systems.

Shoe Slippers

The photos below are some of his captures from the whacky world of Korean footwear- if you want more, I highly recommend having a gander at his stuff on flickr http://flickr.com/photos/superlocal.

Shoe Tongs

So I’m out on Friday night, enjoying a refreshing beverage with some friends and colleagues when the intense pain in my elbow becomes too much to bear.

The elbow hurt a little when I knocked it against a metal window frame the previous week but seemed to settle down. By Thursday it had decided it was going to start troubling me again, and by about 9pm on Friday night it was like a hot, angry pool of fire spreading out across my arm.

Emma took me to Huashan hospital, and not the fancy foreigner section either, the proper ghetto ward. It was full of either very old people or what looked like car-crash victims surronded by their family

Blimey, that guy looks really messed up

I said to Emma as a man was wheeled past us, mashed up, eyes rolling, hooked to multiple drips

Oh he’s probably just faking it for the compensation money

she replied- pushing to the front of the cashier queue.

Coming from Her Majesty’s Glorious Empire Of Britain I’m not used to paying for medical care. In our scented green land the National Health Service will treat anything from a tickly cough to a dicky heart free of charge- but in China you can’t even see the doctor until you’ve paid and had the receipt stamped in triplicate.

I’ve got to say though, I saw the doc, had blood taken and tested, medicine prescribed and the prescription filled within 30 minutes. The total bill was under 200RMB (well under 20 quid) and I was back in the pub by 10:30pm.

My Medicine

Here’s one of three medicines I was prescribed.
Looks like the guy who designed the packaging is a big fan of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, but then again, who isn’t?

Everyone’s raving on about this IPhone nonsense, and how great Apple are for designing such a wonderful interface and blah blah etc.

Well last night I unearthed the inspiration for the world’s most pretentious tin-can-on-a-string. It’s an ice cube tray that had been sat in my kitchen draw for the last 18months (craftily hidden under the saucepans, which is why I never found it).

To anyone who doesn’t read Chinese, the characters on this tray are an ancient poem about a humble servant who becomes a great emperor. They’d make a great tattoo- remember to send me a photo of it if you get one done.

Ice Cube

iPhone

If you’re reading this, then you’re not reading the entry for the 22nd August- so congratulations.

Right now I don’t have a Scoob why that’s happening- maybe it’s your fault, maybe you need to sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done.

Whilst you’re doing that, I’ll be enjoying the world’s most fabulous photograph (stolen from a chap called David. I should really get around to asking his permission to post it)

Best Photo Ever

We haven’t had one of these for a while, and I like them even if you might not.

It’s the sunset over my neck of the woods, with a Sun Jar in the foreground. The idea of the Sun Jar is that when it’s light, the solar cell stores the energy, and when it gets dark, an LED spits that energy back into a warm soothing glow.

It’s a canny gadget which I bought it from the same place as the beauty nose clip, at People’s Square station.

But does it work? You’ll have to watch the video to find out.

(Also available on Youtube)