ISpyShanghai

In these credit-crunch, eco-aware days, can you really justify keeping your fridge on throughout the Winter? The temperature outside is about the same as a fridge anyway, so we’ve started keeping all of our milk, beer, wine etc. outside on the balcony to save the planet.
(Also the fridge is broken).

The only trouble is that when the Ayi comes to do some cleaning, she thinks we’ve gone mad and brings it all inside again.

Outdoor fridge

Imagine then, how justified we felt when we went to a high-class restaurant on Tuesday, and they were doing it too.

See Ayi! We’re as sane as ever.

Awesome!

To the untrained eye, China is a country where Health & Safety precautions takes a backseat.

Where are the Safety goggles?
Where are the harnesses?
Why is my Surgeon using the same scalpel to clean under his toenails?  

This is the typical whining you hear from ex-pats.

What these people don’t understand is that China ensures safety through strict supervision.  

Here is a typical scene- three guys digging up the road at 10:30pm on a weeknight.

Three chaps working

As you can see, for the three guys actually doing something there are another three guys keeping an eye on things (one of them is at very close quarters- look carefully).

Perhaps in the West that would be enough. But this is China!

Safety First!

That’s more like it.

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

Ah Shoe Tuesday, here again. Boy I tell ya though- getting shoe shots is getting harder by the day. 

First of all, since the explosive popularity for this feature took off , it is quite common on the streets of Shanghai to see 8 or 9 bloggers taking photos of any unusual shoes.
Teams of special Shoe police are employed to prevent this menace and the punishments for unauthorised shoe photography are stringent.

Secondly of all, by the time I leave work these days it’s dark outside. Not easy to take photos of shoes in the dark- by their nature they tend to be moving quite quickly.

Thirdly of all, have you ever tried holding a camera and trying to blend into the background with a moustache? There’s a reason 007 never has one.

Anyway- enough whining. Let’s take a nice long look at what your actual Shanghai girls are strutting down the cold November streets in.

No smart-aleck comments from me here, she looking good in them winter boots.

Tall guy caught a nice one. Congratulations to both of you.  

Is this your first time at Shoe Tuesday?
Are you a little bit scared, but also kind of excited?
Have you dipped your toe in and found you want more, More, MORE!?
Is your boss out of the office?

Then read on with Every Shoe Tuesday Ever!

The street at the back of my apartment building is kind of like a market for vegetables, (live) fish, (live) chickens, fruit, rice and all of the usual staples that a little neighbourhood needs.

It’s oldschool- the pork butcher just has all of the meat laid out on a wooden table out front, which I can’t believe is good for anyone in the summer- but maybe people rinse the meat off under the cold water tap before they cook it.

Anyhow- it won’t be there much longer because recently all of the buildings were daubed with the ominous character “Chai” 

Chai = destroy

Chai means demolish / destroy / raze. If you wake up one morning and find this painted on your building, start packing (if you go to the Hospital and they paint it on your backside- start panicking). 

Since I moved into my place I must have seen this character on about 20-40 different buildings in my neighbourhood. Out with the old, in with the building site that will wake me up on a Saturday afternoon.

This time though, the neighbourhood are fighting back…

No demolition here!

 Next to the official character, an angry comrade has written…

Pian = Cheat

and if that ain’t enough, they’ve added a quick

ge niao = something rude

which I’m going to leave to someone in the comments to translate (but let me tell you- it don’t mean “Oh bother!“) 

Fat lot of good it’ll do them anyway, I reckon the wrecking balls will fall before the first snowflake of winter.

Here’s a fancy book learnin’ guy talking about the “Chai’s significance in modern China. 

Man who wear phone clip…

…goes home alone

How about if I wrap a dog in it? Is that OK?

I don’t mind this kind of thing so much on a bag of sweets, or a cuddly toy- but I saw the drawings above on the instructions to install a Unix server.

Do particle accelerators come with a warning label that says “Do not drop in the bath”?
Do nuclear warheads have an image of someone shoving it up their nose with a big cross through it?