The Little Things

I've noticed that when I DO make a post on this blog, usually it is due to some big event that I want to tell everyone about (aside from yesterday's haircut issue). But the little things often get left aside, and really it's the little things that make this trip such a great and interesting experience. This post is dedicated to the little things...

Being in a new place on the other side of the world, you often notice things that seem interesting, entirely different, or just downright obscure. Here are some examples of those:

China cold. This refers to the seldom 'coldness' of beverages offered to consumers in China. (It's something that is popular in Europe as well, I believe)...but cold in this country means room temperature, since hot drinks such as tea are very popular, and China cold screwed us this past weekend. Paul (new roommate) and I went to the local supermarket to stock up on some beers for our empty refrigerator. We picked up the standard 600 ml bottles, 3 cases worth, and we headed home. Of course they were not chilled at the store, and we were not interested in drinking room temperature beer if it were in our power to prevent it, so as soon as we got home we threw 2/3 of them in the refrigerator and 1/3 in the freezer, since the refrigerator is very slow to cool things. The plan was to drink the freezer beer first, and then move up to the refrigerator beer. We reminded each other many, many times that once the fridge beers were cold then we would move the rest of the freezer beers to join their comrades upstairs. Of course, we eventually forgot about the 12 bottles that were being quickly chilled in the freezer, and we soon progressed to the fridge beers without giving it a second thought. In the morning, we woke up devastated to see this mess...

The beer obviously froze, and in the process expanded. Glass happens to be a material that isn't very good at expanding, and so most of the bottles broke, but for some of them, the caps flew off and the frozen beer oozed out. We lost many delicious Suntory's on Sunday morning, a very sad day. It's still a bit of a sore subject around the apartment, so we try not to bring it up :-)

The 'not so' man purse. In Shanghai, many men wear purses as part of their everyday wardrobe.

These purses are not manly in any shape or form, they are legitimate woman purses. =) Often times I'll see a big brand such as Louis Vuitton or something around a man's shoulder, and I find this fashion statement very interesting. Men do not seem to be bothered by wearing pink, either.

These two things, which would be seen as very 'non-macho' in the US, are commonly accepted by society around here. Too bad I forgot my purse and my pink shirts back home!

Chinese Innovation. Originally, before I'd come to China, I would have rarely associated these two words with each other. But now that I've been around Shanghai quite a bit, I've noticed some very innovative things that catch my eye. Take for example this 'bike rack for umbrellas,'

created so that people can leave their umbrella at the door and lock it up so that they know it's safe while they shop. Or the lightning fast creation of a bed comforter as seen here at a nearby market. And last, but not least, the user-friendly and incredibly convenient Shanghai Metro - it's a miracle to lost interns like myself.

Google. I found this very ironic sign the other day...

Why is it ironic? Because it is what seems to be a Google office in downtown Shanghai, China, but there is no Google China. There's a Google Hong Kong, to which all mainland Chinese Google searches are redirected because Google has removed its Google.cn site due to too many searching restrictions set by the Chinese government. Google.hk offers uncensored searching opportunities for people in mainland China, so Google has taken advantage of a loophole that it found within the nation's 'one country, two systems' philosophy...interesting.

More 'little things' to come hopefully on a daily basis.

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PMM