Thanksgiving in Shanghai

Shanghai

René François Ghislain Magritte is my favorite painter of all time. Van Gogh fans have "Starry Night," Picasso fans their cubist renderings and works from the Blue Period, but I have my bowlers. I was reminded of Magritte on Thanksgiving as I was sitting in the old HSBC building on the Bundt in Shanghai, working on my constitutional law final in time to meet a Friday deadline. As I was sipping my 美式咖非 （"meishir kafe", a.k.a. "Americano") in a cafe called 12 on the Bund, John Denver's "Country Road" came over the stereo. Ceci n'est pas une pipe, indeed.

Our trip was a blast, from the moment we left our apartment until the moment we got home. On Tuesday, we bought tickets at the travel agency on campus at Beida, and managed to tell the agent in Mandarin where we wanted to go (Shanghai), what time we wanted to leave (8 o'clock), and that we wanted a soft-sleeper xiapu. (Bottom bunk) So on Wednesday night after class, we flagged down a taxi using appropriate hand gestures, and headed to the station. (Note to visitors: orient your hand the wrong way, and it's the equivalent of telling someone to not only go do something bad to themselves, but also to their ancestors)

When we got into the cab, however, we managed to have a full conversation in Mandarin with the driver, which went something like this:

Me: We're going to Beijing Train Station
Driver: Where are you headed?
Me: Shanghai.
Driver: oh, Shanghai! What time is the train?
Me: 8 o'clock.
Driver: We should be fine, but there will be a lot of traffic.

I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but you have to consider that every conversation we have in Chinese usually includes the use of the phrase "ting bu dong" (I hear, but I don't understand) at least once.

Though the signs were all in Chinese at the train station, we managed to find the soft-sleeper waiting room, buy some food for the train, and make our way to our cabin. As luck would have it, our four-bed sleeper cabin (two up, two down) had no one else in it, so Katie and I made our way to Shanghai in the comfort of our very own little hide-away.

Upon arriving in Shanghai, we checked into our hotel. The Astor House Hotel, a.k.a. the Pujiang, celebrated its 160th anniversary last year, and is located on the north end of Shanghai's famous Bund. It's hosted many famous guests over the years, including Albert Einstein. In fact, we ended up staying the same suite as ol' Al, room 304. But we had a take-home exam due on Friday, so we needed to find a place to finish up everything.

First thing in the morning, we took a walk down the Bund to the historic HSBC building, 12 on the Bund, which contains the aforementioned cafe of the same name. A few hours later, papers somewhat complete, we discovered that prices in Shanghai are indeed much higher than in Beijing when we paid our bill, and made our way back to the Astor to figure out our Thanksgiving Plans.

Our good friend Geddie, who recently moved from Shanghai to Beijing, directed us to this entry at Shanghaiist. After calling around, we managed to get ourselves a table at the Moon River Diner in for the 8:30 seating. At dinner, however, we were reminded that Thanksgiving has very little to do with food, and very much to do with family and friends, who were obviously very absent. Still, in true American tradition, we went around the table and said what we were thankful for. This year it was separation of powers, rule of law, democracy, and the protection of individual rights. You know, constitutional law.

On Friday morning we finished up our papers and set out to see the rest of Shanghai. Our first stop, however, was at the Shanghai office of Faegre & Benson, the firm that Katie will be working for in Denver next fall. We had a really nice conversation with Peter Neuman, Dan Zhang, and Hong Zhang. Mr. Neuman even directed us to some really nice spots in the French Concession, where we had an early dinner.

On the way home, our luck changed a bit. We could not get a bottom bunk because the agency where we bought our train tickets managed not to mess up the purchase. So we ended up on the top bunk of a full room, watching a movie called "The Marine" on our roommates' laptop for two hours. To give you a sense of the movie, consider this: the protagonist was played by WWE wrestler John Cena, and the movie was produced by WWE films. So, there were lots of explosions and body slams.

Overall, however, I'd say that we liked Shanghai. Where Beijing is an overgrown village, Shanghai is a city. Where Beijing is a little like LA, in that it's not a city designed with pedestrians in mind, Shanghai is cosmopolitan, filled with pedestrian malls, and interesting architecture. Also, there's not a mad dash to finish high-rise buildings going on in Shanghai, as there is in Beijing for the Olympics, and we appreciated it a lot.

The people were certainly colorful as well. The Shanghai-ese have a reputation in China for being, well, disreputable. And some of the people we ran across certainly lived up to the stereotypes. Within five minutes of our arrival, three different cab drivers at the train station tried to rip us off by convincing us that the ride to our hotel would cost 100 RMB with the meter on. (It cost about 18RMB, actually) One driver refused to turn on his meter when we go into his cab and tried to explain that it would cost 110 RMB, but when Katie said "weishenme?!" ("Why?!"), he suddenly forgot how to speak English.

On the Bund, however, we witnessed the defining example of locals trying to profit from foreigners. In full sight of everyone, a Bootblack intentionally dripped white paint on the dress shoes of a passing foreign pedestrian, and then offered to polish it off. We have a word for that in my hometown: "chutzpah."

But the pies d'resistance occurred when we were heading back to the train station. After trying in vain to catch a cab for 20 minutes near our hotel, and in risk of missing our sleeper back to Beijing, we got into a cab. The driver moved about ten feet before we told him where we wanted to go, at which point he stopped short, pulled the emergency brake, and declared that his cab was "huai le!" ("Broken!") Then he popped his door, popped the trunk, tossed our bags out, and was on his way while we were left to look for another cab.

I guess he didn't want to go to the train station. In this instance, however, I owe a debt to our Criminal Law professor, who taught us some interesting Chinese phrases that I used to communicate with our Shanghai friend. I told the guy, "ni bu san bu si!" ("You're no three no four!"), which evidently means something along the lines of, "you rascal!" I have no idea what he said back, but I'm sure it was something even more colorful.