Another week, another thought

Another week in Shanghai burning candles on both end. Working for 12 hours and entertain another 6, and then back to the grinder the next day. If you already tire reading about this, you know how I feel.

Yet there are times this kind of entertainment is unavoidable. For starter, I have a houseguest, together with my other expat friends we decided that we could ignore the downpour to patron one of the more famous Mexican restaurant. Yes, Mexican.

Believe me, I try all day couldn’t get thru the line for reservation. My friend told me not to worry it is a big place, and how wrong was he, even though it is a huge place and a weeknight, and pouring rain on the outside. We were denied entrance for no reservation. A little disappointed on the other hand I am not kin on spending 600-700rmb for Mexican dinner anyway. With my luck we decided to go to another place, and it turn out to be a very decent dinner. An A+ since the dishes tasted nothing out of ordinary. If it is not because all the chefs in the kitchen were Chinese, I will not noticing any difference between Mexican restaurants back home.

Thursday night I went to the only Vodka bar in Shanghai. My first in four month to wander out on a school night, because I had no choice but to entertain one of my new found friend here in the city. The décor is nothing fancy, but the price was. The bar got pack at 11PM, like everywhere else in the world; needless to say, I stayed a little too long, and broke the bank along the way. Does it worth it? I suppose so.

That bought me to the point of my blog this week. A lot of you had been following my adventure since I got here, you also saw the changes on subjects from culture shock, to making fun of the experience, to a little more of my own opinion recently. I am hoping that everyone reading this blog and my encounter with a little humor, and not take it so seriously. After all this is only my personal encounter, your experience may not be the same as mine.

What worry me is that I am starting to get email from friends saying that they have not desire to live or visit china after reading what I encounter. In the contrary, I wanted you to come visit and see for yourself. We cannot always use the standard in US to judge other culture. European cultures are not Eastern culture. You wanted to expand your horizon, go south or East.

I hope I did not paint a negative picture for you on China. A lot of the articles that you read in some odd ways were true, but yet it is far from the experience I had here. Just like most people from Far East we are all over weight pigs, ate steak every night. Most of us wear boots and cowboy hats. Do we?

Yes culture different is expected isn’t that make the world interesting? How would you like it if I fed you just your favorite dish repeatedly, without changes for the rest of your live. In a way we are living in a monoculture, every cities and towns you can find the same thing. We can call it unification of a culture; others may consider it as boring.

In a city like Shanghai, it is actually not really China. Just like visiting Hong Kong is not really visiting the orient, it is just big shopping trip to the mall.

This is just my opinion.

Chance Encounter Shanghai.