SH v BJ, 6-4-2

Lest any readers of this blog come to the hasty decision that Beijing is more awesome than Shanghai because of its more awesome mascots, here is a more comprehensive comparison of the two cities.

cute mascots: BJ
Okay, well... see post on Shanghai World Expo.

clean air: SH
"Clean" is very relative, but the sky in Shanghai was recognizably blue! Currently in Beijing the air looks extremely gray and foggy, with the slightest, almost imperceptible tinge of blue. And the fog is, of course, smog.

cool buildings: SH
Shanghai has very funky architecture. The most famous is the Oriental Pearl Tower, but there is also the Jinmao Tower, and a can opener shaped building currently under construction of which I have forgotten the name - right to left order:

paper/coin currency: BJ
I am in favor of Shanghai abandoning coin currency. In Beijing people use bills even for one kuai (approximately 14 cents) and five jiao (approximately 7 cents). Everything is coins in Shanghai :( a mi wallet no le gusta.

shopping: SH
My judgment on the quality of shopping - and by shopping I mean bargain shopping - is based on very few data points and so is not very accurate, I'm sure. In any case, I have been rather disappointed by shopping in Beijing so far, but we went to Taobao City in Shanghai and that was enjoyable.

A bit of trivia: Taobao is China's equivalent of eBay and it trounces eBay here. Taobao City is a 3-story mall that was opened a few years ago, with 300 stores representing existing sellers on the site. Neat business idea, bridging e-commerce with real life retail.
Another sidenote: Shopping with Stanford people who are not Asian is always quite interesting. One seller tried to tell Pokey that the rhinestones on the cap he was examining/bargaining for were actual diamonds, and thus he should pay more - but even she couldn't keep a straight face.

style: SH
As we pulled into the Shanghai Train Station I received an SMS welcoming me to the 時尚之都, or Fashion Capital. Shanghai is definitely far more fashionable than Beijing. I actually felt semi-inspired to upgrade my usual outfit of Aeropostale polo and jeans, although I did not act upon this semi-inspiration.

ease of transportation: draw
My primary mode of transportation in both cities is taxi, because I don't know the bus and metro routes and I am scared of so many people squishing in public transportation. Taxis are cheap but they are also immensely difficult to flag down! Not much difference between the two cities.

food: draw
All very tasty. 小籠湯包, xiaolongtangbao:


clubs and lounges: SH
I am entirely not qualified to speak on this subject but I vote Shanghai. Perhaps Helen will substantiate this decision in another blog post, or refute it.

wifi: BJ
Being the EECS nerd that I am, I carried my Macbook Pro around with me in Shanghai in my extremely large handbag, searching for wifi. I failed. This despite repeatedly SMSing a Shanghai entrepreneur I met last week, requesting wifi hotspot locations. Oops. Beijing wins because I have internet access here and have successfully located two (! plural!) wifi cafes, which students use to study when their electricity has been turned out at 11 pm.

Master Kong jasmine tea: BJ
Master Kong jasmine tea is my favorite type of bottled tea, easily available from convenience stores in Beijing (or at least those that I frequent). Not so easily available in Shanghai (or at least where I looked). This tea is actually extremely important to my personal happiness, so big plus points for Beijing. See my collection of Master Kong tea bottles:


waterfront: SH
Beijing has Houhai, but Shanghai has the Bund. One side of the river has European-looking buildings lit up in warm yellow and orange tones at night; the other side has neon rainbow-colored alien-looking buildings like the Oriental Pearl Tower.

cooking class! dumplings edition

Yesterday evening, we had our first of four cooking classes--set up by the Stanford in Beijing program, probably because they realized we like to eat and will do anything related to food.

At 6 pm, Tracy, Christian and I walked to the home of a Chinese grandmother who lives near Beida. She spoke no English at all, but was extremely cute, and I think all three of us took an immediate liking to her. We walked up four flights of stairs to her apartment, and she showed us to her kitchen table. She'd already mixed out a little bowl of pork dumpling filling and a little bowl of dough. As she explained what ingredients went into each bowl, we learned out to stretch the dough, snap! it off in pieces, roll it, and wrap the dumplings. All three of us tried all the steps and very quickly learned that we were better at some things than others -- my snapped pieces were all too big or too small; Tracy's rolled dumpling skins looked like amoeba instead of circles; Christian's dumplings were floppy and didn't stand up like they were supposed to. But eventually we found our niches and got a nice little assembly line going, and proceed to pump out slightly deformed dumplings at a good rate.

Eventually we used up all the filling in our little bowl and brought them proudly to the kitchen to be cooked. Our grandmother looked at our misshapen creations and told us, while clearly attempting not to laugh, that they were "not bad." She also informed us that she had actually made some dumplings before we came so we wouldn't eat at 9 pm, and when we went into the kitchen, we found about 100 dumplings beautifully folded. It put our combined 25 dumplings between three people to shame, but we cooked beautiful and deformed dumplings all together, and they were delicious.

Then she fed us apples + pineapples for dessert, hawberry fruit skins for dessert #2, jasmine tea, and chocolate candies to top it off. She chattered while we were eating about how ginger should be added at the beginning of dish preparation since it took a long time for the flavor to be released, and onions should be added at the end, and hawberries are good for digestion, and computer games are addictive, and how she liked to do 24-form taichi.

She was so cute! Next Monday we will be back to make Beijing noodles. Looking forward to it :D

大牛 - not a real post

My father has informed me that "大牛" would be better translated as "big ox" or "big bull" than "big cow." I thus stand corrected.

Shanghai World Expo 2010

In Beijing, everybody is crazy about the 2008 Olympics and the Fuwa (formerly known as Friendlies, but no longer, because the word might be mistaken for "Friendless" or "Friend Lies").

In Shanghai, everybody is still crazy about the Olympics, but also about the 2010 World Expo that will be in Shanghai. Unfortunately, the mascot for the World Expo is not very cute. I think his name is 海寶, hai bao, "treasure of the sea". He looks a little bit like toothpaste.

in shanghai

So both Internet and time are scarce. We'll be back Monday morning (our time) so expect updates in a few!

houhai, and the art of bargaining

A few nights ago, Che, Pokey, Tracy and I made the trek out to Houhai:

Houhai (Simplified Chinese: 后海, English: Back Lake) is a lake in Beijing, part of the Shichahai lake area. In recent years it has become famous for nightlife because it is home to several popular restaurants, bars, and cafes.

It was a cold, rainy Sunday night, and Houhai is well-liked because of its outdoorsy feel -- bars and restaurants around a lake, rooftop terraces, etc -- so it was pretty empty. We ducked into the first not-too-sketchy bar we saw to get out of the rain, and it turned out to be a pretty cozy place with comfy sofas, a synchronized swimming competition playing on CCTV, and a lone guitarist lip synching to American songs.

A very eager waiter (服务员 fuwuyuan) handed us a drinks menu and must've seen the faces we made at the relatively high price of 35 kuai/shot, because we hadn't looked at the menu for ten seconds before he gave us a sideways glance and said, "I can reduce each shot by 5 kuai, if you want..."

Our combined immediate reaction was a, "....what? we're allowed to barter for set drink prices at bars??" But he'd handed us the option, so we happily accepted and ran with it. The ensuing conversation went something like this:

Us: 5 kuai off? That's nothing. How about this, we want to buy in bulk. Give us 8 shots for 150 kuai.
Waiter: 150! That's impossible, way too low. 240.
Us (to each other, while shaking our heads and making faces): There are so many bars around here, we can always go somewhere else, nothing's keeping us here. Nothing special about this place.
Waiter: No other bars will give you discounts! Believe me. No one else! I'm being so generous already [you ungrateful foreigners]. I won't do 150 kuai, but I can pour a little bit more in each cup.
Us: A little bit more? Hmm...all right, how about this. 200 kuai for 8 shots, with a little bit extra poured into each.
Waiter: 200 kuai? [goes over to consult with his fellow fuwuyuan] Okay...200 kuai.
Us: Deal, then! And how about you throw in a free plate of peanuts?

Sometimes it's pretty awesome, this bargaining thing.

Healthy Beautiful Happy Gym

The gym here is called 康美樂, which literally translates to "Healthy Beautiful Happy". I can only aspire to be so awesome at naming gyms.

Anyways, Helen and I have been trying to go every day, since life is less busy here than at Stanford. We succeeded Monday through Thursday last week, failed Friday through Sunday, and have been succeeding this week so far :)

It's interesting to see the set up. There are maybe twenty treadmills, but only four ellipticals, two of which are broken. Not much love for the ellipticals here, I guess. The machines are all lined up against a mirror wall, and on the opposite side there are dance studios where classes such as belly dancing are conducted. My treadmill today was in the perfect location for me to watch the belly dancing class in the mirror. The instructor is male, he likes wearing training-bra-like tops, and he is very exuberant. Take a look:

A less exciting part of my 6km (! crazy! that's the most I've ever run in my life) treadmill run today was the less-than-fragrant guy on the treadmill next to me. He smelled bad as soon as stepped onto the treadmill, before he even started exercising :( When he came I had a very vigorous debate with myself about whether or not I should leave, but my desire to get into shape won out over my poor nose's discomfort, so I got to observe him a little while longer. He was wearing a collared shirt with a pocket in which he put his mp3 player, and khaki shorts, not quite normal gym attire. He ran for about two minutes, then straddled the track as it kept going, and did random squat stretches; stopped the machine, started it again, slowly, and picked up a little bit of speed; then started snapping his fingers and pointing at an invisible crowd and throwing out his arms like a wannabe pop star. It was glorious. He must have been having an excellent make-believe concert.