Postcards from the Red -- Part I

We're back from Shanghai where we were, well, yeah, Shanghaied. Imagine that. All things considered, however, we had a really great time. Shanghai, if you haven't yet been, is a extraordinary place. It's like an old European city inside communist China, Asia's middle kingdom. There are so many similarities between Seoul and Shanghai, it all felt familiar. And yet, trying to deal with the people or surroundings in the same manner I would here, led to much discomfort.

For example, I wound up sleeping on a chair for the entire duration of the trip. You see, we booked our trip here, in Seoul, with a syrupy sweet, Korean travel agent who assured us that we were paying extra for a king sized bed and a twin bed. With a broad, pearly white smile, she proudly displayed for us our travel vouchers printed with the words, "King + extra bed." When we arrived at our hotel, the delightful Mayfair Hotel, and were shown to a room equipped with a less than king sized bed (the Chinese version, perhaps?) and an oversized chair with ottoman. When I went down to the front desk, voucher in hand, I was told by a snearing young woman of not quite 20-something that I got a king sized bed as I had booked. If I wanted the twin beds, I could switch to that. After climbing the hotel's managerial ladder, I am confident that not only does the Mayfair not offer what I had been promised, but that my travel agent knew full well they didn't.

The difference between the Koreans and the Chinese: A Korean will smile and tell you that they can, of course, solve your problem but without any intention of ever accomplishing said task. A Chinese will look at you with disdain and proclaim your problem is none but your own. When you are used to dealing with one, it makes dealing with the other that much more difficult. Especially given all the other surface similarities. So I attempted to sleep on the chair. It wasn't that bad, except my ass kept falling between the chair and the ottoman. Needless to say, I got my best sleep on the bus. Mike took this picture and entitled it, "Lady Madonna, Baby at your Breast." Clever guy, huh? Wonder how he came up with that one.

Oh, and then I almost got arrested by what I believe to be Chinese government agents posing as ice cream scoops at the local Haagen Daaz on Nanjing Road. As you all know, I am quite fond of taking pictures of unusual and downright assnine signage displayed all over Korea. Well, I figured I'd do the same in China. So I'm sitting at Haagen Daz, which looks to me like any old Haagen Daz ice cream shop, and I noticed this sign. Nothing too unusual. Nothing to really post about, right? But when I snapped the picture, out came this ice cream girl from nowhere, swooping down on my foreign ass with my foreign digital camera and she got all hard ass with me. "No pictures!" she barked. She then called over the manager and a couple of other secret agents posing as ice cream scoops and they all animately discussed my picture taking, complete with pointing at me and the sign. I was a bit scared for a few seconds before realizing that if they did put me in a Chinese prison, I'd probably have a bed to sleep in. (an interesting side note: I had to upload that picture about 15 times before it finally appeared on my blog -- they're everywhere!)

I was pretty well convinced that I was a marked woman being followed by Chinese agents tracking my every move. I tried my hardest to blend in with the crowd, but my kids, they stuck out like sore thumbs. Every cotton pickin' place we went we drew a crowd. Now, we are somewhat used to this living in Korea. I mean, my kids can pull in a good 20-30 people at the mall here, all snapping pictures with their cell phones and vying for position to pose with them. But China... China is so much more. You'd think that my kids were celebrities. Everywhere we went, the people were sure to follow. The kids wanted to plunk money into these musical ride things and by the time we had put the money in and turned around, there was a crowd of people in this little alleyway, with video cameras and the whole bit.

Then we stopped for some ice cream outside a little snack shop. This is the spectacle that resulted. I was waiting for the shopkeeper to ask us to leave since we had caused a huge pedestrian traffic jam. The entire sidewalk was shoulder to shoulder people, spilling onto the street.

Reilly Kate got nabbed several times for photos by herself. This has happened in Korea as well. Once, while in the restroom of an aquarium, it took us 20 minutes to get out since every mother in the john had to have her darling child pose for a pic with RK. I will freely admit that my kids are cute. But they are not that cute. Not at all. I get that it is a novelty for these people to see white kids with blonde or curly hair. But really. Must it be to such an extreme? It freaks the kids out, actually. Roman has taken to spitting at any woman that comes up and says he's cute. I'm sure that'll change once his penis starts doing the thinking for him. But for now, he don't like the chicas who like him.

Okay, folks. That's all for tonight. This photo shit is driving me mad and I've been wrestling blogger for too many hours tonight. I suck at making cool blog entries. But anyway... it's here for you to READ. I'm off to bed. Tune in tomorrow for my report on shopping, haggling, eating and not eating, and general observations on Shanghai.

Tsai Chen.