Shanghai People on Sunday, 8/1/10

Today was a little warmer than yesterday, if that's possible. (I remember my wife's Grandma Connie uttering the amazing words, "it's too hot to die" back in 1981 when she was in her last year.) It turns out the actual temp was 39 C or 102 F for those of you following along at home. I walked around with a couple of Staples people as we tried to find some key sites on one of the walks in the book I referenced yesterday. After a couple of hours, I had to bail on them because I wasn't enjoying it due to the heat. So after a couple of rest periods and a meal, I decided to walk to a book store located nearby. No problem found the bookstore which had many English language books and I will frequent this place again. Then I decided to find an electronics market looking for a converter, not just for the plug end but a 110 to 220, no luck.

Buoyed by this success I decided to walk to another bookstore approx. 1 mile away. Well, I got good and lost and getting overheated. After several breaks and more confusion, even with a map (who knew the road I was on was a huge circle?), I found my way to the metro to go back home. I bought a couple of Gatorades along the way, got back to my apartment and then slept from 6 PM until 3 AM. No dinner again.

I would like to let you know about the people here. While individually everyone is nice. A "ni hao" (hello) always gets a great response back from the locals, as does "zia jian" (goodbye). It feels a lot like NYC with less rules while you're out on the streets. Drivers are totally out of control. The lane markings are not even a guide, red lights don't even slow down right turners. With a countdown on the flashing green walk signs, it only gives the drivers a chance to lurch forward in anticipation of the light change. Add to that, bicycles, mopeds and motorcycles, all of which can be coming down the sidewalk toward you or from behind since they drive in either direction on either side of the street and you have total chaos for a foreigner. My guess is that with this many people here if you really enforced the rules, you would have a huge logjam with no movement. Also, drivers love to use their horns and flash their lights at each other but most are immune to this and don't react. Also, pedestrians are at the bottom of the food chain as drivers rarely slow down for pedestrians, they just lay on the horn and keep going, even with a green cross walk sign.

In public when walking around, it is similar. Everyone wants to beat you to the next spot. People queue up for entering subway trains without allowing anyone the space to exit which just creates a massive jam of people trying to move in both directions when the doors open. When buying my Gatorade yesterday in a supermarket, the guy who I "beat" by slowly strolling to the line for the cashier was so upset, he paced around me trying to find an angle where I wasn't looking to push his way in front of me. On subways, people race for seats and are quite satisfied when they find one.

A lady was trying to manhandle her scooter into her courtyard and was shocked when I held the steel grate open for her while she negotiated the weight of the bike up and over the edge of the step down she had to push it over.

The guy who finally told me how to get "un-lost" was someone I approached with trepidation with map in hand trying figure out how to ask him where I was so I could just catch the subway back. So when he asked me, "Are you lost?" in English, I was relieved. We had a nice conversation and when I left he chased after me to give a plastic holder for my map so it wouldn't get ruined.

Final set of comments. Shanghai doesn't close, ever. Sundays are like any other day. The guys doing construction across the street with three huge cranes began work with booming sounds Sunday at 6 AM, but I out-smarted them by not sleeping past 5 AM even though I went to bed at midnight. I'll show them they can't wake me up! Shoppers were again all over, the streets are crowded with families, restaurants are full of people, I'm looking forward to cooler days in a few weeks!