(this is the big post about china that was missing here, for a bit of context on our daily life.)

on 66 qing dao lu’s blog, JNA (another portuguese living in shanghai) posted a crop of a magazine article, stating the 5 stages of the adaptation to china. a very well written piece by someone who has been in the middle kingdom for the last 3 years. here’s how it goes (some parenthesis are mine):

* Stage One: The Honeymoon Stage - Everything is just plain weird and wonderful. Taxis come in various colours: some have three wheels (though not in Shanghai). Men in beige suits are carrying purses and have extremely long fingernails and some girls are holding hands. Everything is covered in neon. People stare (a lot). Women have umbrellas in the sun. Cheese is a luxury product.
(I would add: people walk around in their pajamas, there are policeman with whistles in every crossroad, the skyline is beautiful, taxis/buses/subway have tv screens, everybody carries green tea in a bottle, people carry the most unusual things in their bikes.)

* Stage Two: The Irritation Stage - Taxi drivers always choose the longest queue at traffic lights. A simple banking operation takes half a day. It’s impossible to buy a return train ticket. It feels like everybody is trying to cheat you. The so-called Caesar salad you ordered is made with spam. Nobody holds the elevator door open. Everyone smokes, even in the hospital.
(I would add: car drivers never give way for ambulances, car drivers don’t care for pedestrians, you are required to register at the police. )

* Stage Three: The Rejection Stage - Give up trying to communicate with Chinese people who don’t speak English (except your taxi driver). Give up learning Chinese. Only shop in Carrefour. Live in a suburban compound. Complain non-stop about the traffic, pollution, bad manners, noisy neighbours, Chinese TV and poor quality products. Get BBC, CNN and a couple of humidifiers.

* Stage Four: The Integration Stage - Buy a bicycle. Start to learn Chinese and practice with the taxi driver. Say hello to Chinese people who say hello to you, even when you have a hangover. Develop a level of patience that Mother Theresa would be proud of. Start shopping in the local fruit market and cooking Chinese food.
(I would add: start to order the hot dishes in the chinese/thai restaurants, get addicted to hot pot, buy fake dvds from the best stalls)

* Stage Five: The Re-Entry Stage - Go back home and realize how tedious “developed” life can be. Become homesick for China and make plans to return.


from here.

we’re in between a few of these stages, perhaps mid-irritated, mid-integrated.

we don’t have satellite tv, and we are happily brainwashed by cctv 9 (china’s only english channel) every morning, and occasionally, the weekend shanghai daily - we take it a grain of salt, things are never what they seem. we found our way around the firewall thing. we bought a bike and we are learning chinese (last week i wrote my first 3-line composition. yay!).

it still feels like everybody is trying to cheat us, but now that we’ve learned how to say “too expensive!” (tai gui le!), our life has entered a whole new level of bargaining. i hate discussions (bargaining included), but maybe this turns out to be the therapy i needed to get over that little phobia.

we still buy at carrefour and other big shops 90% of the time, simply because it involves no bargaining in tricky places in chinese and recognizing the brands makes shopping a lot easier. despite those arguments, we might definitely turn to smaller supermarkets soon, because we’re getting tired of the big ones. the thing is, big supermarkets come with lots of chinese people. and i mean lots, too many! they’re loud, noisy and unfamiliar with the “queue” concept. the whole experience wears us out and by the time we arrive home we’re cursing and exhausted, whether it’s ikea, carrefour or hymall… it’s really difficult to explain, believe me.
i wish we could hop on a plane now and then for a nice saturday morning shopping in the groningen’s market…

and the most noticeable change in 3 and a half months, we’re almost as patient as mother theresa, or buddha himself. the tolerance you build here is amazing. i mean, what other sane options do you have to deal with all the things that go against your normal approach, but to be insanely patient and work your way around it?

i’ve cried in a number of places here, from sheer frustration - some days everything goes wrong. but hey! good things come to those who wait and silly moments make great memories. i’d say that all in all, we’re having a good time. :)

“A verdade é que a China cansa. Os chineses são diferentes. Aquilo que ao início é pitoresco e novidade torna-se exasperante, com o passar do tempo e a repetição das situações.”
em português, outra visão, ligeiramente mais pessimista, que vale a pena ler na íntegra aqui.

this country can be scary. china has been under the spotlight lately, foodwise*, for the wrong reasons: maybe you have (or not) heard of the antifreeze flavoured toothpaste , the curse of pet food, the cough syrup that killed dozens in panama, the cardboard buns, the more recent water scandal…

eventually, the government executed its food and drugs administration director on an attempt to clean up the national image (he accepted bribes to license fake drugs companies). that sends quite a message, but does it work towards actually doing something? and do these things change overnight? hardly.

i’m still not on Jonh Vause’s alarm level, but, after a few food poisonings (thank you mom for slipping some dimicina in my luggage!), i think i got a bit more cautious with what i eat. maybe my stomach wasn’t made for all this novelty and does better with the “cozido à portuguesa” kind of dish, rather than the fried noodles thing.

bummer! :P

* food in the larger sense of the word (includes pills, toothpaste, food and pet food).

i’m waiting for my dumplings to arrive. shrimp and egg yolk steamed dumplings that i can’t wait to get my teeth on, and that are running late. *sigh* meanwhile, a short updates on the last week or so.

* the bad parts: we went to the hospital a couple of days ago to get some antibiotics for a dear infection of mine that comes back once in a while (nothing serious). and p. has come down with a cold. the weather has been terrible. hot and wet. feels like every time we go out, we’re entering the locker rooms of a steamy swimming pool. we start sweating and it’s hard to breathe, and everybody tells us this is just the start. we survive by minimizing our outdoors errands and hopping into an air conditioned room whenever we can. which is not healthy and can cause these occasional summer colds. it sucks.
by the way, thumbs up for huashan hospital,’s foreigners clinic. english speaking personnel, polite and helpful, terrific installations. not that expensive, even.

* the good bits: one of the places where we found salvation from the heat was Garden books, a bookshop on changle lu that sells imported english/german/french books, as well as postcards and moleskines. a little hidden heaven that comes with a cafeteria.

also, we made time to visit city shop, a local (?) supermarket chain that boasts a wide selection of western products and food. no kidding! they had nice bread, roasted chicken, cookies and cereals that we recognized, actual muesli (not the kind of mixed porridge that you boil for hours before you can eat it), cheese, vegetables and whatnot.
and the best of all, they had a fair range of celestial seasonings teas! ever since we visited the celestial seasonings factory in boulder i have been a fan of their teas, not only for the flavours, but for the care and attention they put into each of the packs they produce. the people there are nice beyond courtesy and were actually very helpful when p.’s asian porsche broke down in their parking lot, on a hot september day. :)
celestial seasonings puts a smile on my face and makes me dream of going back to colorado. we got the imperial white peach tea, apple cinnamon spice and the honey and vanilla chamomile tea, which should be enough to keep me dreaming for a while.
we didn’t find paulo’s dear dutch vla in city shop though, but i think shanghai must have a campina importer, somewhere. it’s a matter of time till we find one, or we start making our own.

* the so-so: on other news, we’re headed to hong kong tomorrow, to take care of some visa-related bureaucracy. hopefully, when we come back, we’ll be “legal aliens” (literally, my application paper for a visa reads “alien application”), and most importantly, we won’t have to worry with entering/leaving china for a year, because we’ll be free to do it whenever we want to.
i’m curious to see how much of china is there in hong kong, and how much of britain/europe is there too. hong kong is celebrating its 10th anniversary of the return to china this week, so the city should be vibrant with life. sadly, it’s a one-day trip, so we won’t have much time for sightseeing, but we’ll gather some impressions and perhaps the appetite for further exploration.

(photo of the celestial seasonings tea tasting room by electra-cute)

a semana passada deixei a minha contribuição no mind this gap, uma iniciativa da dona Maria, que tem por intuito perceber o que leva os licenciados a sair de (ou voltar para) portugal.
deixo-a também aqui. pode ser que algum leitor mais hesitante nos siga o exemplo e se aventure… :)

Ana Campos, Engenheira de Sistemas e Informática. Shanghai, China

Como muitos destes testemunhos, a minha aventura começou numa experiência Erasmus, no norte da Holanda. Seis meses na Universidade de Groningen que se estenderam em mais seis, num estágio numa empresa na mesma cidade. Durante esse ano morei com pessoas de todo o mundo e aprendi mais do que em qualquer outro. E percebi que, como alguém dizia, “Home is where the heart is”.

Depois de um ano na Holanda (eu) e 9 meses nos Estados Unidos (o namorado), achamos que o rumo era a Ásia, desta vez juntos. Enviamos currículos, fizemos entrevistas à distância, investigamos, tiramos notas, abrimos mil e uma vez o Google Earth, na tentativa de perceber a geografia de uma cidade distante. Escolhemos Shanghai porque nos atraiu o potencial da maior cidade da china, que combina o dinamismo de uma mega-metrópole e a diversidade da cultura chinesa.

Não viemos por falta de emprego em Portugal, ou motivados por questões financeiras. Viemos para fugir da rotina que se acomoda naqueles que ficam por território seguro e conhecido. Viemos pela diferença, pelo choque cultural, pelos cheiros e sabores, pelas coisas que não se aprendem nos livros ou na semaninha de férias no estrangeiro. Viemos para fugir ao crédito à habitação, ao carro pago às prestações, às pequenas coisas que nos amarram aos sítios de onde nunca mais temos coragem de sair.

Por isso em Abril embarcamos num avião e cá estamos, felizes e empregados, a descobrir aos poucos uma cidade nova. Daqui a uns anos, quando nos fartarmos ou quando nos picar outra vez o bichinho (ou as saudades) e nos mudarmos para outro continente, volto a escrever outra entrada. Até lá!

things we did since we arrived, last sunday:

* took a ride on the fastest train in the country

* opened a bank account (on a sunday afternoon)

* learned the basic traditions regarding a chinese wedding (including matching dolls and a red egg in the bed, special sweets, three sets of dresses, dragons and phoenixes, etc… )

* ate a traditional chinese “banquet” cooked by a friend’s father in law and then another one by her own parents

* been on the subway close to the rush hour (but haven’t had the courage to try the real rush hour yet)

* only used chopsticks and spoons to eat, so far

* visited several houses looking for a place to live

* got chinese mobile numbers and transportation cards

* were driven on crazy taxis through the city

* sort-of learned how to cross a street (still not very clear though)

* i did two interviews and got a job offer

* plus i went through the wonderful experience of peeing in a typically asian restroom (not something i would like to repeat).

the first taxi ride was specially painful. we were extremely tired and jetlagged and no one warned us the traffic rules around here worked based on the car’s horn. they drive like crazy, switching lanes quickly, honking, as if saying “step away, here i come!!”. can you imagine me in the back seat, scared to death, grasping paulo’s hand, just wishing i could get out? (i suspect ever since, lulu has been asking taxi drivers to drive a bit better or i might start to cry.)
oddly, i haven’t seen a single accident since i’m here. i’m starting to think there’s some sort of magnetic repulsion between cars. that’s the only logical explanation i can come up with.

it’s been a daily surprise, and it’s only just started.

now that the university is over and i hop intermitently between several places, without a regular routine, time has gained a strange anti-dimension. march was a non-existent month, i had trouble remembering the days of the week, what month it was even.

but with shanghai’s deadline on sight already, things seem to be fitting into place and more, i start paying more attention to things i know i probably won’t see in a while…
… lisboa, the light reflected on the buildings and on the imense water of the tejo river. lisboa makes the usual things sound special, the bica (coffee) and the pastel de belém (little custard cream tarts) with cinnamon…
… ermesinde, where i gathered a few friends for a sort of farewell dinner on the usual café, whose “francesinhas” (this dish i won’t even try to translate) i will surely miss. not as much as i will miss the smiles of the people around that table.


… celorico de basto, what we call “our village“, the place where most of my family lives. spring is in full swing now, trees and fields have a bright green shade, there are birds singing, the church bell rings.

… and braga, in my own house. the grass, the people on the streets, the flavours and scents on the cafés we’ve been to a thousand times before.

it’s hard to wrap up memories, but everything is more real and vivid on the eve of leaving. having been away of portugal for a while in the past, i realise how ridiculous it can be to say bye-bye, specially on this “online” era. life goes on, we soon forget the tears in the airport, months pass by and before we know it, we’re back to hug everybody, only to feel the eagerness to leave again, a week after that. it’s a cycle, hardwired to our “explorer minds” and difficult to explain.
my grandma says i’ve lost the “fear”, and now, nothing will hold me. i feel she’s right.

dear friends.
after six months here in portugal to wrap things up at the university, i am now, officially, an “engineer”. a pretty clueless one, career-wise, but i’m working on that bit. ideally, i would like to develop my designing skills, as i realize i still have a long way to go to get any good. i like information visualization and interface designing, but i want to explore a lot more before i choose what i really want to focus my attention on.

on a different (but related) subject, and since i’ve told it to my parents and most friends, i can give the rest of the internet the big news too: we’re moving to shanghai, me and p.
yes, shanghai. the biggest city in china, the 8th in the world, the “pearl of the orient”.
after my one year in the netherlands, and p’s 6+9 months in the netherlands and the usa, i think the “exploring bug” really got into us.
it just seems right. the right timing, the right city, the right person to hold my hand on the plane. and besides, if you don’t trust your intuition, what else do you have?

the details of the process of moving there include job hunting, a house, plane tickets and luggage allowance, visas and plenty other details that will keep us busy on the next few weeks. i’ll try to keep you posted. wish us luck! :)