i don’t do a lot of posts where i complain, but the cats saga is taking its toll on us. our return tickets were long booked on british airways, but if we knew it’d be such a nightmare to ship the cats home, i think we’d have chosen a more pet-friendly airline. say, lufthansa, where your cats fly with you in the cabin, saving you half the trouble.

the service on ba has been appallingly clueless. first they don’t fly the cats in cabin – only cargo. that’s fine, i guess. so what do we need? we call london, we call lisbon, we call shanghai: nobody’s got a straight answer, always ending up forwarding us to somebody else. in shanghai, they forwarded us to the logistics person who is supposed to know these things, but doesn’t have the foggiest idea… first we’re told they can’t ship them to lisbon, to which we reply “but why, if the flights we are flying in have cargo service as well?”, then they suddenly can, then we need extra documents – documents which the entity supposed to issue says we don’t need…

what are these people doing?! so far, this has been the most stressful issue of the whole move. we don’t want to leave them behind, and we surely don’t want to take them to the airport and suddenly realize we’re missing a paper! how hard can it be to figure out these procedures and get a clean algorithm, step by step?!
this is all i want. kthxbye.

i’ve just read this quote on mareen fischinger’s blog (she’s an excellent photographer, btw):

“Being happy does not mean everything is perfect. It means you have decided to look beyond the imperfections.”

apparently, the quote is from albert camus. it stuck with me because i think it sums up rather beautifully my sentiments towards living in shanghai/china these days. in the beginning, we would whine about everything, from the non-queueing to the loud spitting on the floor, the messy and the dirty. and then somewhere in the middle of this year, slowly, things have started to change for me. i started to enjoy life here, in a way that i didn’t before. and i realized that all the imperfections were still there, but i wasn’t giving them as much importance. i wasn’t going to change them, so why bother with raising my eyebrow or complaining?

which sounds simple, but it isn’t. it’s kind of like finding the beauty in the chaos.

(and now i’m going to make some gingerbread cookies)

hello!
posting on this blog has been scarce, and gently replaced by other tasks… here’s a bit of what has been going on:

- i’ve been keeping things running more or less at anita na china and hanzillion, while studying chinese and learning new characters like a mad woman. i’ve finished my first textbook and we’re moving on to a harder one, which uses characters all the way for the texts and exercises. it feels really good to read them now, in full sentences! but i am still too shy to strike up conversations in the street, on the elevator or even with our ayi… which is slowing my learning process a lot, says my teacher. i have to agree, things would go faster if i made the effort to use the language i am learning – must work on that.

- meanwhile, i’ve discovered the wonders of taobao, the chinese ebay site, on which i am now completely hooked. it feels like an online version of my dearly missed mama mini, a shop where you can find the most amazing treasures or everyday items for a small percentage of the price. oh! and all with the chinese convenience of things being delivered to your doorstep on 24 hours, for one euro. :) it’s perfect, and it’s working as a big chinese learning motivator.

- after considering guilin, sanya and thailand, we’ve set or heads on malaysia! we’ve been planning a trip to redang island, which will include lots of sun, sandy white beaches, coral reefs (and some sharks!), blue turquoise sea and snorkeling every day. looking forward to escaping shanghai for a while, especially now that the much dreaded steamy summer season seems to be here to stay, with 30ºC temperatures already!

- i’ve been fighting distractions… and headaches. daily headaches and some dizziness that sent me to the nearest pharmacy, to get checked on my blood pressure. “too high!”, said my mom on the phone. so we’ve been reducing the caffeine & salt intakes to nearly 0. not as hard as i thought it would be. the headaches persisted for a while (lack of caffeine?) but now they are gone and that also seems to be the case with my caffeine dependency too (not that i was that dependent). so how about that? a blog called meia de leite (café latte) written by someone who doesn’t drink coffee anymore! :P

There are many people studying Chinese now. I hope that all of you reporters, and the other ladies and gentlemen in attendance, can take up the study of Chinese. I believe that Chinese is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. Otherwise, how can you explain why 1.3 bllion people have chosen it as their mother tongue?

said by china’s foreign minister, mr. yang jiechi in a press conference this morning.

i have a class in half an hour, am struggling to remember a dozen characters and starting to feel like i want to kill someone. because, you know, it’s so simple!

(from danwei.)

three happy, unrelated facts:

* the other day, on the elevator, i was thinking my job title should be “i make people happy”, insted of webmarketing or something. because i think that’s what i do. i surf the internet all day reading blogs and forums, filtering information, listening to complaints and concerns, reviews and feedback, answering questions. oh, and i send out samples once in a while. everybody likes free samples, and sometimes they even say the nicest things of them. therefore, they’re happy, which makes me happy. :)

* postcards. 1 per minute. sheer happiness being received all around the world.

* on this map of web trends for 2008, based on shanghai’s own metro map, we live on the station “happiness”. it’s clearly a sign.

… se sabiam, à partida, que não havia trabalho para mim?” Volta e meia, a pergunta martela na cabeça de Cláudia Baptista, 29 anos, licenciada em Jornalismo, a trabalhar como técnica auxiliar de educação. Durante quase dois anos, foi estagiária numa rádio nacional.
Começou por fazer um estágio curricular não remunerado, durante três meses, foi convidada a prolongá-lo por outros três. Aceitou. «Durante seis meses, paguei para estagiar», recorda. E depois? «Depois, ofereceram-me ficar a troco de 300 euros, a recibo verde.»
Vivia em casa dos pais, o dinheiro dava para pagar transportes e alimentação. Durante os 13 meses de isenção da segurança social aguentou. O amor à profissão falou mais alto e os elogios constantes que recebia alimentavam a esperança de um contrato. «Trabalhava 15 a 16 horas por dia, editava peças, sonorizava. Tinha responsabilidades de um jornalista, mas, no papel, não deixava de ser estagiária», resume.
Acabada a isenção, «dei ouvidos ao meu orgulho pessoal e profissional que se começava a construir». Pediu que lhe pagassem o salário mínimo e a Caixa. A resposta foi negativa. Cláudia saiu, outros estagiários continuaram. Todos os anos, chegam mais.
À distância de seis anos, Cláudia não consegue criticar apenas a estação onde trabalhou: «Há uma concordância do Estado, instituições de educação, empregadores e sindicatos: todos sabem que esta rotatividade de estagiários existe, mas ninguém faz nada para mudar porque a situação interessa a muita gente.» Não se envergonha de dizer que ainda hoje tem apoio psicológico e deixa o aviso: «Já começámos a gerar uma geração de frustrados.»

e

Apesar da crueza dos relatos, o discurso oficial é positivo. O presidente do IEFP, Francisco Madelino, esclarece que «os jovens licenciados são os que mais rapidamente obtêm trabalho». Demoram oito meses, em média, enquanto os não licenciados levam entre 12 e 14 meses.

da reportagem geração em saldo, da revista visão.

apetece-me comentar (ler puxar orelhas e gritar “acordem para a vida!”), mas é bater no ceguinho. e está-se tão bem em shanghai…

last thursday i ate my first francesinha in a smoke-free café. and let me tell you, it tasted really good. my sincere thanks to all the portuguese smokers out there who are playing by the (new) rules – i appreciate it. :)

ad by tbwa for the world tobacco free day.