The One with the Shanghai Afterthoughts I

Some things about Shanghai I disliked:

1) The Air. I love the cold weather. But the air. It's really bad. Atrocious even. Every night I'll just dig through my nostrils and discover they're like black, Really black. Like soot black. Pollution is really bad there.. though others swear Beijing is worse (I'm gonna bring a gas mask there) and Hongkong isn't that swell, but I still think currently Shanghai's air is bleargh. Amazingly though I read in Times that some Beijing people moved from Beijing to Shanghai on the account of the better air quality. Go figure. We've taken our clean air for granted all this while. It's really great to be able to breathe in deep without choking. The air pollution can be attributed by a few factors some of which will be covered below..

2) The Smokers. It's really scary where they can smoke. There are like no limits. People smoke everywhere. Hotel lobbies, shopping centres, lifts, on the streets (duh) and worst. In restaurants. Nothing like having 2nd hand smoke for like 15hrs of your day. Everywhere we went it was smoke, smoke and more smoke. Except the metro. But once they got off the train and onto the platform, it's smoke smoke and more smoke. You're enjoying your wonderful traditional chinese food, and you smell smoke. You're in the lift with nowhere else to go, and you kenna smoke. You're jostling to get into the Train station and you smell smoke. You're happily shopping in the store and you smell smoke. In this aspect, I'd have to thank Singapore for being so FINE.

3) The Construction Works. Shanghai today is like a giant construction site. Everywhere is underconstruction in the city. Which is weird coz I thought the Games in 2008 were in Beijing. Maybe they're finally building giant air filters? But basically every single place we went was under construction. Which accounted for much for the dust flying around in the air. That coupled with my sinus problem basically gave me a hell of a cold and a whooping cough.

4) The Spitters. Shanghainese love to spit. Everywhere. But this time limited to out in the public places and not in buildings. Thank God. It's like walking on the street, and you'll hear someone clearing their throats and going KA-PUI. It's not just the old foggys doing it. I personally saw a pretty 20+ year old girl dressed rather fashionably walking along the road, when suddenly she gave out a loud KAAAAAAA.. and PUI'd right infront of me. I would like to believe it wasn't intentionally aimed at me though. I attribute the spits to the air. I felt compelled to clear my throat all the time too.. but I limit myself to the toilet.

5) The Lack of Dustbins. They have zilch dustbins on the streets. Maybe they have some. But so well concealed that I was unable to find them and sometimes even spent up to 1/2hr holding onto my rubbish. Sad. Due to this lack of dustbins, people threw stuff everywhere. They can be peeling oranges, then the next minute, just dumping it on the street.. the skin of course. If you think MRTs removing dustbins on the platforms and from the stations were bad, you'll hate having to search high and low for a dustbin.

6) The Crowds. Oh I hate crowds. I hate rush hour traffic in Singapore. I hate being stuck in a jam. I hate countdowns where I'm stuck in a mass of 1,000s of people. I hate squeezing onto a cramped MRT train with other commuters and being unable to get a seat. I hate squeezing onto a crowded bus. Basically. I hate crowds. Which is why I detested taking the metro, train and bus in Shanghai. (Ok, bus not so bad) But the metro and train were like FWAH. It's hard to describe how it's like to get into a metro station, on the train, then out and back onto the street. It's also hard to describe how I get onto a train to get to other provinces. But I will try. Imagine this. Imagine the Christmas shopping crowd at orchard roads this past weekend. Got it? Now. Imagine the same amount of space, yet multiply the people by 4x. That's the crowd you'll get at the metro station. 24/7. (Until they close at 10pm that is) Every single time I took a train at different times of the day, I kenna this giant mass of people. You don't get much space and people are frequently shut out of the train due to lack of space. Worse. Before the train doors open, you'll have to position yourself strategically or you'll be left out. The train station for travel to other provinces is slightly worse. You do get assigned seats. So seats aren't a problem. But as my photos will attest, the crowd is similar in size, if not, more than those in the metro stations. When entering the station to get to Shuzhou, we weren't walking along. We were pushed along and shoved along through the entrance and through the gates before being able to walk to our designated carriage. Scary. But coming back, I love being able to walk with so much space. I love space. Oh yes.

7) The Shoving and Cutting of Queues. A traditional aspect of the Shanghainese is to shove and cut. Shove people to get where they want. And in the process, cut the queue. There is also the peaceful option of just cutting the queue without shoving. I shall illustrate my point. They love to shove each other to get to the trains (metro and train) first. At the metro station, they'll shove each other rather violently to rush in and get seats. And the train stations, they'll shove the entire crowd along until they get into the gates. It's really shoving due to the entire mass of people, and it's justified shoving. To them anyway. This isn't the shoving you get in zouk from horny guys trying to get fresh with the girls trying to justify that there's a crowd behind them (which there isn't) but in china, there are people everywhere. So it's kinda justified. But the shoving for the train seat abit extreme. There's another way of cutting the queue. And that's pretending not to see the person infront. Like for example, we were waiting outside a cab for the passenger to alight after he was done paying the fare. Once the person stepped out, a middle aged auntie promptly came out of nowhere and opened the door infront of me and basically shoved her big ass into the cab and ordered the driver to drive off. It left me screaming fuck! fuck! fuck! after her but I think she didn't recognise english. She also didn't understand hokkien hence my barrage of hokkien was useless. I was extremely pissed. But I let it pass. It's their culture to cut. So, give in la.

8) The Shouting. When Shanghainese talk, they shout. And when you bargain, they shout. Basically I don't like to be shouted at. And all of them remind me of my dad. So I don't really like it. I'm not deaf, don't shout at me. Simple as that. It's kinda annoying when people keep shouting at you. Another reason they shout is because they're kinda open in the aspect that they will speak their mind. Case in point: An american was walking along the street with his arm around a china girl. A guy goes up and offers to sell watches. The girl tells him in chinese to bugger off. He practically shouted after her "Chou por niang! You think this road is yours? And let loose lotsa chinese verbal abuse" It's cool that they speak their mind. But just don't shout so much. Even on the cell phone. Argh. Shout shout shout. So much noise. So many people. So cannot take it.

9) The Traffic. Their traffic lights are kinda useless. Even when the green man is on my side, I'm still obligated to let cars pass. It's an unwritten rule. And apparently after consulting one of the locals there, they have no such traffic rule that the cars can't pass when the green man is on the favour of the pedestrian. Then what's the bloody light for? It's really quite dangerous siaming traffic. But one gets used to it after a few times. Heh. And we like to cross with locals. Use them as shields. Kenna knock also they buffer for us. Evil!

10) The Horning. Amazingly in Shanghai, there's another traffic rule. Unspoken. Unwritten. And that's the bigger your vehicles is, the more you have the right of way. Hence here, bus drivers reign supreme. The very first day I took a shuttle bus service from the airport to the city and the blaring of horns along the way by the bus driver alone far exceeded the number of times I horned the car in Singapore for one year combined! Everything also horn. Horn horn horn. The horning is so bad that they even put up "no horning" signs on certain streets. Crazy but true. Every other second confirm can hear horn one. I don't like. I prefer the peaceful way of letting the guy pass and that's it. Prior to Shanghai, one stupid china woman tried to cycle and cut my car when I'm turning. I dunno why she thought she could pedal faster than me pressing the gas pedal, but i had to e-break to avoid hitting her. Yet I didn't horn. But the car behind me did. horned her like 10 times when I swerved into the other lane and he was stuck with her infront of him. Heh.

11) The Traffic Lights on the Expressway. I mean. It's the expressway. Can't they build a flyover? We were held up more than 6 times along the way back to the airport on the last day due to the red lights on the expressway. And we were almost late for our flight! It's crazy, I mean, suddenly from 120km/h break. Wait for 2mins or more, queue accumulates, and later kenna stop again. They should wake up their idea and make the expressway a true blue expressway with no lights. Silly people.

12) The Credit Cards. They rejected my Mastercard. Ouch. The department stores actually rejected my Mastercard. Boy did they lose out. I spent 800RMB combined in two stores and if I could use my card, it'll easily have been 2,000RMB. Silly silly people. Amazingly they prefer cash to credit cards. So you'll actually see people using thick wads of cash instead of cards. Those that do accept cards, only accept local credit cards. It's quite dumb. We take for granted that any Giordano in Singapore accepts credit cards. But not there. Similarly, a damn posh high class restaurant NOT in the tourist district also doesn't accept credit cards. These guys are really losing out and making my pocket thin out. I could have spent so much more. But then. Sigh. Silly silly department store.

13) The Touters. It's not that bad really. Which is why I mention them last. At Xiang Yang Night Market, we were bombarded by touters. Damn scary, they'll chase after you and attempt to sell you that LV bag or PRADA wallet from an authentic catalog. Very persistant buggers but I choose to decline them politely instead of telling them to bugger off. I mean, must give them credit for "working" instead of sitting on their bums and begging. Will be easier to illustrate all my points with pictures which are coming soon!

Shanghai isn't that bad. It's quite nice actually. Next post will be about nice stuff in Shanghai! 24hrs later that is..