little trouble in big china

The more observant among you may have noticed a new tab up at the top there.  Of course, the more observant among you may also be using an RSS reader and have no earthly idea what I'm talking about.  There's a new section, off-blog, for food/dishes/meals I think people might be particularly interested in, but for which I don't want to take up excessive amounts of blog space.  More info if you're interested, or you can click on the Food tab at the top of the homepage.

The winner of the cracker-flavor poll, if not the overall tasting, is Ma La Tang (it was close for a while, but I got another offline vote that put the result beyond doubt).  Tasting has begun, but has been suspended for a few days as I have more family members in town keeping me fed like a paté-bound goose.  No room for crackers right now. Thanks to all of those who cast a vote, and hopefully I won't be keeping you in suspense too long!

[By the way, I really wanted to title this post, "Yes, I have an addiction" but I was afraid there weren't enough Dexter fans out there to get the reference.]

This is not a new problem. I've had this problem for many years, in many cities, and over time it has manifested itself in my 600+-book collection (I know, it's not in the thousands or anything, but I've been young and working for peanuts for much of that time.  And I still regret getting rid of a number of my books after college and in Boston).  My addiction to collecting books on the cheap has been fed primarily at the New England Mobile Book Fair (which is outside of Boston and not at all mobile, in case you're curious) and at the Strand, which is one of my favorite places in New York, and possibly the planet, but also at numerous used bookstores, public and university libraries, and yard sales. 

I thought things would be under control here in Shanghai, because I'm back to not having a salary, and English-language books are both hard to find and expensive here.  I knew I'd still want things to read, of course, so not knowing what might be available from the library system, I connived, through various means, to assemble a small collection of about 20 of my books from home here.

Then I happened to be in the Western supermarket this week (only the second time I've been in almost two months; not too bad, right?), and there was a sign on the bulletin board about an American Women's Book Fair (sale), proceeds to benefit charity.  This weekend!  I thought I'd go browse, maybe see if they had any other upcoming expat activities or events that might be interesting. So I trekked out to the other side of the city -- which turned out to take even longer than I had anticipated, as I emerged from the subway only to find that I was still over a mile from my destination.

The good thing about getting to book sales late in the day is that they tend to slash the prices.  In this case, the sign outside the book-sale room said things were 50% off.   When I got inside, I was told that actually, they were at the "fill a [shopping] basket for RMB20" stage.  RMB20!  That's less than US$3, even with the falling exchange rate!  I probably would have paid RMB20 for just two of the books I picked up -- (Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Jon Stewart's Naked Pictures of Famous People), so really, it was like everything else was free.  Talk about being enabled!

So as you can see, I returned with some good loot, about twenty books in all (RMB1 each!) -- some fluff, but I also bought some "good" books, including No Country for Old Men (since I'll probably never get around to seeing the movie), A Man in Full, The Virgin Suicides, and Angela's Ashes.  Now the only problem is that I have no bookcase (nor really a place to put one)...

Almost a full month later, video of the New Year's madness is finally up.   I didn't mean to keep everyone in suspense for so long, but it was taking me hours to upload each video (most of which will play for you in under two minutes!).  Also, I have to apologize for the video quality, but will explain/forewarn you that: (a) I shot this with my dinky point-and-shoot camera, (b) it was the first time I'd used the video function on said camera, and (c) as you'll see, I had a hard time breaking the still-photography habit of being able to switch from portrait to landscape (vertical/horiz) and back, but (d) attempting to edit nearly crashed my computer.  So sorry about that.  It shouldn't make you dizzy or anything...  :)

One more note -- I didn't use flash for any of these, there was no lightning going on, no other source of brightness... all of the flashes of light you see in the sky, reflecting off buildings, etc. are from the fireworks. Anyway, without further ado:

1. This is how it starts -- around 7:30pm, on the corner.  There were a lot of little displays like this from about 5pm on; I captured this one because it was so close to my window.  I think I actually had the window open for this one, so if you adjust your file volume and speakers to full blast (and your speakers are really good), you might *start* to get an idea of what it sounded like.  And if you listen carefully, you can hear a couple car alarms going off.  Thankfully, these were easily drowned out later in the evening.  (<2 min)

2. This is at maybe 10pm, to the right of my apartment block.  Notice the flash of light in the street -- the source of the 'works, and the car that just drives by like nothing's going on. (~30sec)

3. Some sparklies, enh.  I just stuck these in because they were a little different. (<10sec)

4. These were the displays right in front of me; some of the fallout embers hit my window.  (Windows are definitely closed by this point, by the way.)  Again, you can see the boxes left in the street and a car making its way between them. (~45 sec)

This is where things start ratcheting up, probably just about 11:45.

5. Nice big tower of light.  (< 2 min -- sadly, I used up too much memory on this one.  I didn't know!)  

6. In addition to the displays that are clearly closest, I count at least five viewable in the distance.  (~30sec) 

Are you ready yet?  I don't think you're ready.  Volume up?   Oh, you think you're ready... well, welcome to the Big Show. 

7. Gaah, where to look?  Semi-panorama view.  (~30 sec) 

8. Now we're talking. (~45 sec)

9. Right, left, everywhere, but mostly distant.  Keep in mind that my windows are firmly shut at this point, and my crappy little camera *still* picked up this much noise (is your volume up?  That won't make sense unless your volume's turned up).  (~40 sec)

10. View to the right. (~30 sec) 

No, I don't; I just think it would be really fun to be able to say that. So I can't, but thousands of people in Hong Kong can.  See, Shanghai is flat, flat, flat, but Hong Kong... Hong Kong has some steep hills.

To explain: the south side of Hong Kong Island features mountains, the most prominent (and developed) of which is Victoria Peak.  Some very rich people live at the top of the Peak.  A number of moderately rich people live about halfway down the Peak, in what's called Mid-Levels.  Many of these people work in downtown Hong Kong, on the north side of the island, near the harbor, meaning where things are flat.  The subway travels mostly east-west on this flat part, so the north-south (or high-low) commuters have a different mode of transportation:  escalator (that's it to the right of the guardrail in the photo below).

A handful of escalators -- some of them are actually inclined travellators (no stairs) -- cover major routes from Mid-Levels to downtown (they're not on every street, just a few).  The escalators have regular breaks at the cross streets, so you can get on or off at almost any intersection.  Stairs and/or sloped pavement run alongside, for people going the opposite direction or those who like to step off the electric path (or, as in at least one case that I saw, the extraordinarily fitness-crazed). In the morning, the escalators run downhill.  From about 10 or 11am on (I forget exactly), they run uphill.  Which basically means that if you have a reverse commute, you're getting some good exercise.

Well, it's been a while since the Mr Chips fiasco, and I've decided that in the name of frivolous and possibly masochistic blogging, it's time to continue my search for a good packaged salty snack.   This "vegetable snack" cracker seems to be both ubiquitous and cheap, so I've assembled the following flavors for sampling:

(clockwise from top left) Pizza, Cherry Tomato, Tomato, Hot Welsh Onion, Cumin, and Shrimp Salad.

And because the blog likes to promote interactivity, I'll also agree to try another flavor of your choosing -- selection list here (scroll down to photo).  If more than one person writes in, I'll sample the flavor that gets the most votes.  In the case of a tie, I will go with whatever sounds better when I'm standing in the store.  You have until Friday to write in, so if I have a salt craving this weekend, there may be a writeup fairly soon.  No promises, though!

Why don't we have these in the States?  Wait, do we have them in the States?  I've never seen one.  It's a coin-operated mobile-phone recharger, with all different kinds of jacks provided.  I saw this one at the Shanghai airport.  I can't tell you how many times I've been away from home (and charger) and just needed an extra half hour of juice (OK, so I don't always practice proper phone care - but I know I'm not the only one!).

After all of my moaning and groaning about winter and snow, it only seemed fair to share with you that Shanghai is now sunny, snow-free, and, dare I say it, almost warm!  I haven't shelved my winter coat entirely, as it's still down in the low 30s at night, but my daytime walks are far more pleasant these days.