Today is a rainy day.

Somehow I still don’t have my job stuff settled. It’s been so long, I’m over being anxious about it. That repressed anxiety might be the reason why my body only lets me sleep a little less than four hours a night. I get to sleep just fine, but then I wake up at four and that’s all I get. Which sucks today because I anticipate a big night tonight in honor of Mardi Gras. My friend Emily is from New Orleans and even made a big trek one Sunday morning to go to the Café Du Monde here all the way out in Pudong. I think it says something about my growing maturity that I didn’t even think twice about the name of this area of town across the river until Laura laughed at it.

Anyways, Emily, Steph, and I and two other of our girlfriends will be wearing sparkly sequined dresses tonight on our night out to celebrate. I’m excited to have an excuse to wear that getup again.

So it’s early in the morning, I’ve been up since four and already had my omelet and by big mug of espresso that I make Italian style on the stovetop (plus some instant mashed potatoes a few hours back during those no man’s land hours) and now I’m debating ordering a bagel with cream cheese to be delivered to me by a “Sherpa” the name of the fleet of motorcycles that delivers food from many of the restaurants in town. I found a bagel company here! I miss them so much. That, pancakes, and lasagna.

I applied for a Chinese reality show the other day. I really want a call back for an interview. I met a bunch of expats who were working for the show at a house party on Friday that I stayed at for way too long while trying to convince them that my personality is perfect for reality tv. See, I always thought that I would be good for reality tv because I am dramatic and obnoxious, but I would never do it in America because then everyone would see just how dramatic and obnoxious I really am. But here there would be no witnesses back home.

Ok I’m ordering the bagel. Actually…I decided against it because online there is no location address and no reviews of this place and I’m pretty sure if there was a bagel delivery store in Shanghai I would have heard of it before finding it trolling the internet at 4 am this morning. And I am especially suspicious of scams after the Daft Punk ordeal a couple of weeks back. Daft Punk are a couple of really popular French DJs. An office held in a loft apartment in an artsy district was selling tickets for 500 RMB (75 bucks). The concert date was given but the time and location were not. People were told to just keep their cell phones nearby and wait for a text with the information. The scam artists got away with the money and the several hundred people who got screwed were pissed enough to start an investigation that even has the French embassy involved.

Speaking of food, or well…I actually just talking about scams so speaking of awesome deals, I found a new, potentially favorite, street food today. There is a cart with different small buckets like at a salad bar with different vegetables and forms of tofu (tofu here comes in shapes, sizes, and textures that I’d never encountered in my 10+ years as a vegetarian in the States) that you pick up with tongs and drop into a little square tray. Then the lady manning the booth weighs out your tray and then mixes what you’ve gathered with sesame oil, peanut oil, chili oil, peanuts, sesame seeds, chopped up garlic, and a ton of cilantro (which I like now that I’m not living in my mother’s house) plus some powders. Due to experience with Chinese food I’m pretty sure those powders are sugar, salt, MSG (mmmm love it), and chicken bouillon. Then she hands it to you in the thinnest sandwich-sized plastic bag you ever saw because that’s what they use for everything here. At the grocery store, people put the leaky, thinner-than-saran-wrap bags filled with newly beheaded fish on the conveyer belt and it leaves pungent wet streaks. Sometimes they miraculously hold up, but this one was leaking all over the place during my 20 minute walk home while I picked at it with my fingers covered with 5 year old snot.

I’m working a little right now (thus the snot). Every afternoon for an hour at one of the most prestigious kindergartens in Shanghai I have two thirty minute classes with some brilliant 5 year olds. When I come in I shake all of their hands and get them to say “Good afternoon Rachel” and then at the end I give them all a high-five and tell them that they did a good job.

Waffles. Waffles would also be good. Specifically the ones Dad used to make in our old waffle maker that were really crispy with shallow syrup divots.

I also applied for a job as a Jewish extra in a Chinese film. There are often postings on the online classifieds for specific types of extras. This is the first ad I saw for Jews. I didn’t give them my address in case it’s all a neo-nazi scam.

Oh I had my Chinese ex-coworkers over for dinner and, no, I did not make them lasagna even though I would have loved to shove some of that into my face because I do not have an oven. I don’t even have a toaster with which to toast my non-existent bagel from the bagel scammers. I felt limited as to the American food I could provide them with only a stovetop. I didn’t want to make them something that they have already had in a Western restaurant like burgers or pasta. And so I made them hummus, bruschetta, broccoli and cheese, and couscous and I also bought some pita bread at the western grocery store. I made all of the food for them so we could eat it when they arrived at 6 because Chinese people like to eat early. But then they were an hour and a half late because my old job, didn’t let them leave until 6:30.

They came, they brought Chinese wine which was cute of them even though Chinese wine is grosssss, and the food was cold. They HATED the food which was hilarious to me. I wanted them to discuss exactly what they hated about it but they had to be polite guests and so we couldn’t play our usual game of closely examining the differences in our cultures. To be fair, hummus isn’t exactly the most easily likeable food. Cold mush. I think someone told them that in America it is respectful to finish your food (in China you should never finish all of your food because then it means that the hosts didn’t have enough to serve you). One girl begged me to not have to finish her cheese that came with the broccoli. Eventually, I brought out some Chinese snacks I had in the pantry. When I automatically put the napkin in my lap before the meal, I watched them all exchange glances and then mimic my movements in unison.

Over the course of the dinner I found out that one of the girls was a practicing Buddhist and I told them I was Jewish. They said that that means I am very smart and I asked them what else it meant, knowing what they would say. One of them finally admitted that it meant that I was very rich too. Chinese have a certain, limited but not entirely unflattering opinion of Jews. They think that we are all good businesspeople.

I accomplished my goal last week and bought a bike. Back then for a few brief days I had a steady job that I could bike to in the mornings. It was also sunny then. And unseasonably warm. It’s been raining for the past 4 days or so and the rains are predicted to continue for a few more. My bike sits in the bike shack behind my apartment building and I check on it everyday to make sure it’s still there. It has 4 locks. It really only needs three, one for the front, one for the back, and one to tie to frame to stationary object so the men in the white vans can’t come and pluck it off the street in the middle of the night.

I was going to buy a bike at the black market, where all the stolen goods are sold along with, I don’t know, whatever intriguing items are sold at a black market in the land of China where stores brazenly display counterfeited products and gun control is nonexistent. I’m picturing beating human hearts in murky glass tanks. But I didn’t get over there and now I can feel like an upstanding citizen who didn’t give her money to bike thieves, though for all I now, the man with tobacco-stained teeth and fingers who sold me mine in his bike shop could have very well acquired it through questionable means. And I sort of don’t feel like an upstanding citizen after I went to TMZ.com and added became another site visitor added to their counter to look at the photo of a beat up Rihanna that they got through their own questionable means from the LAPD. Anyways, I still plan on going to the black market to at least have a look around. Maple, one of my old co-workers, said she would take me sometime. I’m pretty sure it’s a place Westerners aren’t welcome, what with our cameras and fanny packs and all alerting the police that there is something noteworthy there.

I’ve got a couple more hours to kill before my one hour of work per day. I guess I’ll apply to more jobs. Breakfast update: I settled for oatmeal made with whole milk and cinnamon.

Rachel

P.S. I'm teaching my kids weather vocab this week, that's where the title comes from. And it's true.

Photo Post

Hey it's Steph's birthday. We had a big party last and actually drank four (half-sized because that's all you can get in China) kegs. I wrote down everyone's name who came in the door and we had 55 people! It got kind of crowded in the apartment for a little, but in general I think everyone had a pretty good time. Success! Let's look at some photos of the past week.

Steph with the cricket that the guy who delivered and set up the kegs had in his pocket (for good fortune). It was massive. Speaking of good fortune, my left eye has been twitching for the past two weeks and apparently in Chinese folklore that means a handsome man is in love with me.


These two dolls in a random hotel lobby wish guests "gong xi fa chai," or Happy New Year, with clasped hands and zombie glares. Literally translated, the Chinese phrase above is "wishing you to enlarge your wealth."

These are the firecrackers we lit to get the attention of the god of fortune on New Year's eve. So long!


This is an example of how adorable Chinese 3 year olds are. This girl is busy making a cookie in the shape of a letter F at my old job.


For a Hanukkah present, I got wood block letters spelling out the holiday. I spent some time trying to make a good anagram, and this one made me laugh. Kunk haha.

The photo for the facebook invitation to our party. This empty frame was in our house when we moved in along with our other Chinese-style furniture. Our Chinese guests loved the apartment and its mix of Western decorations with the more familiar (to them) Chinese style. Apparently, our apartment is more old-style (1920's) Shanghai. Once we stumbled upon a restaurant called 1921 a few blocks from our apartment and it was just so beautiful inside. I wonder what this city was like back then. When the French were here and there were still opium dens.

My beautiful, wonderful, and adorably drunk co-workers from the job I hated along with a new coworker from my new job (white guy on the left), Steph, and Pete (Steph's British boyfriend).

Here is Pete wearing Special Occasion Pants that he changed into at midnight and wore while bringing out the surprisingly-delicious-especially-because-Chinese-people-can't-bake cake (pictured in bottom right corner). You can also see Steph and I's matching sequined dresses. My face is so contorted in this picture from laughter.

Mm just got back from all-you-can-eat buffet brunch and I'm so pleasantly full and happy I don't have to go back to that horrible job. And I think I'm going to keep hanging out with my co-workers I love. I'm cooking them an American feast on Tuesday. Though I'm not sure what to make them. Suggestions? And Steph's super-fun friend who is teaching in Japan is visiting on Wednesday and LAURA (my sister) IS COMING for her spring break. If only she could hide Maggie (other sister) in her suitcase, then supreme happiness would be achieved.

This week's goal: buy a bike.

Rachel