Hey lady!

Here's a quick look at the last week or so.

-Shanghai was fun. I did very little sightseeing as we got in around 9 on Thursday evening and had three full days of workshops, then flew out at 11 on Monday morning. The workshop was great, though. Our section, Humanities level 2 (meaning it wasn't an intro workshop), was run by a woman who teaches in China but is originally from Blair, Nebraska. Small world, huh? It was basically everything I could've asked for in a workshop-challenging, helpful and all of that good stuff. Plus, the school provided little dishes of addictive candies on our desks, and the bowls were magically refilled every day. The school's location in Pudong, Shanghai, was nice. Very modern, surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings, two blocks from a Starbucks...no complaints. The weather was a gorgeous 65-70ish Fahrenheit, so that was great.

-The first night of the workshop, the host school provided some entertainment and food for us. They took us from the international campus to the local campus, where we were given a tour by lots of giggly Chinese high school students who spoke excellent English. They took us into the auditorium, where we were treated to performances from two of their choirs (one sang beautiful traditional songs, one sang-logically-"Memory" from Cats) and some of their instrumental ensembles. After that, we were bussed to the Purple Mountain Hotel, where we had an authentic 10-course Chinese dinner. I managed pretty well with my chopsticks and discovered that Peking Duck=GOOD. I also enjoyed the free beer. Free beer=also good.

-On the way to the restaurant, my friend/coworker Steve and I sat in front of this big, pompous jackass of a British guy--one of those guys who speaks at an unnecessarily high volume because he feels that his opinions and thoughts are so vital that everyone in the room (or bus, as it were) should be privy to them. His rant of choice was how stupid all Americans were. Americans know very little about the rest of the world, he said. Fair point. This is, sadly, true in a sense. I admit this. There are still people back home who think we live in India. But this guy went on to say that all Americans were like this and that was because they were all culturally retarded (his words, not mine). He said it was the same everywhere-big cities and small. The next phrase out of his mouth was, "I haven't been to the U.S. myself, of course, have no desire to go, but I needn't go to know the facts." His companion, an Australian man who was growing noticeably tired of his portly seatmate, then asked him if he thought this was true of Americans living abroad. "I've not met many, but I'm going to say yes. They're all the same." His poor, badgered seatmate's response was a vague, "Huh..." Culturally retarded, indeed! I was more amused than annoyed because this guy was so obviously just one of those guys (to the point where his Aussie seatmate practically dove off the bus in order to ditch him), but Steve was outraged. Steve's Canadian, but I thought it was awfully nice of him to be outraged on my country's behalf.

-Speaking of those guys, we didn't have one in our section of the workshop. We did have a "Well, at my school..." lady, but she was really very nice and almost everything she said was actually relevant. I have to admit it felt a bit odd, so I tried to convince Steve to be "that guy." No dice. It was nice not having "that guy" to deal with. The last two workshops I've been to, both of which were in my classroom, "that guy" was a (now former on both counts) coworker of mine. The first one was Mr. Poops Too Much, who lobbed warbly complaints at me the whole time because the lights were too bright and they were upsetting his bowels. The second one was the esteemed Rev. Dr. Unky (who is neither Dr. nor Unky, and is really no more Rev. than I am after jokingly getting ordained online my senior year of college), and he blathered on so much about his "qualifications" and "expertise" and argued against the subject matter so much that I thought the tiny, placid workshop leader was going to snap and stick a pencil through his eyes. I wasn't about to stop her. Happily, neither of "those guys" are in the vicinity any more and, with the absence of one in our workshop section, I'm a happy camper.

-We did do a bit of shopping in Shanghai. I found the most gorgeous purple leather handbag. It's not actually the designer brand it claims to be--Tod's--but it's certainly cute. I found this in a market under the city's Science and Technology museum, where visitors are greeted with cries of "Hey lady! Hey lady! Hey! Hey bag! Bag!" "I wonder why they keep calling you a bag," Steve quipped. We didn't find any amusing Chairman Mao goodies, but I did find out that Shanghai has its own special brand of beer: Reeb. Hooray, Reeb! I bought a few cans to bring home, as well as two mystery bottles of alcohol. They both cost approximately 50 cents each, and only one has any English on it. This one is labeled "ants wine." Fun!

-The taxi company we used a few times to get to the school had regulations posted in both Mandarin Chinese and English. One of the English instructions was as follows: "Please noticing, drunkards and psychotics not allowed unattended for in taxi." I pointed it out to Steve, who remarked drily that it was a good thing I wasn't alone.

-After two and a half years of long international plane trips, I finally made my first in-air duty free purchase. I bought some fancy-schmancy Lancome undereye cream that promises to get rid of puffiness, fine lines and wrinkles and--the biggest seller--dark circles. I. Love. This. Stuff. It's fabulous.

-Yesterday I realized that, after this week, there are six weeks left of first semester. The year is almost half over, and we're moving back to the U.S. in June. This reality hit me like a speeding freight train. Wow. We're really leaving. Oy.

-No one noticed the tattoo on my foot. Steve told me I should ask someone what it said, but I, for possibly the first time in my life, was too shy. It probably also helped that the actual tattoo was covered by the shoes I was wearing. I took band-aids along just in case.