Shanghai Expat: Final Thoughts

During my last few days in Shanghai and my first few weeks back in California, I reflected on how my life would be and is changing. I found myself in thorough agreement with the sentiment of a friend of mine, B, who spent about a year overseas at various places: he says he came away with a greater appreciation for life overseas but also a greater appreciation for life back home.

Food
I knew as I left that I would miss the food in Shanghai.

I'd miss the soup-filled dumplings: xiao long bao (steamed) (best from Jia Jia Tang Bao) and sheng jian bao (pan-fried) (best from Yang's or Shucaiji). I'd miss the flavorful food, most especially the Sichuan at How Way Restaurant, but also the Shanghainese at Jishi (Jesse), the Hunanese at Di Shui Dong, the Hong Kong food at Bo Do One, and even the casual vegetarian comfort food at Godly. I'd also miss the home-made meals at Di Yin's family friends' houses.

I'd miss picking up fried/roasted breads or steamed buns in the morning for breakfast. The breads I liked the most are thousand-layer pancakes, the rolls stuffed with Chinese cabbage or turnips, and sweet, flaky, layered rolls often cooked in a cylindrical oven. As for steamed buns, I think shepherds purse was my default standby.

I'd miss the nearly endless surprise of Chinese takes on American baked goods. I'll particularly miss the good ones (the "blueberry muffins" with an empty space inside that's filled with a layer of something that's a cross between cream cheese and ricotta and embedded with a few blueberries; and the giant wedge-shaped piece of "French toast") but I'll also miss the novelty of the others, such as the squid-ink roll or the sesame layered bread. I won't miss the baked goods with hot dogs inside or with pork "floss" (finely shredded dried pork). Red bean bread doesn't go in my miss list because I can find it in the states. By the way, I tried most of these at 85 Degrees, a bakery chain.

I'd miss certain ingredients Di Yin cooked with that we don't get in the states. What come to mind right now are certain fish, fresh bamboo shoots, and a type of bean that looks like an overly-large lima bean. I also learned to appreciate the different varieties and widely different qualities of various soy sauces. (Our apartment had four on the shelf when we arrived, I could clearly taste the difference and know which would be appropriate for which dishes.) Near the end of the trip, Di Yin discovered a soy sauce she liked so much that she imported two large bottles of it into the states.

Once back, I noticed I ended up often eating salads--things we couldn't get in Shanghai or couldn't trust if we could get--and also Mexican food.

Anticipating my return to California, I looked forward to eating at my company's cafes in California; I often wasn't excited by the Chinese food served at my company's cafeteria in Shanghai. Even if I ignored the tripe and the meat dishes with twice as much fat as meat, I generally wasn't excited by the dishes with more ordinary (to me) ingredients. During my first month back in California, I reveled in lunch at work.

Weather, Climate, and Pollution
I also reveled in the bay area climate, fixed as it is at a comfortable temperature, a temperature that lasted perhaps a week or two in Shanghai between the cold winter and hot summer. In California, I ate lunch outside every day in May. In contrast, in Shanghai one didn't want to eat outside because, beside the weather, the pollution made it less than pleasant. Eating outside just isn't done.

I also exuberantly started playing ultimate frisbee / exercising again, something I never managed to do in Shanghai.

Language
Oddly, I found my language skills decreased as I lived in Shanghai. I studied a lot before my trip and for my first month, but then my vocabulary shrank to the little that I needed in day-to-day life (basically, just to read menus and order food). I'm sad and embarrassed that I became one of those people I don't like, those people who move to another country and didn't seriously attempt to learn the language (or make much progress doing so).

On the other hand, the trip made me realize that it is reasonable to move to another country without knowing the language. There aren't many interactions that need to happen in order to live somewhere (buy transportation tickets, buy groceries, order food, maybe go shopping, not much else). These can be be done while knowing nearly nothing.

Sick
I got sick often during my stay in Shanghai, perhaps every one or two months. Di Yin got sick every month. These bouts were not food poisoning; I assume they must be germs our bodies aren't used to. In contrast, I get sick maybe once a year in the states.

The Internet
The Chinese internet is just as developed as the English one. In fact, there are Chinese equivalents to every major English site you can think of. Some equivalents look so alike that I think the Chinese ones directly copied the English ones' user interface. Examples of these equivalents are dianping for yelp (very handy!), tudou (or sogou) for youtube, taobao for ebay, alipay for paypal, and fanfou for twitter.

Friends from the states always asked how I dealt with the internet in China -- i.e., what happens with the great firewall. Very few of the sites I tried to visit were blocked, and none that felt like a great loss. The internet was perfectly usable. The only blocked sites I noticed were facebook, youtube, twitter, blogspot, and wordpress. (The last two I noticed mainly because they sometimes appear as search results.) Perhaps the biggest annoyance was that I couldn't view youtube videos that friends sent me links to.

Being Tall
I hadn't thought about this at all, but upon returning to California I found I missed being tall. In Shanghai, I could usually see where I was going and push my way through crowded subway cars to the exit. (People would notice me because I was their size or larger.) In California, it's harder to see over people's heads at talks, for instance, and also harder to get noticed and get around people at, say, grocery stores.

Returning to China, Shanghai Expo
When I left for California in May, I thought I would be returning to Shanghai for four to six weeks in late June or July.

One thing I definitely planned to visit upon my return was the Shanghai Expo. I wanted to see the event that caused Shanghai to pull out all the stops and intensely develop the city and transportation network. I even made a list of the pavilions in the expo that I wanted to see.

The best, most comprehensive article about the World Expo, what it did to Shanghai, and the context around it is this one, China: Futuristic yet fruitful, published in the Financial Times. (The link I provided allows you to click through using Google; the direct link requires registration.) This article discusses more of the issues surrounding the expo than I've seen mentioned in any other single article.

Incidentally, I'm amused by the intellectual-property controversy surrounding some aspects of the expo. In particular, it seems both the Expo's theme song infringed (The Times) on another song and the Expo's mascot is a copy (Associated Press) of the logo of the Xinxiang Haibao Electrical Appliance company.

I didn't end up returning to Shanghai during the summer. As I planned the summer trip in fits and starts, Di Yin kept warning me how unpleasantly hot it was getting. She avoided going outside between 10am and 4pm because it was so unpleasant. Eventually I decided to heed these warnings and abandoned plans for my return trip.

Destinations in China I Missed
There are some major tourist destinations in China that I missed seeing during my stay. The ones I most regret missing are Beijing (the day-and-a-half I spent there doesn't count), especially the Great Wall, the Huangshan Mountains (Yellow Mountains) (if you see pictures from China of a sea of clouds, they were probably taken either there or by Mount Hua), and Yangshuo & Guilin (noted for the countryside's pretty, karst landscape of countless limestone hills). I also regret missing the Shanghai Expo. Incidentally, I missed the Harbin Ice Festival (see these incredible pictures) but don't regret it much (because it's insanely cold!).