Rio de Emocion

It takes about two to three days of being on the road to develop the nice hobo smell I mentioned earlier. That’s three days of walking around and sweating with a full backpack in the same clothes. Did I mention it's over 30 degrees? Whereas I don’t really care what I look or smell like in most Chinese places, I have to admit to feeling like a no-good bum upon arrival in Shanghai, after five days of traveling around from one hopeless place to another.


As the old man in Jinan said, "life ain't so hopeless without a good snail!"

In most cites in China, including Jinan, not being Chinese will get you stared at. Most likely, you're the first and the last laowaithese people will ever see. It's a different story in Shanghai. It's not like they've got that many foreigners (though a lot for Chinese standards - tourists usually don't really venture outside of Shanghai or Beijing). As an English teacher who came to China to slum it up and mess about for a bit, you’re on the bottom of the barrel in this city.



Every city in China has a square in front of the station with McDonalds, KFC and Chinese places around it, but somehow the atmosphere feels different here. As you might expect from the biggest city in the world, Shanghai is saturated with fast food and the same Western brands you'll find anywhere else, but there’s also plenty of small Chinese spots. It's all pretty cool. The girls are the best dressed I've seen in China, there's a street filled with art supply shops and their own food is pretty good. There's just a good vibe going through the city. It feels like a Western city, not China. Until I get to the People's Square on the way to the Bund at night and there's huge mass of a billion Chinese tourists around me, all snapping away with their phones.



My stay in Shanghai was rather uneventful. I spent my nights there behind a computer. Walked around the central area of the city for a few days, ate a lot, got on the train in the pouring typhoon rains. Can't say I ventured far beyond the city centre at all, but from the looks of it it's your typical urban forest of cheaply built Chinese apartment blocks. Maybe it would’ve been cool to go out with friends and eat and drink at a chinese restaurant before hitting the club, but I didn’t do any of that. To this day, I have no idea how the Chinese people party. I could’ve socialized more with the people in the hostel who were going out, but wasn’t feeling it.

I meet a British guy named Noah who’s in a similar position as me. He’s lost his previous job as a teacher and is now looking for a new one. He’s been in China for half a year, so he’s a more experienced laowai than I am. Unlike me, he thinks it’s possible to have a life in this trouthole.

It made me think. I guess some people have that quality of not giving a trout that I just can’t do. He has the same spirit about him as Trigger Mike. It’s the kind of guy who goes along with anything, who enjoys himself no matter what. But he’s hard to read, and it seems like he lacks any passion or fire in his heart, or at least if he does, it ain’t with other people. The American dude who came along with us wants to go to a street that’s supposed to have a few bars around. We don’t find it, and instead end up having a beer in a Chinese place. It was pretty hard to find one at 12 PM in this biggest city in the world. After we walk out, I spot a nice cozy alleyway besides the road. I decide that’s where I gotta tag. The American decides he’s uncomfortable and leaves, the Brit stays and we put down some troutty graffiti on the wall before taking a cab back.

On my last day it's smurfing pouring. The typhoon prevented me from taking a train along the coastal city, as was my original plan. Some cities, like Wenzhou, are closed down completely. Luckily, I managed to find a spot on a direct line. After three days of walking around and eating crap, and hundreds of yuans poorer, I get on the train to Guangzhou. It's 20-hour ride. In the waiting hall I get in front of the mass of people gathering at the gates leading to the platforms - you gotta be in the front or you can forget about being able to sit down somewhat comfortable. My tactics prove successful. After the gates open and the mad free-for-all scramble starts, I manage to find a spot to sit on the floor in front of the wagon. It would've been a comfortable ride, if I were Chinese-sized.



New foods eaten: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at the big Hershey’s store: Awful peanut butter & chocolate, tastes like diabetes.
Frog stew: Meh. Even worse considering it’s the single most expensive dish I’ve had in this country.
Chinese ice cream: Edible, I guess.
Pork-filled moon cakes: smurfing delicious.


It ain't Italian, that's for sure.


Side note: The graffiti in some of these residential areas struck me as pretty cool - not because it was particularly good, but because at least some young people are going out there in an act of defiance. A rarity in this homogenous nation of homogenous thought. There's also the well-known M-50 wall where graffiti is officially allowed by the city government, but it’s just not the same thing when it’s approved by the man, even if they got some pretty good work there. Everyone went for the one sanctioned space instead of taking a little more risk and tagging some walls on the next street. More on graffiti in China later!