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Image courtesy of shanghaialleycat.com and peoplesbike.com

I doubt I have many readers left around here, but here’s a link to a piece in UrbanVelo Magazine about city riders. They got some fascinating people to contribute their stories, and somehow my boring ass got included.

If you’re in the states and don’t mind, pick me up a copy of Issue 17, cuz I’m on Page 28.

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China is a bit like Blade Runner. I recommend the book ‘Wild Swans’ and the Mao book by the same author, which will give you some context & history. When you’re done, take the same characters and society then add billions of dollars and a bloodthirsty (government sponsored) desire, from each and every person, to become rich. it’s not pretty, or efficient, or ethical, or sensible, but it does make money. Lots of money. There are millions of millionaires here. there are hundreds of billionaires. Also, everything ever is a business decision, and until I learn enough Chinese to have more interesting conversations, here’s the one conversation I have, over and over:

- Where are you from?

– Response: depending on shoes/general competence, and answer from ‘America’ to ’south east Portland’. Sometimes, Canada. There’s a security guard at a complex near mine that keeps asking me if I speak Hebrew.

- Where do you live?

– Response: depending on shoes/general competence, my general neighborhood, which has 3x as many people as PDX, or my actual complex name, which is nonsensical in both English and Chinese.

- How big is your Apartment?

– Response: everything’s in metric here & I refuse to learn the square meters to square feet conversion just to answer these fucking questions.

- How much is your rent?

– Response: the company pays. Reality: they don’t pay, but this is a very invasive question. Also, we negotiated our lease when we were still fucking jet lagged, so we’re probably over paying a lot, and I don’t want to admit it. The whole memory is surreal, and involved silver sparkle gucci high tops on a tiny Chinese woman who was yelling at me in Italian. No, really.

- What do you do?

– Response: depending on shoes/competency, something between ‘trailing spouse’ and Chef, because that’s one of the only job names I know in Chinese.

- How much do you make?

– Response: fuck you. Chinese talk about two things: Money and Food. When they’re eating, they talk about money, and when they’re working, they talk about food, because, part of the standard office day is spent lollygagging. What should take an hour may take the full day, with 3 smoke breaks, a few tea breaks, a long lunch, possibly and after lunch nap, 2 loud mobile phone conversations, and at least one argument with the person paying you and one with the person you’ve decided is impeding your progress. This is a gross and incompetent generalization, I know. whatever. So is this: Chinese people like tea, and yelling.

—- common contexts for yelling: 1: negotiations. this is the culture where winning an argument balances on one theory: ’saying it louder & more often than the other guy makes it so’, which leads to 2: arguments. The difference between an argument and a friendly chat is determined by the size of the crowd that gathers. (Life in general is loud here–you’re never more than 500 meters from a major construction zone). Often either (or both) of the previous happen 3: on the phone. Apparently it’s a remnant of very unreliable phone service since the early days, but when speaking on the phone, everything is YELLED AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE! Chinese on Chinese phone conversations seem to involve an unhealthy amount of aggression. Also, no one stands still on phones. they’re walking/biking/driving/piloting a scooter/cooking my dinner/in a movie theater/smoking/fucking their mistress/all of the above…

- You’re American/tall/fat/bearded/speaking Chinese/in China?

– response: ummm… yes/fuck you. depends on my day.

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on a Sunday.

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I’m partial to other dishes there that aren’t in the photo, such as the mutton puffs; girlie loves the lamb kebabs on rods of red willow.  Also awesome: we’ve yet to be punished by the promised belly dancing.  I guess we don’t eat at peak hours.

Yum.

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Our first trip was to Aniseed, a restaurant near Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s campus toward the edge of Xujiahui and Gubei. Girlie and I had ventured to Aniseed the week before and found it delightful, though no one in our party had ordered Pho.

Our first crew of tweeps was @chabuduo, @lovince, @sdweathers, @jason_sch and lil ole me. I’d continue to identify them by twitter name but I think it looks funny when I sprinkle ‘at’ signs all over otherwise easy-to-read prose.  Then again, I’ll just drop the at signs.

Chabuduo thought ahead and made up scoring sheets.  We had a grand time knocking back the TsingTao and realizing that, rather shockingly, though we all wanted to discover great pho, only one of us had actually been to Viet Nam.

On both of my visits to Aniseed, the owner was there, shepherding people through their meals with a smile and bilingual advice on the menu, though she did recommend essentially everything.

As this was our first go around, I’m not going to build big tables and run stats on the surveys, but here are the ‘overall results’:

Broth Overall: 4.75

Noodles Overall: 5.4

Chil(l)i Overall: 4.7

Service: 8.6

Though I was a rather forgiving grader that night, upon reflection I was not at all impressed with the broth, which lacked any real character to differentiate it from standard white bone beefstock, nor did I find the plate of addons–chil(l)i, basil, beansprouts and lime–of particularly compelling quality, and they didn’t give us any cilantro.

Nevertheless, with enough poking and prodding at the staff, we got enough extra herbs and chil(l)ies to make a tasty bowl of Pho, and they kept the beer flowing.  Witness:

That’s a bowl of Pho I prettied up for the camera.  I don’t expect to meet well presented pho, but it doesn’t take much work.  Here’s Chabuduo’s chil(l)i infested broth.

Thanks to Chabuduo for taking the photos and everyone for coming!

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