Peter in China: December 2010

First off, an apology to my readers for failing to post for such a long while. Hopefully the length of this post will help to balance that out.

Expo-sition:
This year, Shanghai hosted the World Expo, the modern extention of the World's Fair. Countries from all over the world participated, building towering pavillions of fanciful design for visitors to gawk at (and, oh yeah, go inside and learn about the countries who built the pavillions). Perhaps you've heard about this world-famous event? Perhaps not, If you've been living in America. If, on the other hand, you've set foot in China anytime in the past few years, you've probably had Expo-related news and advertisements blasted in your ears and/or face. Seriously, the new stations here will take a break from the real news to say "Hey, gosh, isn't the Expo amazing?" "Why yes it is, John. That's quite an insightful point, and it really speaks to the awesomeness of China. Now let's turn to our panel of people who think the Expo is all that." Heck, even back in 2008, when I was touring my family around China, Shanghai was already plastered with Expo slogans, as well as images of the cute little cartoon mascot of the Shanghai Expo, Haibao. There was even a boat trolling back and forth in front of the Bund with an enormous LED billboard trying to get people into the Expo spirit.

So, with all this positive publicity being beamed into my brain, you might imagine that I'd have concocted a plan to get there before it closes [NOTE: Closed at the end of October]. On the contrary, in my eyes, the Expo was primarily "that one event that probably made it impossible to get the right kind of visa," so I was very much looking forward to its end. This thought was still floating through my mind at the Tokyo-Narita airport, as I was waiting to board my flight to Shanghai, when I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged man (Not the Thailand vacation, Laos marriage proposal guy). This guy was going to Shanghai to see some important tennis match--He was really into tennis--and was planning on catching the Expo while he was there. He asked me, "So, are you going to the Expo?" Not wanting to sound offputting, I answered with the non-commital "Maybe". He quickly responded, "Oh, well, the tickets are already sold out, so it's not like you could go if you haven't already bought them." This struck me as a rather dickheaded thing to say, but I resisted the urge to strike him and opted for a fake smile and more smalltalk instead.

Once in China, as the principal and her translator were driving me to my hotel, I caught a glimpse of the Expo park at night, and I expected that to be the full extent of my Expo experience. So, you can imagine I was somewhat surprised when Coco, the head teacher at the school, asked me if I was interested in going to the Expo on my first weekend. I was ambivalent about the offer, but it seemed like the sort of thing I'd be glad to have gone to, if only so that I could say I went. (Also, some small justice against condescending comments made by a certain tennis-obsessed middle-aged gentleman.) So, I agreed.

On Monday morning, I was wishing I hadn't. After a long week of working, I started the first day of my weekend by getting up at 5:30 so that I could get ready and catch a cab to the train station. Bleary eyed and apple in hand, I stumbled down the street toward a busy intersection where I could hopefully catch a cab quickly. Hopefully. By the way, have I mentioned that cab service sucks here? Yes I have, but I'll say it again: It's really hard to get a cab here! For about half an hour, I was standing at that busy intersection flailing my foreigner arm about, trying to hail a cab. No luck--every cab was either already filled or I was unlucky enough to be on the wrong corner of the intersection as it blazed past. About 30 minutes before my train left, I was feeling pretty nervous. Suddenly, a black unmarked car pulled up, and a man leaned out and asked if I wanted a ride. I knew this was a "black taxi", an unauthorized competitor to the taxi company (Hilariously, all black cabs are actually black, and they are similar enough in make/model that you can instantly pick them out.), but I pushed my anxiety aside and hopped in. To the train station!

Chinese Driving--An Aside:
To the casual observer, it may appear that people in China drive like goddamn maniacs. I, too, had this impression the first time I came to China. Horns blaring, taxis crazily weaving through traffic, people constantly cutting each other (and pedestrians) off--It all gives the impression of chaos and anarchy. But once the culture shock wears off, you begin to see an orderliness to it all. Horns, for instance: In the US of A, honking a horn can only mean "Emergency! Emergency! There's an emergency going on!" or, more commonly, "F@%# YOU!!!". In China, on the other hand, the horn is a very flexible tool for communicating with those around you. It can be a friendly "Passing on the left!", alerting pedestrians or slower vehicles to the presence of a vehicle approaching from behind. It can be a more business-like "If we continue on our present courses at our present speeds, a collision will occur. Please rectify the situation." Also, it can be a totally rude "Move, asshole. I can't run this red light with your fat ass crossing the street.", as I recently found out.

Besides the more creative use of the horn in China, drivers here also have a very fluid, logical, and elegant method of changing lanes, passing, and avoiding collisions. In many ways, it resembles the way people hold and gain position when waiting in line (e.g., at the checkout counter): Cars position themselves in ways that subtly block each other's paths, thus securing position in a lane. Cars also tend to maintain a close to constant speed, with collisions being avoided by violating this condition as minimally as possible. This greatly assists in crossing the street, as you can expect there will not be erratic changes in speed or course. Not everyone, of course, comes to have such a rosy view of Chinese driving as I. Some less enthusiastic foreigners might describe lane changing and street crossing in simpler terms: Chicken & Frogger.

In any event, I do have an appreciation for this kind of driving, and I was rather bummed out when I returned to America. Crossing on a red light in the US rarely saves you time. More often than not, it just causes drivers to make dangerous, abrupt, and illogical changes in their speed and course, as well as honking/cursing at you. So, when I returned to China, I was looking forward to the aggressive, confident drivers. Unfortunately, I was less than impressed by what I saw in the first couple weeks. The roads of Shanghai seemed roughly comparable to the roads of an average American city. Had China changed? Was I too used to it to notice? Or was it merely that Shanghai drivers were westernized pansy asses?

Back to the Story:
The driver of the black cab put all my fears about the state of Chinese driving to rest. Never have I been on a more awesome taxi ride. This god among cab drivers, this highlander of the road, not only got me to the train station in 15 minutes flat (through heavy traffic), but he also pulled off several maneuvers I had never before witnessed:
1. In China, buses are kings of the road. They are much bigger than whatever you're driving, so you really don't want to get hit by one. Also, they accelerate/decelerate much more slowly that anything else, so there are some collisions they couldn't avoid if they wanted to. My cab driver, however, was not one to be intimidated by such trivial factors. When a bus tried to change lanes in front of us (and, in terms of how far it got in, I would have said it succeeded in securing a spot), he used his horn and accelerator kungfu to cause the bus to pull back into its lane. I was floored, and so was the accelerator, once a hole in traffic opened up.
2. At one point, we were in the right turn lane, behind a slower driver. My driver passed the guy in front of us during the right turn. 0_o Wow.

The roller coaster ride had come to stop; we were at the train station. The driver had to drop me off a little farther away than a real taxi would have, because, you know, what he's doing isn't technically legal, so, he couldn't be seen as my hired ride, only as my good 朋友(friend) giving me a lift to the train station. I payed and thanked him and sprinted off towards the train station. Inside, I figured out my gate, went through the security checkpoint, and searched for Coco. She was not there. Less than 15 minutes until departure... Suddenly, my phone was ringing. Coco too had had difficulty getting a cab and was just now coming into the station. We met up and hurried over to to the ticket checking station.

I pulled out the tickets Coco had given me the day before and eyed the electronic turnstyles apprehensively. Coco said something like, "Can I see the tickets?", grabbed one, and went through the turnstyle. I stared blankly. In my hand, I held the remaining ticket, which was clearly for the return trip. Had Coco just taken my ticket? Why? She looked expectantly at me, as if to say, "Why aren't you coming?". I stumbled up to the turnstyle and tried to get through with my return ticket. Needless to say, it was super not effective. Coco leaned back over the turnstyle, and I tried to explain what was going on, although to be honest, I wasn't really sure. At this point, there were a lot of angry Chinese people behind me trying to get through. Also, the security guard at the turnstyles was not looking pleased. Coco waved him over while swapping our tickets. The guard took a look at "my" ticket and let me through the side gate. A bunch of frustrated Chinese people tried to rush through behind me, resulting in a lot of yelling by the security guard. We ran up the stairs and boarded the train about 30 seconds before the doors closed.

During the 20 minute ride to Shanghai, Coco and I tried to work out what had happened. Apparently, Coco had bought three sets of tickets: one for me, one for her, and one for her husband (who was not with us, but I later found out he works in Shanghai, and the tickets were for the commute). She had mistakenly divided the tickets amongst the three of us, giving two of the tickets to Shanghai to her husband. When we arrived at the Shanghai station, she went through the exit turnstyle with our single ticket, and I ran through before it closed. Phew! Good thing all the ticket mess ups were finally over.

Or not. We took the subway to the Expo park, where we found out that our Expo tickets had some problem, the nature of which I am still not totally clear on. It had to do with the convertability of dates and ticket types and whatnot. In any event, the ruling was, we could get in after 4pm, but no sooner. So, we tried to devise a plan for what we would do in the meantime. Coco suggested we go to the museum of science and technology, or something like that. I wasn't particularly hot on the idea, but I didn't have any better suggestions, so to the museum we went.

Kind of. After riding the subway some more, we arrived at the museum... which was closed. Because it was a Monday? Something like that. Coco was feeling kind of frazzled by this time; I was actually finding it pretty amusing. She said, "Oh, what a black Monday." The expression made sense to me, but I couldn't say I'd ever heard it before. In fact, I think I've only ever heard of "Black Friday", which has a completely different meaning, so I took a couple of minutes trying to explain the bizarre spectacle of capitalism that comes right after Thanksgiving, as well as my own Black Friday experience as a cashier at Office Max. [Slight tangent: Jie, when I worked at Office Max on Black Friday, your dad came in and bought a printer or something at like 6:30 in the morning. Also, it was clear he had just rolled out of bed, judging from his hair. I guess I told you that already, like when it happened, but hey, just thought of it again. And you know, now that I think of it, I think like 80% of the times I've seen your Dad, he looks like that, and more often than not is wearing awesome pajamas.]

We walked to the nearest KFC and plotted our next move. Coco pulled out the bag of snacks she had brought along, and we ate hard boiled eggs and potato chips as we mulled over the possibilities. We finally settled on the Oriental Pearl, which is that big spaceship-looking building in Pudong (across from the Bund). Before we left, I bought a Pepsi, partly because I needed the caffeine and partly because I felt a bit rude to sit around in a KFC and eat hard boiled eggs. While I was checking out, I noticed that country music was playing on the speakers. Blech.

Back on the subway, and we were heading to Pudong. At this point, I became particularly fixated on/annoyed with a peculiarity of the subway system. There's a stop called Century Avenue. The Chinese says "Century" too (世纪), but for some strange reason, the voice that says "Your next stop is..." seems to say "Central Avenue". The first few times, I thought I was just hearing unclearly, but on this third subway trip, I became pretty damn sure that's what they were saying. WHY?

The Oriental Pearl towered above us. We tried to get some pictures with it, but at that distance, it was kind of difficult to fit most of the person and most of the building into the same photograph. Also, it became clear that I know how to take pictures better than Coco does. Sorry, Coco. We stood in line for a bit and got our tickets. There were various options, and it remains unclear to me how we made the decision we did. Throughout the entire day, Coco asked me a lot of questions about what I wanted to do, and I did a terrible job figuring out when I was supposed to let her choose and when I was supposed to actually offer up a candid opinion. I basically managed to do the opposite every time. Oh well.

Inside the building, a lot of standing in lines was in order, about 10-20 minutes on each of the floors we stopped on. This was pretty tiresome, but at least on the first floor, there was some amusement to be had while waiting in line. Similar to airports, there was a maze-like thing you had to go through as you waited in line. This one happened to be made of metal, and it only had a top rail. One bored toddler decided he had had enough of waiting in line, and he took off, running around unimpeded by the rails (which were several inches over his head). His dad tried his best to give chase but was slowed down significantly by the crab-walk gait that the rails necessitated he adopt. I thought this was pretty hilarious, and I don't think I was alone. Finally, some other person in line managed to grab the kid, allowing Dad to catch up.

I won't bore you with the rest of the Oriental Pearl experience. Suffice it to say that we had about 20 minutes of cool views, free entrance to a very boring museum, and a lot of waiting in line. There was this especially entertaining observation deck, though. It was partly open to the air, and you stood on glass and could look down. Many visitors, including Coco, were scared to walk out on the glass, but they took heart upon seeing the more brave souls getting goofy pictures taken of themselves standing "on air". (I was one such soul, and unfortunately, the pictures look really, really dumb.) We took a little break again at the very end, before we were going to go back to the Expo. As we were sitting there, giving our backs and legs a rest, I made the mistake of trying to explain my comps and my BIRC internship to Coco. I don't know how the topic came up (totally not my fault), but the decision to explain it was perhaps not my best one of the day. I have a pretty low success rate in explaining singular value decomposition and natural language processing to native English speakers, as it is. Sigh.

Finally, we were at the Expo, and--with no further ticket mishaps--we were in the Expo. We had settled on going to Section E (which is basically the lamest of the sections) based on the rationale that the lines would be shortest. I think this was a wise decision: Even in Section E, there were some very intimidating lines that we elected not to brave. These included the Coca-Cola pavillion and the Chinese Petroleum pavillion. [Perhaps the astute reader has noted that Coca-Cola and Chinese Petroleum are not actually countries. The writer welcomes the reader to Section E.] We did, however, make it to three pavillions (and ate dinner in between): The Korean Business pavillion, the Chinese Aviation pavillion, and this one pavillion that had to do with Shanghai and the future and energy or something. Basically it just had a lot of pretty flashing lights. Also, there was one building I don't think we went into that had a really impressive exterior. It was covered in little mirrors which could tilt about in the wind. The effect was to make the building's exterior look liquid, which I thought was awesome. As it got darker, they also started projecting stuff up onto the mirrors, which added another dimension to the effect.

Some time later, we were back in the Shanghai train station, looking for our gate. When we got there, I was introduced to Coco's husband who was going back to Kunshan after work. Coco's husband is really great. He also was a computer science major, and he works as a software developer for a game company. We talked about a lot of stuff on the train ride back. I had way more success explaining SVD to him; not the details of course, but he understood the basic idea of using some kind of matrix-math to pick a matrix that was (mostly) consistent with the observed data, as well as the utility of that in terms of movie recommendation. We also talked about Starcraft II, which we both thought was a great topic of conversation, but which Coco rolled her eyes at. When we got back to Kunshan, Coco and he insisted that I must be really hungry (and I was), so they took me out to a 饺子 (dumpling) restaurant. I forget the name, but it's one of those big chains that I've been to before. Then they hailed a cab for me, and we parted ways. I slept well that night and dreamt of a line-free world.