sleeping with the lights on...

that’s how i was sleeping in shanghai because of all the mosquitoes. i got at least 20 bites, all of them while I slept. one of them even got me on MY FACE. i was staying in my grandfather’s new apartment, which doesn’t have insect screens on the windows yet. most people in china still don’t use a/c so during the day they like to open the windows and that’s when the mosquitoes would fly in. moreover, the mosquitoes in china are extremely crafty—they would hide until you turn off the lights to go to bed…then they ATTACK. when i turned the lights back on to try and kill them, they would immediately hide again. it was so INFURIATING.

anyway. i apologize in advance for the length of this post.

shanghai always reminds me of coruscant because of all the fancy skyscrapers spread throughout the city as opposed to being concentrated in one “downtown” area like most cities in the united states. i can easily imagine flying cars zipping through the city skies. (for those of you who got that star wars reference, that’s about as far as my nerd persona goes, mind you haha.) i also noticed a surprisingly large number of parks and an excessive number of hotels. other than the hotels, o think shanghai is a very well-planned city. like i said, the city has a surprisingly large amount of greenery. in addition to the parks, many of the freeways are lined with shrubs that hang in containers off the side of the freeway railings. the busiest streets are nice and wide, and their intersections are governed by traffic and pedestrian crossing lights that count down the seconds to both the next red light and the next green light. there are also walkways above these intersections that pedestrians can use.

unfortunately, shanghai suffers from terrible pollution. houston is the smog capital of the united states, but it’s nothing compared to shanghai. visibility is extremely limited, even when the sun is out. in fact, you can hardly make out the outline of the sun on sunny days. consequently, buildings, especially windows, in shanghai get dirty extremely quickly. actually, everything just looks dirtier in shanghai, and there’s dust everywhere. there’s also that omnipresent “china smell” everywhere you go, and public restrooms don’t usually have toilet paper. shanghai is a nice city to visit, but i don’t think i could ever live there.

the purpose of my visit to china this time was two-fold: visit my relatives and shop. according to my grandmother, the most terrible thing in life is old age for 2 primary reasons: loneliness and declining health. i’m not sure if i agree with her completely, although i realize she’s speaking from a female perspective. of course, i’m not so audacious as to imply i know women. nevertheless, her words affected me enough i suppose where i spent an entire day playing mah jong with her and her friends. now, i enjoy mah jong, but usually not for more than a few hours at a time. however, i found this day to be quite enjoyable throughout. does that make me a good grandson? i don’t know, but i lost a lot of money.

as for shopping, i did a lot of browsing but not a lot of buying. tai kang road was my favorite shopping area. it houses numerous art galleries belonging to local artists, in addition to small shops in a charming, pedestrian maze. some of the artists were AMAZING, and i would have bought some of their work if i had the money and the means to transport them back to the states. one of the galleries (now a musuem) belonged to the late chen yifei, a famous film director, painter, and fashion designer. his oil paintings were one of the earliest of its type to be exhibited and sold in western countries. many of his works recorded high prices at christie's, sotheby's, and other auction houses in new york and hong kong. he gave much of the money earned from the sale of his paintings to project hope, a charity foundation that benefits the underprivileged, and set up an arts foundation. he launched a clothing line named leyefe and set up a homeware outlet in shanghai, called leyefe home. one of his movies was once entered at the cannes film festival. all the while, he acted as the agent of several successful chinese models. here's a fine example of his oil painting:

obviously, he was extremely talented and prolific, but he died from gastrorrhagia caused by exhaustion.

another highlight of my time in shanghai was the cloud 9 bar on the top floor (87) of the jin mao tower, which houses the grand hyatt starting on floor 54. the elevators are so fast that your ears pop while going up. it's currently the highest you can legally get in shanghai. this is the view from where i was sitting:

i had a surprisingly good conversation with my dad, and as i was sitting there, staring out at the city and sipping my caipirinha (a most excellent concoction, by the way), i became painfully aware of the enormous gap between the rich and the poor in shanghai. essentially, the rich are mostly foreigners and the poor are mostly locals. the dichotomy is strikingly reminiscent of a caste society, and for many other reasons that i won't get into here, i think china on the whole is hurtling towards a massive social crisis on a scale the world has yet to witness, the potential consequences of which terrify me.

hong kong however, is much nicer and is still considered a separate political entity such that i had to show my passport to get in from china, which technically owns the place. it's generally cleaner and more civilized than china, and the shopping is better there, too. i was most impressed by the alcohol gel dispensers installed in many public places, undoubtedly a result of the sars epidemic a few years ago.

i stayed at the hong kong university of science and technology. my father has a friend who is a professor there, who he apparently met in italy and who invited my father to give a guest lecture on his research. as a result, we got free food and housing at the university, which by the way is completely ridiculous in that it sits on the waterfront of clear water bay and the views are breathtaking. what's more, there's a soccer pitch right next to the water! apparently, all 3 universities in hong kong are like this. i don't know how they get any work done there. unfortunately, i have no pictures to show.

the crazy thing is that i ran into tiffany hui my first day there. one of the reasons i was in hong kong in the first place was to attend her birthday party so after i got settled into my room i called her to set up a time and place where we would meet. i told her where i was staying, and she told me that she thinks she's there right now! i hung up the phone and walked outside and there she was. what are the chances, right? it turns out her party was moved to the next day and she was currently being shown around the university with her family.

the rest of my stay was somewhat less...creepy. i went shopping with tiffany the next day and then clubbing with her and her friends that night. on my last day in china, i had afternoon tea at the peninsula hotel, which is has traditionally been hong kong's most exclusive, as evidenced by the many roll-royces waiting in front of the lobby. however, afternoon tea was in a word, disappointing.

in other news, i became a big fan of kanye west in china.