As class was finishing up, Ryan and I started talking about how much we wanted to travel again. On my last trip to Shanghai I made a few friends, but didn’t see as many sights as I would have liked. Ryan asked me why I didn’t just go; after all, we study and prepare enough that we shouldn’t have to worry about affecting our grades. I asked him if he wanted to go together and just like that our idea was hatched. By 8:40 that evening we were watching Tianjin pass the train window excited to wake up in metropolitan Shanghai.
Tonight is my second night here, staying with a friend who’s been so kind to share his apartment with the two of us. There is a sign outside the apartment, by the main road, that measures the ambient noise in real-time. I’ve seen these in a few places around the city, but it really is amazing to eat lunch and consider what impact a constant 65-85 dB noise level has on people. I couldn’t help wondering what the level is in downtown Vancouver, but the scale of population is so different I can imagine few Vancouver locations that could possibly have any chance of coming close. Speaking last week to a group of primary and middle school teachers, I said that “even your small buildings are huge to me.”
My cellphone ran out of money today, so I cannot make any outgoing calls or messages despite the ability to receive without any problem. I had a few messages that wanted quick responses and I’m certain they’re going to assume I’m ignoring them. My simcard is from Tianjin so I can only add money to it when I’m there. Actually, I just put money on it a few days ago, but apparently I burned through it trying to make travel arrangements. I might try to use a public phone tomorrow to return a call or two, but it’s just impossible for me to get privacy when dealing with important things. I’m not even dealing with anything very private, but I still don’t want to share everything with whoever feels like bending their ear to listen to what the foreigner is saying. Either way, the expectation that anyone with a cellphone will always be at your beckon call is sure to mix badly with this situation causing someone to be offended.
It’s really great to be travelling while there’s no official holiday. Chinese holiday’s are all each about a week-long which means it’s impossible, as far as I know, to get a train ticket anywhere unless you have a connection and grease someone’s palm. The student union makes sure students going home for Spring festival have train tickets, but no one bothered to tell us about it until too late. I suppose the fact that students are required to go home for the festival gives the school some responsibility to help students leave. Even if I could have afforded an airplane, even the flights were booked solid. It may not be tourist season yet, but the streets are still packed with people and we have to work extra hard, because of the extra attention, to convince the wandering peddlers that we don’t want to buy girls, massages, sex, Rolex watches, hashish, or even coffee, let alone do we want to view an ‘art exhibition’ by some friendly ’students’ who just want to pressure you into buying overpriced art prints. During tourist season the crowds are even thicker, and I’m glad for the relative calm to go sightseeing, talk to locals, and find my way around this enormous interesting city.
