Camera obscura

I’ve been in Shanghai on and off for a month now and have taken almost no photographs.   I feel like my eyes and brain are acting like a camera (a rather shoddy one I would add… one that looses the images on a regular basis and crashes.) 

I think not taking pictures is part of being visually overwhelmed and maybe knowing I will be here for two years, so I can come back and take pictures when I’m not so crazed by a new job, no apartment and no word on the schools yet.  

The other thing is -- Shanghai is so big … and confusing.  Imagine if London had no “A to Z Guide!”  I really don’t think there is a good map of this city.  Streets change names.  They are spelled differently on a map than on the street sign.  And the street numbering is crazy.  I actually have empathy now for tourists in NY wandering on Gansvort street looking for the Highline – wandering in circles because the streets go on the diagonal and have a hook in them.   

 It probably hasn’t helped that I have been given a driver for a month.  His name is “Douglas” and he speaks almost no English and I speak almost no Mandarin, other than “hello” and “thank you.”  He plays Lady Gaga's Poker Face for me every morning several times in a row.  My focus is on getting him to understand where I want to go and not how I get there.  Just getting a few errands done on the weekend takes forever and we frustrate each other.  When he can't find an address he takes me to a coffee place and asks if I want coffee.  (I don't get his logic.) 

Frankly, I really never know where I am. My only landmark is which direction is the river.  I need to start creating a mental map of the city for myself. 

It has been a long time since I’ve been this out of my element.  When I first moved to Westchester it was like this.  I knew how to get from my house to lets say Rye Brook,  but couldn’t find it from my office.  I used to feel like such a foreigner in Westchester.  People talked in code – “Go to ‘Four Corners’ and turn left” with total disregard for which town I was supposed to be in or the fact that ‘Four Corners’ has no sign – it is just an intersection known as ‘Four Corners” because it has bad traffic backups.  It is like that here for me but worse because I truly am a foreigner and it is all in another language.  Nothing is sticking in my brain.  Some of it is because I have no idea how to pronounce anything and I don’t know what anything means.  So was I on Wuyaun Road or Wulmuia Road or Wuning Road? 

 Like I said, I don’t have my big landmarks down yet.  So far, I know West Fuxing Road and the surrounding streets because I have walked them – and gotten lost there.  I have fallen in love with that part of the French Concession.  I love the mix of people, sewing machines on the street, bottle water delivery guys on mopeds, fish mongers with live fish slipping out of their hands, good restaurants and really amazing historic buildings all hidden behind garden walls.  It is the one puzzle piece of Shanghai that I have started to figure out.  

Eventually, I’ll get the other puzzle pieces and create a picture of this crazy amazing city.  

Singapore Sling

(random notes from my first trip to Singapore)

Last Sunday I went to Singapore for meetings.  In my eagerness, I accidentally arrived on a holiday -- Eid-al-Adha or Bakrid.  Bakrid is a Muslin holiday and it literally means, the “Festival of Sacrifice.” It is the remembrance of Abraham’s intention to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God.  As you might remember, God intervenes to provide Abraham with a sheep to sacrifice instead.  Ergo lots of sheep and goats are sacrificed for this holiday and as I understand it, you do community service as well.  (I’m assuming feasting is involved at some point.)  

I think of half of Singapore was in my hotel – the Marina Bay Sands -- for the holiday.  It is this Vegas style hotel that has over 2,600 rooms in three towers and is topped off with a boat shaped park that spans all three towers.  The infinity pool on the 55^th floor is incredible and I have to say the club room is one of the best spread of food and high end drinks I’ve ever seen in a club room.  (I got upgraded cause I’m a brat.  I also got a snow globe cause they were slow with my bags.  A wonderful thing about Singaporeans is they want you to be happy.)

 

Singapore is a really interesting place.  My favorite bit about Singapore is that when you go through immigration there is no plexiglass between you and very cheerful agents.  Instead they give you candy.  One Hong Kong resident told me that this is a very old tradition. Today the lovely Changi Airport has its own brand of candy.  All this being said, it is Singapore, so next to the candy bowl is a wrapper bowl.  (No littering in Singapore please!!!)  It is sort of ironic that the abbreviation for Singapore in airlines lingo is SIN. Singapore is the size of about 8 Manhattans put together – but remember this is a country not a city.  (Small country jokes were created for Singapore -- like our country is so small we had it recarpeted last year.) Like Manhattan, Singapore is an island.  Being an island with thousands of non-residents coming and going every DAY, Singapore is a bit on the strict side.  On the back of the immigration landing card it says something to the effect of “if you bring drugs into Singapore we will shoot you.”  Americans probably remember the ex-pat kid who got caned.  I vaguely remember the story was he was caught chewing gum but actually he did admit to vandalizing cars and he may have been responsible for a rash of tire slashings.  (I asked about gum use and one cab driver (Cabbies are called Uncle) told me you could have some for “personal use” only.)  If Michael Bloomberg could be King of something, he would want to be King of Singapore.  

The country has been making the island bigger and they take great care to make park land.  Outside of my hotel they were building this huge carefully planned bit of “nature.”  With all construction in Asia the construction schedule was insanely fast. 

One of the coolest things about Singapore is the food.  You can get every kind of food in the world because everyone in the world lives here.  I actually never knew there were that many different kinds of Malaysian styles of cooking.  

Can’t wait to go back to Singapore.

The "Look See"

This is my first entry in what I hope is a two-year blog project to capture what it is like to move to Shanghai with my husband and three kids and to work for two years in IBM’s growth market unit. 

I need to explain this job, which I’m starting to get my head around.  I am still in the IBM’s consulting unit – Global Business Services.  While I used to be in the global marketing group, I am now I’m in geography.  I have a really small team who sit in country and then I’m basically by myself at the regional level.  In this region we cover Latin America, India, the ASEAN region, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  The regional HQ is in Shanghai for a good reason – it is 12 – 13 hours away from corporate in NY.  Sometimes this is awesome.  Mondays are really productive here.  You get tons done before anyone wakes up in the US.  Nights are -- not so great.  There are still lots of phone calls you need to show up for in NY, which are in the middle of the night here.

I’ve been in the job for five weeks and have gone to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Shanghai and Singapore so far.  Each place is so unique and amazing.  I’ll write some more on them later. 

My big learning thus far is that I’m embracing my Gringo-ness. I’m a gringo.  There is no hiding it.   I’m blonde.  I’m pale.  And in a lot of world I’m actually tall, although not by western standards.  Let’s face it … I stand out.  I was flying from Shanghai to Singapore this week and a Chinese little girl (maybe 4 or 5) kept turning around to smile and wave at me and then giggle.  She said something to her mother who translated to me “she says you look odd.”  Okay, it might not have been an elegant translation but that really was what the kid was thinking.  It wasn’t mean.  I was odd looking to her and that was actually interesting.  (Little kids like to pet my hair here, it is “odd.”)  But embracing my Gringo-ness isn’t just admitting I stand out, it is admitting I’m out of my element.  In China I’m illiterate when I walk down the street, which is very humbling.  Some ex-Pats embrace their Gringo-ness by hunkering down only with other ex-Pats.  I get it and I am happy in Shanghai knowing I can get western food when I want it.  (Who doesn’t like eggs for brunch!)  But I also welcome having no idea what I just ate and being open to asking people stupid questions about their culture, their lives and why they do what they do.

Basically my saving grace on this assignment is I smile a lot and am interested in other people.  Wish me luck.  I have no apartment yet, my kids and husband are in NY, we don't have seat in the American school yet and I don't think I've been this sleep deprived since having a new born.  But it is exciting and I can't wait to show my kids Shanghai.