Stone Cold

So I got to thinking this afternoon, how underwhelmed I was by the whole experience of living in Shanghai so far.  I mean, sure, it's hectic right, like living in New York City is hectic.  There's the bustle, and the getting to and fro, and the lugging of things, and the lights and noise and press of people. 

But that's not especially exotic or weird.  I've lived in New York.  I basically knew to expect that part of it. 

I suppose I was just nonplussed by how Western Shanghai really is.  Let me punctuate that by pointing out that within easy walking distance of our apartment there are not one, but two, Cold Stone Creamery outlets.  Cold Stone is a boutique, made to order ice cream store that is so expensive that I can't afford to go there in the United States.  They are not common there, at least not to my knowledge, but I do know about them. 

So this expensive, gratification-focused, frozen cream franchise emporium has two outposts within easy striking distance of my apartment in Shanghai -- in China, a country that until recently, had little experience with ice cream of any kind and not much appreciate for it.  That illustrates, in a nutshell, that living here just isn't that different from living in the U.S., right?  Anything I can get there, I can get here.  Food, electronics, television shows, nature (in the park), cars, speedy transport, instant communications, everything.  In other words, whatevs.  Yawnsville.  Big city, big deal.   

Then Allison reminded me that I'm just used to China.  The scales fell away, and I saw the light.  I remembered to see things not through my own eyes, but through hers and the kids'.
 
They've never been here before.  So when they are approached on the street by a Buddhist monk in full robes who plies them with tiny graven gold prayer images and signs their names in a book and bows to them when they give him money, it's like they have stepped foot on another planet.  Townes could not stop talking about this for hours afterward.  And when they see people selling unappealing roasted sweet potatoes out of mobile street ovens like they are something special, it's weird.  And then, when it occurs to these kids that everyone around them is speaking Chinese, and yet no one is mentally translating everything they say into English in their heads as they speak, they have to sit down and ponder that for a while in puzzlement and confusion, because it just never occurred to them that that could be.

People eat both deftly and exclusively with pairs of thin bamboo sticks that my children can barely hold straight in their fingers, let alone use.

Dragonfruit is everywhere.  We bought one and peeled it and had it for dessert tonight.  They'd never seen one before.  Dragonfruit. 

Electric bikes and scooters get people from here to there, of a kind we don't have in the States.

In Montpelier, if a person is in a crosswalk anywhere in town, all traffic must come to a stop in deference to the pedestrian.  In Shanghai, if you aren't careful a car will run you down just for having the temerity to be in a place the driver wants to go.

None of the signs are legible, or sometimes even recognizable as signs. 

We live on the 13th floor of a building, and we are only halfway up.  And our building is one of thousands.

There are hundreds light switches in our apartment (or so it seems), and every next one turns on some strange and unusual spolight or lantern or set of up-lights, like some kind of luminary funhouse.

Toddlers wear pants purposely split open down the back, so when they need to pee they can just get with it right out on the street, no muss no fuss.

Allison reminded me that my kids's minds are getting blown in small but profound ways about 10 times a day, and hers too.  I felt silly and jaded and maybe, just a bit unobservant. 

But that doesn't change the fact that her and the kids had a couple of baskets of tasty french fries for an afternoon snack today, so hey - it's not like we're in Inner Mongolia. 

Juxtaposition is a cool word, a cool thing.  And we are juxtaposed (juxtapositioned? juxtaposited?). 

Tomorrow maybe I'll make the kids write about school.  Homeschool.  And we found Eli a kindergarten too, so more on that tomorrow, and on the French Canadian leprechaun with the pointy shoes that runs the joint.