Facts and Tips

In Shanghai the following happens:

You hawk loogies. At first you think the local people have no concept of decorum. Then you realize you are sucking on coal and dust 24/7 and there is no way to avoid loogie hawking.

It is fashionable to jack up your pants or shorts over your stomach.

You have dust and probably bits of asbestos in your eyes most of the time you are walking around. Sunglasses help.

You stare. What’s worse is that you start staring at white people.

If there is a large crowd of people standing around, you go over to see why they are standing around.

You say “yes” without knowing why.

You get food poisoning.

When anyone over the age of 7 says “Hello!” you ignore them most of the time as it is the equivalent of, “Hey, you are really funny looking!”, or else, “Hey buy my overpriced stuff!”.

Tips:

Don’t complain when they shut off the water all day in your apartment. You are only surprised and frustrated because you cannot read any of the notices in the lobby.

When you get a stomach virus, you only feel like you will die for a couple of days. This is not painful enough to stop eating street food. Maybe if it lasted 5 days you should stop with the street food.

Given the choice, ask for your meat well done. It’s good for killing the stuff that is not meat.

Anquan mao means safety hat. It also means helmet. This is handy when you want to ask your motorcycle taxi if he has one. If he doesn’t, get a discount. Try to get a clean anquan mao.

Deep fried bird on a stick is good.

If your motorcycle taxi is a swindler and insists on changing the price mid-route, tell him to stop and get off. This applies to a swindling taxi driver as well. Just get out in the middle of the freeway. The penalty for ripping off a foreigner can be pretty bad. Thus, they panic and stop with the head-ache inducing swindling/paddycake game.

When your co-worker buys some sort of bug killing incense to burn under her desk due to the in-office mosquito problem, remind her that there is a bug zapper just above the cubicle.

Here’s a good one: when things aren’t going your way and you are dealing with the “authorities”, don’t try to communicate with whoever is hanging you up. Rather talk in English really fast. That way, they will get tired of trying to figure out what the foreigner is saying and eventually they will just wave you through. This one saves a lot of time.

Back pockets are no place for wallets.

Smile a lot in the airport. This expedites the process in addition to talking in English really fast.

Make sure to drink lots of water as MSG seems to dehydrate and tire you.

Finally, get used to unanswered questions.