Wuzhen (乌镇) with the Parents

Dad and mum in Wuzhen

I wonder sometimes if the parents regretted our growing up. Because, on those evenings when I hugged my youngest child as he slept next to me (which he does when Hub is away), I always wished that I could immortalise the moment in time and not let it slip away. But of course, children grow up and we should be thankful that they do so, only I couldn't stop myself feeling sad that soon I will have no more babies to hug and kiss, nor will I have anyone calling me "mummy" in the cutest of voices followed by the tenderest of hugs.

This, I guess, is middle age. Your babies are growing up really quickly and your parents are visibly ageing and exhibiting various health hiccups. It is not exactly the most gay period in a person's life, yet at the same time, if you have played your cards right, you should be most comfortable in your 40s in both material and mobility.

I love you all, my Babies, and I hope that you will never have cause to doubt or forget this in your lives. Just like I know that my parents love me and I am thankful for that.

The parents came for a short visit last October. I last saw them in Singapore in July and August, but we were so often out of the house doing some activity or traveling around the region that I felt frustrated about not seeing them as much as I would have liked to. Therefore I invited them to come stay 11 days with me in Shanghai, so that I may bring them out a little, cook for them, be with them.

Wuzhen when you arrive by boat and a map of the town

Mum's bow legs seemed to be getting from bad to worse. Climbing and walking long distances were definitely out of the question, and it was fortunate we did the bulk of our Shanghai sights 3 years ago when they first came to visit, and this time I have 2 drivers so we always had someone to drive us around. With the kids at school, we had to look for a trip that could be done in the day which would be interesting enough for everyone. Mum had already visited Zhujiajiao, Suzhou and Qibao, while I last brought MIL to Tongli near Suzhou, so we were more or less left with Wuzhen which is near enough to Shanghai.

Wuzhen by day

I've always wanted to visit Wuzhen (乌镇) and when mum said that she would like to do so too, I got Driver Ju to drive us there. Ideally, one should spend the night as Wuzhen is divided into 2 sections that are a small distance (about 1km) away from each other, with one section that is smaller but older and the other larger, newer and cleaner - hence there would be quite a bit to visit and discover. But we had to return home to the children and dad was going to go on a short trip to the South the day after to visit his relatives.

Many stone bridges

Pretty covered wooden bridges and grand stone doors

We chose to do the bigger and newer part of Wuzhen. It was clean, organised, with only one smelly tofu stall (at least we only saw one). Once you enter the walled village/town, you could choose to get on a boat that will bring you across to the main part of the sights and from there you navigate between lanes and bridges, duck in and out of courtyards, shops, eateries, museums...

Nice wood and stone work and very clean too

I found the old water village really pretty. We were lucky to be there when there were few tourists and the weather was nice which made the outing very pleasant. We made our way slowly around (often with dad looking out for mum and holding her elbow etc), buying little snacks to share and taste, and lunch was in a small restaurant specialising in healthy cuisine that was part of the Wuzhen Clubhouse. Thinking about this I get all emotional because I really miss my parents, 19 years make up a long time to be away from home and the family...

Streets, library/bookstore, courtyards

Wuzhen is part of Tongxiang in Zhejiang Province, about 2 hours by car from Shanghai. It is  divided into sections where different crafts and trades are displayed, and is known for its stone pathways, stone bridges and wooden carvings. The restaurants that were situated along the canal were tempting as the idea of lunching with a view of the water, old houses and bridges was enticing, but healthy should be more important when you have 2 senior citizens and the only "health" restaurant around was smack in the middle of 2 lanes.

The healthy lunch at the Wuzhen Club restaurant

When I visited the tiny shoe (for bound feet) museum alone, mum spent her time trying on cloth shoes (normal sized, of course) as dad glared at her from the side wondering if she was about to make another "unnecessary" purchase. It was quite funny catching this scene as I walked out of the museum, and I had to employ quite a bit of diplomacy to diffuse the situation and make both sides happy. Well, mum couldn't find the colour she wanted in her size and I knew of another shop (in Wuzhen itself) that sold the same shoes for half the price (online), so I told mum she would get what she wanted when we return home and in the meantime we should just move on. (Thank goodness we managed as promised the next day!)

Cloth shoes shop outside the lily shoes museum; mum with her new cloth shoes

People dining by the water

There were quite a number of little inns in the bigger town (and many looked pretty charming, like in the gungfu movies). I was told by Driver Ju that it should get more crowded later on in the day as most tourists usually start with the smaller town and finish with the bigger one, eventually spending the night in the latter. I should return with the Hub and kids another day, maybe spend the night there too. I'm sure we would love the romantic feel of this ancient village at night, especially if we should manage to dine in a little restaurant by the water...(I've not given up on the idea, of course)

A number of the traditional trades were displayed in the old town, from wine making to blue cloth production, hand-sewn cloth shoes, traditional sweets etc. One of the things about being middle aged is that I have lost my penchant for buying souvenirs everywhere I go; when you have spent a few decades accumulating souvenirs that you have nowhere (else) to store/display and that you will most probably have no use for whatsoever once you've acquired them, you learn (eventually) to stop buying them. I just make sure I spend my money on decent accommodation, comfortable and safe means of transportation, good food, interesting experiences and a good guidebook when I travel nowadays.

Blue cloth maker, rice cake seller, soy sauce shop

I have also stopped buying gifts to distribute to friends, family and neighbours. It is futile spending precious time trying to hunt down a suitable gift for everyone when the goal is to visit. Besides, most people travel quite a lot nowadays so there is no need to share (or show off) your trips like before. Parents were of course from another era, and you could see that they really needed to buy something (usually edible) to bring back; it reminded me of the time we travelled to Perth when I was 12 and dad literally filled up a suitcase with Cadbury chocolate to bring back to everyone else who couldn't go on the trip. I myself brought back huge boxes of Turkish lokum to share with my 140 colleagues in MND HQ back in 1995, and that seemed like light years away now.

By the water

There are so many more places near Shanghai, not to mention in China, that I have not visited because we are so afraid of the crowds. It is a pity, of course, but unless you haven't heard of or been in one of those notorious crushes, you wouldn't be so foolish as to brave going anywhere when the Chinese themselves are on holiday. Paralysis is personified on those occasions and wave of humanity has true meaning then. OK, maybe I exaggerate, and I am definitely making excuses for not having visited much of China. Maybe in 2015 and 2016 I will plan more short trips on long weekends: Beijing, Nanjing, Lijiang, Jiuzhaigou, Chengdu...?

I have however noted, in the past 4 years, that the Chinese are traveling more and more both within China and out of the country. Many of my Chinese friends have husbands who used to earn 10 000 rmb a month up to about 10 years ago, after which they started seeing salary increases of between 10 and 30% annually and today the same guys are earning between 100 000 and 200 000 rmb per month! If they were based in Shanghai and had had the foresight to invest in real estate, then their wealth would have doubled, tripled and more. Even the average Chinese in Shanghai wouldn't have done too badly as I often discover. Many would have seen their old family homes bought over by property developers and given cash and/or new flats in exchange. They would earn pretty decent salaries today and since the majority would only have one child, life is usually comfortable. The old lady pulling out weeds in our garden has a son who owns 2 large cars that he rents out to foreigners and she is only working because she loves being out in the open and having something to do. And where our villas and garden stand today, her house and fields used to stand.

Parents in Wuzhen (I think I look more like dad)

Back to Wuzhen, it was definitely worth a visit and I hope that the parents had enjoyed it. Hopefully after Ma has had both legs operated on she would be able to walk better and we could go on other visits in the years to come.

I do not know how many more years we are going to stay in Shanghai, and therefore how much opportunity I  still have to discover Northeast Asia. However, for those of you who know me, I try to make the most of my time wherever I am whether I would be there 6 months or 6 years. My only constraints are time and cash, and in these recent days, the drastic devaluation of the Euro is definitely not making things easy for us. Greece may not be the only one who needs to battle against austerity soon. 

  

A New Hobby

My 3rd Hu Yongkai Painting (and my 14th painting)

A couple of fellow bloggers disappeared and returned months or years later with a cookbook, a new baby, why not a younger spouse, designer kitchen and/or house, new body, re-designed face, eventually a more exciting job! 

Unfortunately, none of the above have I accomplished. I'm still fat, still stuck in Shanghai (though I've travelled quite a bit in the past year), still live in the same house (though we moved out for a couple of weeks in November because of a termite infestation) and still have the same hub (though he's now a few kgs lighter after he returned from a month at INSEAD and started embracing a healthier lifestyle that includes jogging 12km every other day)...

I searched far and wide in the neuron network in the past few months and finally woke up this morning with the perfect alibi: I've taken up oil painting a little more than a year ago! With age the circuit is a little retarded, sometimes clogged and bulbs just do not light up as often and as quickly as they used to. But, I did start to paint and have been religiously doing so every Tuesday morning since autumn in 2013.

My younger sister is the artistic one in the family, and I couldn't usually draw an egg to save my life. However, I was told by a number of people that with minimum guidance even an idiot could paint with oil and when offered the opportunity to try, I felt I had nothing to lose and jumped at it.

I think my teacher Yao ZW is originally from Ningbo, but must have spent most of his life in Shanghai. He rents a ground floor flat near Century Park in Pudong and sets up 6 easels so that he could have 6 students in the morning and another 6 in the afternoon. In the week most of his students would be Chinese housewives (usually pretty wealthy), and during the weekend and public holidays he would have lots of children (often children of the same rich tai tais).

My very 1st painting, took me 9 hours to finish

2nd painting, kind of scary having that
mountain range and body of water to paint

Impressionist 3rd painting

Teacher Yao is pretty cool and teaches so that he could feed his only passion which is to paint. His plan is to make a final exhibition of his paintings before he retires so that he could sell them and retire comfortably. At the moment he has bought a house with some land in the countryside about an hour and a half from Shanghai and starting next year will live there during the weekend and remain in Shanghai during the week just to continue teaching. He is actually a pretty well-known painter from some old school, but because his only child is a girl, he had no need in the past to buy a flat in anticipation of her future marriage and as such missed out riding on the property wave that made most Shanghainese rich, see very rich, in the past two decades.

All new students would start out with a series of 6 paintings chosen by Teacher Yao. Once we have completed these paintings and decide to continue with him, we can begin to more or less paint whatever catches our fancy as long as it's within our ability to do so. After the first few paintings, one would somehow start to have "the feeling" and would more or less know what to do, only occasionally asking Teacher Yao to come rescue us.  

4th painting: one of my favourites and now with Anna

 I really look forward to joining this class every  Tuesday morning, I think I've almost never missed a session since I started. I find it calming to spend 3 hours concentrating on trying to get as much painted as I could (and I'm very slow at it) and often spend days leading up to the class planning what I would do when I get my fingers on the brushes.

 We were the same group of 6 ladies painting together, except for my dear friend and neighbour F who gave birth last June and then moved back to the USA a few days ago. My classmates are all wealthy Chinese ladies with only one child each. The children attend the best Shanghai schools, have expensive tutors, go on exclusive school trips to Europe, and these mothers spend quite a bit of their time during class exchanging notes about their progeny. I usually have nothing much to say about mine because when your kids spend most of their time playing, have no exam pressure and no particular talent to display, you have nothing to share with the others.

And I am very slow, Teacher Yao complains about it from time to time (though he should be happy as it means each one of my paintings costs me more than usual), and the others would turn up in front of my easel once in a while to tell me that I pay too much attention to detail blah blah...

5th painting, I can't really do grass

They are all more advanced than me (at least by a year if not more) and are really amazing with their trees, mountains, sea etc. They are also really fast when they paint, often skipping the pencil sketching part, making me look even slower than I already am. So to set myself apart, I try nowadays to paint stuff that require a lot of patience e.g. buildings, figures, furniture...and they would mumble all the time I spend too much time on the details.  

6th painting and the license
to choose future paintings more or less freely

What did I do with my paintings? The first 2 paintings are currently hiding in my pantry, hanging over my shelves of dried goods and bottles of water; the next 5-6 paintings found their way to my several bathrooms (I have 6). One of the more edible ones went to Anna, and my favourite is at this moment making its way (via Hub) to MIL; yet another is currently hanging in the guest room. 

I also like to paint water villages (8th painting)

My 2nd Hu Yongkai painting
that MIL chose to have for Xmas (12th)

A European water village? (7th)

The 1st painting I dared to frame up (9th)

My favourites are the Hu Yongkai paintings (the ones with the Chinese ladies) and I have decided I may paint one between two to three landscapes (which are good for training our painting skills though they are boring) as I gain a lot of satisfaction from doing them. I've already painted all the 3 paintings that Teacher Yao has on photo though, and will have to source for my own samples if I want to paint more of Painter Hu's work. 

My very 1st Hu Yongkai painting (10th)

I like this one but the rocks were tough to paint
and saw a copy on Taobao selling for 12000 rmb! (13th)

Another Chinese water village (11th)

Well, so you know what I've been up to in the past year. 

Walking in Puxi (浦西) Autumn 2012

A Chinese boy in Puxi

Today is Children's Day in Singapore. Or I'm being stubborn because I now live in China and we have just started the famous Golden Week (if you see lots of Chinese tourists where you are you'll understand why) celebrating the PRC's National Day. The security guard just delivered us a bag courtesy of the Shanghai Municipality to mark the occasion and it contained a TCM brochure and a free wooden health comb.

I have therefore decided to do another long due post on Shanghai. We have been living here more than 2.5 years now. Officially the contract finishes in March next year, but with Hub helping the company open up factories in the North plus his having just taken over their Malaysian operations, I suspect that we would be here for a little while longer.

We live reasonably isolated from the humdrum of Chinese life. When we leave our lightly gated community we do find ourselves in the midst of the locals and migrant workers, but Jinqiao in Pudong is still a small (expat) world apart from Puxi - the historic part of Shanghai.

Visiting Puxi was therefore often looked upon as a little expedition for some of us, especially when the traffic jams on the way there seemed to be getting from bad to worse nowadays. Not surprising when you consider the thousand COEs they issue each month to new car buyers and these new cars tend to be those big, expensive imported ones that take up a lot of space on the roads. Foreign car makers used to imagine that cheap, outdated car models would sell like hotcakes in China, only to discover that only the Chinese carmakers could make lousy cheap cars that the Chinese would buy; the majority only want the very best that even many Europeans and Americans could no longer afford. This is an example of the Chinese success story and my Jiangmen cousin's recent purchase of a BMW is a case in point. Rewind to the 1980s when he sent us a photo of his proud purchase : a 3-wheel mini-van/scooter. He has done well like so many of his comrades.

Vegetables, anyone?

Together with my neighbours J and F we finally found a moment last autumn for our walkaround. We asked to be driven to the former French Concession (forgetting the word "former" could get one into trouble with the authorities) and from there explored the surrounding (older) neighbourhoods on foot. They probably had fantastic photos as they brought along their SLRs, but I was too lazy and used my really old Sony. Many things have changed since, e.g. one building we saw being renovated then now houses a French restaurant.

Dancing in Fuxing Park

We walked through Fuxing park (the one where Chinese and dogs were not allowed entry in the old colonial days) and saw the Chinese dancing in it; we walked past street markets and tasted some of the less dangerous-looking wares. We peeped into boutiques, but could find nothing to buy either because we couldn't fit into Chinese sizes or couldn't afford Shanghainese prices. Contrary to popular belief outside China, Shanghai is a very expensive city.

Cloth for pyjamas?

Near Yongkang Lu I walked past a tiny shop selling cloth and the owners giggled when they saw me. When they realised I could speak Chinese they told me I looked like some famous ethnic minority singer in the country. I think I knew who they were referring to; funny enough the singer in question is also married to a European.

Over the summer I've read a few books written by Shanghainese who have fled China in the 1940s and who lived in the Western world after that. It was fascinating learning about the  street names in French in those days (e.g. Huaihai Zhong Lu used to be known as Avenue Joffre), about the prosperity in the city before the Communists took over. As you walked around the city you could imagine (often still see) its former splendour, and sometimes one wonders what things would have been if there hadn't been communism, the cultural revolution etc. Probably fewer ugly towers (like in HK) that have aged badly, to start with.   

However, delayed prosperity is better than no prosperity. I just found out, for instance, that one of my drivers (since August this year we have 2 cars and 2 drivers) is going to become quite rich overnight. His late grandfather owned a broken-down-no-private-toilet old house near People's Square in Puxi that is finally going to be acquired by a developer. The compensation depends on the number of people registered under each address and in Driver J's case, the three (feuding-because-of-incoming-wealth) families "living" under the roof will each receive two new 2-bedroom apartments (choice of 3 locations in Shanghai). At current property prices (e.g. in the Sheshan area where the new flats will be), their old house is worth around 800,000 euros!  

Milk box, letter box, electricity box?

Driver J is now going to be very comfortable like a number of Shanghainese with wealth that just dropped on their laps thanks to the crazy development of their city. He whined that the locals who used to/still own land (本地人) in the near countryside are/will be even richer because the compensation tends to be 2-3 times more important than for small old houses in the city. I've heard stories of road sweepers turning up for work driving Mercedes-Benz because they had become rich overnight but had no skills in life besides farming, for instance.

Quite tasty actually

His daughter's generation will be the most fortunate, I think. The girl will have at least 4 flats to inherit later on in life: her maternal grandparents' flat in Qibao, her dad's current Kangqiao flat and the coming 2 flats in Sheshan! In fact, you just need to rub shoulders with young Shanghainese to know that they will be one smirky-very-pleased-with-themselves generation to look out for. They have comfortable lives, good education, good jobs, good future - and cannot imagine why they couldn't always get what they want in life.

The other day I lunched alone at the Food Opera food court at Super Brand Mall. Left an old folded shopping bag on a seat so that I could free my hands to carry my tray of food. Came back to find a young Chinese girl on my seat. When I told her that she was sitting on my seat, she looked at the bag she had removed/set aside and retorted, "I couldn't possibly not sit where I wanted to because of your bag, could I?"

I freaked out when I heard that because I had expected to hear a brief apology and was getting ready to move on. Obviously she didn't think it wrong to touch something that didn't belong to her, nor did it occur to her to apologise for having done that. A whole city filled with complacent, spoilt brats like that, what future does this country have?  

Anyway, while waiting to see this city transform itself into one of unparalleled wealth, of glittering skyscrapers, megastores and ubiquitous Land Rovers, we are going to try to enjoy as much of what still remains that is charming and interesting. 

I must remember to ask Driver J to check with his neighbours before they move if they have any old furniture they would be throwing out that could be of interest to a karang guni like myself.

I love lanzhou lamian

Pomegranate juice

Mooncake Festival 中秋 2012

 

I haven't been able to bake my own mooncakes last year like I'd promised myself I would the year before. Apart from being lazy I'm also trying to lose some weight (since when have I not been trying to lose weight you'd say) so it would be crazy to start baking dozens of the sweet and oily stuff much as it would be nice to have a few nice pictures to show for the effort.

Then came the neighbours to the rescue. In anticipation of the Mid-Autumn festival J attended 2 mooncake-making classes and kindly agreed to share her new-found skills with a few of us. She brought over all the necessary ingredients and all I needed to provide was my table top, coup de main and hot oven. Charming company thrown in, of course.

You should see the amount of golden syrup, oil and sugar that went into those mooncakes. I had to provide a lot of cling wrap if I didn't want the table top to be over moisturised. Though it was fun making them because you could more or less fill them with whatever you like. But I'm a simple girl, I either like red bean paste or lotus seed paste with double egg yolks.

Incidentally I ended up eating quite a number of lotus seed and red bean paste mooncakes last year in spite of my good intentions (not to). The Chinese cousin sent up 2 boxes from the South (containing dried tangerine peel though you couldn't really taste it - thank God) and a local friend offered me a box (that also came from the South).

I also ate a number of the local savoury pork mooncakes that were really good when eaten hot off the oven. Though ask me not what they filled those stuff with, one couldn't really make out what was meat and what was fat but eat everything together and I can tell you it was good (though not for the heart).

So I start off 2013 with the resolution (once again) to make my own mooncakes this year. I will buy a few of those modern plastic moulds (see picture) that may not be sexy or ecological, but oh so easy to use. Another good reason to spend more time on Taobao.

My Paternal Great Grandfather

Great grandpa in a suit

I know that I have been away for a long time.

I've missed writing, but I've not missed the blog. I never thought I'd say that, but I just did and it proved that I have a life other than my blog. I still feel the need to document, more for myself than for anybody else, but I no longer feel the urgency to do so in real time.

For my 40th birthday last October Hub had the first year of my blog published. He obviously thought the blog meant a lot to me (which it does) and he must be proud of it in some way (I'm honoured, of course). I felt embarrassed about it actually, since I never thought it was decent enough to be put to print and I still don't. I would have liked to be able to revise/edit it myself, but it had been left to the Teenager to do it and while it was sweet of the boy, it was as with most of his work sloppily done.

Much and yet nothing much has happened since I last blogged. We are still in China and would have at least another year left of our stay here. I am busy and keep myself busy, we have travelled and are going away again very soon and I still cook every day though I have not been experimenting lately.

A few days ago I asked my Chinese cousin in Jiangmen to send me a photo of our great grandfather. He first showed it to me 2 years ago when I brought the parents down to visit our ancestral village and I've always wanted to see it again.

I couldn't remember why great grandpa was wearing a suit and why he had his picture taken in it, but I will ask cousin again the next time I see him. I also couldn't remember what the guy did in his life, except for some reference to opera costumes. The cousin had provided much information, but I'm getting on in years and couldn't seem to remember much of anything nowadays. Another reason why I should document more in my blog and certainly not wait too long to do so, I guess.

2 years in China and I must say that I'm happy here. But I don't feel any more Chinese for that, on the contrary I reaffirm my foreignness every day. I get Chinese people coming up to me from time to time asking me if I were Chinese, and often in the same breath they would tell me that I do not really look like one. A few would tell me I'm 很洋气 meaning they think I have western airs (whatever that meant).

Great grandpa was tall and thin. I wonder why that kind of genes didn't pass on to me or to any of my kids. Mum's short and fat ones were probably more dominant. Fancy me being really tall with skinny legs - my life could have been very different, don't you think so?

Qibao Old Town, Shanghai

Qibao's water town snap

As you know the family came for a visit a few weeks ago. I more or less have the tourist machine oiled and running except that the younger sis had to complicate things by making a 4th child a few months before she was to visit.

The entrance to the ancient part of Qibao

Visiting tourist spots with a 7 month old is a challenge for anybody. Fortunately Hub kindly made sure that we had the car and the driver at our disposal during the duration of their visit, but you still wouldn't tempt fate by driving a baby in a car for hours just to smell stinky tofu in an ancient water town.

Mum with 2nd niece and 3rd nephew

While I did send them with a reduced number of children to Suzhou one Saturday, I felt that 2 weeks in Shanghai warranted a visit to a nearby water town where they would be able to take in local snacks at a glance. BIL is quite adventurous when it comes to eating street food so I had to give him an opportunity to do just that.

Mum in Qibao

Qibao Water Town and Old Street (七宝老街）seemed like the place for a short visit since it's actually situated in the Minhang district of Shanghai itself (less than an hour from my place) and is even accessible by metro. It is supposedly more than a thousand years old (Northern Song Dynasty, 960-1126) and was named in ancient times after its famous temple said to harbour 7 treasures. Only a bronze bell dating from the Ming Dynasty and a Gold Script Lotus Sutra written by an imperial concubine of the 10th century have survived to this day, though if you were to ask most people about the place they probably would only think of its snacks. Check out this article about them.

Old food street ahead

The old part of the town is really small. Something you can do with 4 kids including a baby. I am not the kind to tempt fate eating unknown delicacies found in a smelly (no thanks to stinky tofu) street, but felt that I had to mark the occasion by risking gutter oil and bought us a few pieces of fried tofu skin (non-stinky) to nibble on. Also had a pretty good ice Belgian chocolate drink from a modern bubble tea stall while BIL bought baked quail eggs to try.

Quail eggs

A new pan-fried soup dumpling (生煎) shop was running a one-for-one promotion and we found ourselves queuing up for a long time to try out its dumplings. They weren't too bad and were best eaten fresh out of the pan, though minus the promotion I probably wouldn't bother to queue up this long in the heat for them.

Town is known for boiled mutton and red-cooked pork

The town is apparently also famous for cricket fighting since ancient times. Its climate allows for the existence of a few aggressive/fierce breeds of crickets that draw so much interest they even have a special museum for both cricket displays and live cricket fighting shows.

Fried and roasted delicacies

Sweet wine cakes?

Qibao is worth the while if you like (and dare to try) local snacks and do not mind the ubiquitous stinky tofu smells. Otherwise I've seen prettier ancient water towns in my 18 months here.

If I remembered correctly this was a tea house