Paris of the East - Shanghai, China
Shanghai, China
SHANGHAI
1. People Lauren, Paul, Chara, Salem: the Schweizer family are so lovely. They welcomed us into their home and it was so comfortable and very modern. Paul and Lauren have two beautiful daughters, 2 years old and almost 1 years old. They were so funny but scared of us most of the time, well the older one Chara was. Paul is the operations manager at the school and Lauren worked part time in the mornings in admissions. With two little ones in the house, a lot of our schedule, well their schedule formed around them, but we had a great time get to know them and had some great conversations. They lived here in Shanghai once before the kids were born and that is when they met the Wagners. Lauren volunteer at the orphanage. Paul had worked here, then he went to work for an oil company in Houston, so we were able to take a lot about Texas. Then they decided to come back to Shanghai and work for the Wagners at the school full time. Chief Woo – We never actually met him, but from what we heard, he is the local government representative that is “helping” the Wagners making this all happen. He is the land owner of the Schweizer’s house, the orphanage, and I think some of the school. He sounded like a real character. Lauren said he would come by the house, whenever, their house was the house that he was born in and when he made something of himself, he renovated it and they were the first family to live in it since then. He renovated the orphanage for them also. Paul said when they first came to look at it, the building was full of trash and looked horrible, but they cleaned it up, put in new floors donated by Mrs. O’s husband and the place just looks amazing now. They are able to put in 60 beds for the babies and their oldest boy, 5 years old, has his own room :) Chief Woo, was still adding things to the Schweizer’s house, while we were they had just gotten lights for outside, screens on the windows, and dirt in the back yard, where Paul put in a garden. Chief Woo had a massive house, with a courtyard and owned the buildings from the orphanage, some apartments in between and the Schweizer’s house, those were all connected across the street from his own “compound size” house. Paul said he had a pool, but they aren’t exactly legal so he called it a koi pond and was in the process of putting a Koi Pond behind Paul’s house and a new park behind the orphanage. Also right before we had arrived, the Wagner’s were having some issues with the church side of their project. The church had grown to over 200 people and their presence was becoming noticed my government people higher than Chief Woo. So Chief Woo told them they would have to shut the operations down, which would have included the school and orphanage. Mr. Wagner asked him what they could do to prevent that, and Chief Woo suggested that they break up the church meetings into smaller groups. So they did that and Mr. Wagner removed himself from the operations scene at the school and orphanage. This seemed to help. Chief Woo appreciated all the good things the Wagner’s were doing for his community so he seemed obliged to help them. Jessica and Jo – Friends of Mark’s from California! What an exciting surprise that we learned they were in Shanghai. It had been a while since Mark had seen them. I think they left California about the same time Mark did, about 5 years ago. Jo had just gotten a job in China almost a year ago now and Jessica was able it find herself a great marketing job after they arrived, just down the street from their apartment. We were able to see them a couple of night while we were in Shanghai and it was so much fun to catch up with them. David Andrews – A friend of Mark’s from work, who actually live in Beijing but was out of the country while we were there, but we lucked out and he had a work trip in Shanghai and arrived before our last night there, so we meet him, Jessica, and Jo for drinks and dinner, before we left again. Mark’s old boss was arriving the day we were leaving and it was a shame we were not going to be able to see him. I told Mark we should go to the airport and welcome him to China. Then get his itinerary for the rest of the year and unexpectedly show up and welcome him all over Asia, hahaha! That would have been so funny! :) Wagner Family – Dad, Mom and 5 kids, from 15 to almost 1 years old. They are the reason we were able to come volunteer in Shanghai. Originally they were in the Philippines and started a church there, then his job moved them to Shanghai, where they decided to start the orphanage about 5 years ago. They started the school, because their own children need to go to school and other international schools were too expensive, so they started to home school their children and over the years, more families joined them and eventually they decided to bring teachers over from the Philippines and have been turning themselves into a proper school. They have over 200 students now and are working on becoming a Chinese accredited school and just started the high school curriculum which is accredited through a school in America. Mrs and Mr O – So I call her Mrs. O because everyone else at school does. Her name is actually Joanne Olrich, but the kids have a hard time saying Olrich, so we just call her Mrs. O. They have been in China I think for about 15 years and Mrs. O had been working for the school almost 2 years and this year she became the principle. She helped me a lot with the more troublesome kids during the English Camp. On the outside she was the perfect principle figure, towering and could pull a great stern face. But when we talked to her she was so funny, easy to hang out with, and very welcoming. We had some great dinners and conversations with her and she even took us around town to do a little sightseeing. Her own children are grown now and back in America, working or at school. Probably a little younger than us. Her son is an engineer working in Colorado with a gold mining company and I think her daughters are still in school, bound to do some amazing things. :) Mrs and Mr S – Are a teaching couple we met at the school. She is teaching Art and I think he was teaching something like 3rd grade. She was so funny and we had some great conversations. They had a son and daughter that would attend the school and this was their first year here. He husband had just gotten the job and after they arrive, they decided to higher her as the Art teacher. Chinese Kids – Funny, sweet, and I wished I could speak Chinese every time I saw them. I had a rather large class, 25 kid from 6 to 12 years old, so quite a handful, and the kids that did not speak English well would get bored often and act up. The girls made their exclusive group with a set of twins in the middle of it and the other children were just adorable. Pretty much just the same as American kids I thought. Easy to care for on a small scale and hard as the class size grew. I wished I could have bonded with them more.
2. Accommodation Lauren and Paul’s house and Neighborhood – Lauren and Paul have a lovely 4 bedroom mother-in-law plan house, so we were in our own little suite, very fancy and comfortable. It felt a lot like my sister’s house in Washington D.C. While we were there, we got baby chicken and puppies. It was so much fun. The house was just a 1 minute walk away from the orphanage. On our first day there, Paul took us around the neighborhood and we met some of the neighbors. They all loved the children, with their golden blonde hair and fair skin. People always wanted to touch them and take photos with them. Chief Woo, decorated the house beautifully. They had tile floors and lots of wooden screens, cabinets, and stairs. It was a beautiful, modern renovation. We lived out on the very edge of the Shanghai, about an hour’s subway ride from downtown. There were a lot of koi farms around us and a little village with a few stores and restaurants. At night there were lot of people in the streets selling different street food, clothes, and vegetables. Jo and Jess’s Apartment – Their apartment was also renovated. It was a little funny, the outside of the building looked not so good and the hallway looked completely rune down, but then we walked into their apartment and it was amazing. Very modern, white cabinets, nice furniture, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and they had an oven, microwave, dish washer, washing machine and dryer!!!! Wow! I hadn’t seen one of those in a long time. They also have two very funny cats, which they brought from America. Jo said they were the most expensive thing they had brought from home.
3. Tourist Activities/Adventures Mark got Sick – So after the crowded 14 hour train ride, with no sleep, and grimy bathroom, of course Mark got sick. He seemed okay when we arrive to Paul and Lauren’s house, but the next day after church he went to bed and didn’t way up until Monday night. He ate a little dinner and went back to sleep again. He sweat out the cold and was able to join us Tuesday. Poor babes :( at least we were in a comfortable place where he rest it out. The Bund – This area looked a lot like Hong Kong, but it was a very special place. On one side of the river, the buildings were very modern with all sorts of shapes, it was a beautiful skyline, with one of the tallest buildings in the world. I think Lauren told us it was the second tallest. But on the side we were on had a very French influence, the buildings were very grand and old looking. We as beautiful to see the old juxtaposed with the new. We walked around there until the sun went down and even unfortunately after the subway stopped so we had to take a taxi home. People Square Park – This is a very pretty park in the Shanghai and we look a stroll through it one day after church. There were many people there, doing the usual things people do in Chinese parks singing, dancing, and playing games. It was really very fun. We got a drink and some fried chicken nuggets and walked around to look at everyone. The most interesting thing we was a man standing next to a tree with a bird cage in it. He was taking his bird out for a day in the park. There were museums in the park, a river, and a pond. Beach – Paul took us and Chara to the “beach” near their house which was on the other side of the city trash dump and the hog farm. I think that was the first time Mark had ever smelled what a hog farm smells like. Paul took Chara on his bike, while we rode on the scooter. It went a speedy 40k per hour. It felt like we were soaring, haha! We parked our rides on the street and to get to the “beach” we had to climb down some drain pipes. The ground was mostly rocks, which Chara loved throwing in the ocean. Paul also brought his kite, which he and Mark flew. There were a lot of people there, cooling down from the hot sun, I’m sure. They were all happy to see Chara playing around and she was solely occupied with throwing her rocks, haha. After a while, we saw a storm rolling in and everyone got out of the ocean and started headed home, so we did also. It was a fun day at the “beach” :) Church – Since the Wagner’s had to split up their church meetings, we went to two different churches. The first time we went, we held church at the house where they used to have the orphanage. It was in the same subdivision that the Wagner’s live in. Very nice house and was nice for church since it was empty, but I couldn’t imagine having the orphanage there. It must have been very difficult. The next two time we went over to Mrs. O’s house for church. She said they usually held it there since they split up, but she was out of town for a while, that is why we were at the other house. Mrs. O’s house is very nice a spacious and since her husband works for a furniture company she had the best furniture, the pick of the crop! The neighborhood was a very nice Spanish style homes. When we drove into the neighborhood it felt like we were in a different world. One small problem the church was having was that these neighborhoods have gate guards and they didn’t mind us going in and out, but when some of the Chinese people would try to come in, sometimes they had problems and the guards didn’t want to let them in. Lauren and Mrs. Wagner led the worship music and Mr. Wagner is the preacher. One Sunday we had a special guest speaker from the Philippines and she was really great also. Since we were holding church in 4 different locations. Mr. Wagner would start at our service then speed off to the next one. He was a very busy man on Sundays. Ferry – Paul took us on the ferry from the modern side of the Bund to the other older side. It was quite an adventure. There were a lot of people gathering to get onto the ferry, a very big line. After we walked through the ticket stall, we were on the boarding plank. I thought we were on the ferry already, but we weren’t. The plank we were on way like a screen and it was funny to see the women in high heels trying to balance on the plank, I bet that was a little hard to do. Lots of skill there :) Then Paul told us to get ready because the ferry was coming. When the gates lowered, everyone pushed on and Paul told us we needed to try to get up to the top, that where the best view was. So we rushed up there and so did everyone else, but at least we made it. It was very crowded up there and a little difficult for me to see the view, because everyone else was so tall. We did get a nice photo of us all on the ferry though and it was a fun time. TianZiFang and Yu Garden - After the ferry ride, Mrs. O met us outside of Yu Garden and we walked over to an older part of town that they have converted into little shops and restaurants. It was a maze in there of little ally streets. Mrs. O said bikes and scooters come zipping through these streets and I just could believe it, they were so tight already. The best part of this area were the buildings and the art studios. It was all so lovely! I wanted to buy everything, but of course, we only have back packs. We stopped in this funny little bar in called Kommune Café and had some drinks and the whole time we were sitting there people were stopping outside the café and taking photos of us drinking. Actually the whole time we were walking around people were taking photos of us. I thought it was a little weird because I am used to people taking photos of Mark, but they were taking photos of me also. How funny. Mrs. O said they were Chinese tourists from other parts of the country. Tea Ceremony Scams – So we heard about this A LOT and luckily we avoid the scam, although the whole time we were in China we were suspicious of anyone asking us about going for tea, haha. A bit unfortunate that were a little paranoid the whole time. But anyways, it’s always the same scenario. You are visiting Shanghai’s most popular spots. East Nanjing Road, the Bund or People’s Square and suddenly a couple of well-dressed students start a conversation in good English. They’ll claim to be tourists visiting Shanghai. You have something in common. You bond. Instantly. That’s what travel is all about. Maybe they’ll ask you to take their photo, then they’ll ask you to join them in their next sightseeing stop and experience the real Chinese tea ceremony. And you’ll think ‘how cool is that’ and they take you around all these winding streets to a little house in a back alley, so it is hard to remember how to get back. Then you all go inside this house and you sit down and watch this little old lady perform a tea ceremony. It is all fun and games, a good time, then the bill comes and it comes out to something like 750 yuan or more which is like $100 USD or more :/ very sad. Other stories were the businessman who has lost his wallet and briefcase and needs money to catch a taxi to his hotel, the young art students who want to show you their original paintings in a nearby exhibition, the beautiful girls who try to get you to play karaoke with them. It any of these scams do happen to you, here is an article I found about how to get your money back. https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/ forums/asia-north-east-asia/topics/shan ghai-tea-house-ceremony-scam-getting-yo ur-money-back
4. Food Szechuan food – Jess and Jo took us out of Szechuan food and we thought sure, we like spicy food, but this food was nothing like we ever had before! It was amazing. They made typical Shanghai food but in the Szechuan style and it was so yummy. The real Szechuan peppers are these amazing peppers that numb you mouth, so you can’t taste how spicy everything actually is. It was so weird and cool and a very neat restaurant, much more fancy than anything we had been to since then. They gave us wet wipes that Jo told us not to use because they put a lot of chemicals on them and if you don’t use them they take 1 Yuan off the bill. Shanghai food – This food tasted more like the type of Chinese food we have at home. It was very sweet and saucy. Mark like it, I didn’t care for it very much. It was sweet and I thought a little bland. Most people told me I wouldn’t like it. We had little BBQ ribs which were good, these little steamed buns you fill with a ground beef mixture (we tried this with Jess and Jo and I liked the Szechuan style a lot more) and my favorite was the tofu, but I always like tofu. 1 Yuan Boazi and Manto – our favorite ever!!! We love the steamed bread and right across the street from the school was a place that sold 1 yuan dumplings. So the Boazi is steamed buns with all different kinds of filling (Mark’s Fav) and the Manto is just the steamed bun (My fav). We both ate way too many and it was the best, haha! Watermelon – It was watermelon season while we were in Shanghai, so we ate a lot of watermelon and it was very good. I made a watermelon water also and that was yum also. Dragon Fruit – we were there at the end of dragon fruit season so I was able to still get some and it is always my fave. The season is about April to June. Lauren’s homemade vegetarian food – So Lauren and Paul are exactly vegetarians, but the meat in China is kind of questionable. Well the restaurants will cook with MSG and the farms use chemicals, which is normal in America, well maybe not the MSG but the chemicals are normal, but being in a different country makes people feel a little more self-conscious about the food making you feel bad. So a lot of the people we met choose to eat at home and avoided meat. Lauren made super good homemade yoghurt, bread, kefir, and muesli. It was all delicious and at night we had vegetarian food. With all the spices, Mark said he didn’t even really noticed we were missing the meat. :) we had curry, stir fry, casserole, burgers, and one night I made tacos. It was yum! Tortillas – Lauren and Paul really liked tortillas, so I showed them how to make them at home. Lauren orders a lot of her staple food online and the home made tortillas of course were so much better than the store bought ones and I am definitely getting better making them round :) I think my dream to open a tortilla bakery in England is sure on the way, hahaha!
Dinner at Mrs. O’s house – one evening Mrs. O asked if we would like to join her for dinner at her house. Mark was working still, so she swept me away on her scooter to her house :). It is a lovely home and while we were waking for Mark to show up, we sat out on her patio and had some drinks. I lucked out because she had a bottle of Riesling that she didn’t like, win win for me! Riesling is one of my favs! Mrs. O ordered pizza and dessert from a local restaurant and while we were sitting there, they called us two times. Luckily Mrs. O answered it, she usually doesn’t answer the phone, but her husband is away in America working so it might have been him calling, but it wasn’t it was the restaurant telling us they didn’t have chocolate cake, so we switched to tiramisu, then then called again and said no tiramisu :/ so we ended up with cheese cake, haha! That is good too “) The food took a super long time, to arrive, but that was okay because we were having a great time on the patio. Just as the food arrived so did Mark and we all sat down to meaty pizza and cheese cakes :) it was great hanging out with Mrs. O Dinner at Liquid Laundry – After TianZiFang, we met Mrs. O’s husband at restaurant called Liquid Landry. He had just landed back in China and after making a quick stop at the house to drop his stuff he came to meet us for dinner. We went there because Mr. and Mrs. O knew the owners. They used to live above them when they first moved to China. Back then the owners just had a little bar they had just started up. They were from Korea and had a great flair for style and cooking. Their restaurant was amazing, beautifully decorated and the food was awesome. We sat down at the table and Mrs. O’s friends came over to say hi. She asked us what we wanted for dinner and Mrs. O said “appetizers and dinner, bring us whatever you think would be best!” and they brought out the best creations, it was all so yummy. Mark ordered a taster flight of beer and when it arrived, it was like 5 or 6 at least 8 oz cups of beer. It was a lot. Mark liked them all and I even thought a couple of them were pretty good. The evening was just perfect, good food and great friends. Then we all went home on the subway.
5. Transportation Scooter – Paul and Lauren had an extra scooter at home and Mark was so excited to have some wheel. This super sleek electric scooter went a whopping 60K per hour!!! It was so fast, haha, but is was awesome to have our own ride. It charged overnight and in the day we had enough energy to go to school from the house at least twice. That took about 30 minutes on our scooter, maybe 45 and in car it was only a little bit faster. Some days I would ride to work with Lauren because she left earlier like at 8 and Mark wouldn’t get to work until like 10ish. I loved watching all the other people driving around in their scooters. The ladies would be completely dresses up so that the sun would not touch their skin. Long sleeves, pants, sunglasses, hats, and even full face visors. It was so awesome. Then of course, the whole families would be on the scooters, dad, mom, one kid in the front and one kid with the mom on the back, just zipping around as happy as can be “) Bike – Paul and Lauren had a lot of bikes, but they were too big for me so I had to borrow Cecilia’s. It was smaller :) Mark and I took them into town a couple of times. I bought banana’s one day and brought them home in my basket :D fun! Subway – The metro in Shanghai was pretty good. We of course got a metro card when we first arrived there and Paul and Lauren lived about a 10 minute scooter ride from the last stop on the green line. Shanghai is pretty big, so to get from our place to Jess and Jo it would take about 1 hour on the train maybe a bit more. But over all, it was very easy to get around everywhere. Car – Once we went into town with Paul and Lauren for lunch and driving through Shanghai was interesting. There was a lot of traffic, but Lauren was really good at driving through all the chaos. You don’t really have to wear a seat belt in China and Lauren says everyone thinks it is really weird that she has the kids in safety seats.
6. Volunteer Work Internet infrastructure - English Camp – My first job in Shanghai was to help the school with their English camp. Each year, they had a 4 week immersion camp during the summer. This was a real money maker for the school and I helped shuffle the kids from one class to the next, English, Chinese, Art, Music, Basketball, and Dance. My group were call the Whales. The classes were really great and I loved meeting all the other teachers. But like I said it was a little hard for me because some of the kids I had were rowdy and that made it a little difficult for the other kids to pay attention in class. I wished I knew how to handle them better. After the camp was done, I wished I had taken lessons in child management for something like that at least more experience, dealing with the rowdy kids. Library – The second week, I worked on the library. The school had just gotten a new wing and the library was moving over there. They brought all the shelves and books over and pretty much dumped them in room and I spent the week sorting through all the books and categorizing them into fiction (history, travel, science…) and non-fiction (chapter books, not chapter books, and learning to read books) I thought it was going to take the whole week, but with Mark working until after 7 most of the days, I got it done by Thursday :) it was a very satisfying job. And the coolest part was, it felt like the whole thing was a complete library kit, shelves, books, and I even found in the bottom of the book box, a sheet of tear apart alphabet letters, which I used to alphabetize the non-fiction books. Then Mark found me a label maker and my life was complete! This was a very satisfying job :D Orphanage - We didn’t get to spend as much time here as we wanted, but we did a lot of work at the school which helps the orphanage. The couple of times I did go over there we just heavenly. The kids were so cute and adorable, I just wanted to hold them forever. They were so cuddly and they loved being held. The Wagners have hired Chinese ladies to take care of kids and a young nurse to be the on-sight medical professional. The building have 3.5 floors where the first floor is the kitchen, dining room, 2 playrooms and the “living room” where people can play with the kids. The second floor is play rooms and the nurse’s office and the top floors are the bed rooms. They have painted them all very cute with animals and lambs. They are hoping to have 100 beds one day, but right now they have 60. Please keep them in your prayers and all those supporting the wonderful mission the Lord has put on the Wagner’s hearts.