shanghai tang
all in all it's pretty much a good experience. i can shop because i can speak chinese.
on tekong i always looked up at the sky when airplanes flew past. they would bank to the left or the right or they would fly straight, above our heads. the roar of the engines would come distinctly after the plane moved off, such as if you were watching a bad movie with it's entire soundtrack delayed.
and i would always imagine myself on the plane, my head resting on the back of the chair, arms resting on the armrests.
shanghai is juxtaposition defined.
being here, sharing the same time as those back home, but experiencing a different time.
these days, though, the contrasts are not as obvious.
there are less beggars on the street, but there still are. dilapilated shophouses line the street opposite the hotel i'm staying in, but in between them there are convenience stores that have brightly lit facades that stand out sharply.
singaporean syndrome has kicked in very sharply. i feel like a bird haha... cheep cheep cheep! my dad said breakfast cost him a few cents-maybe he was exaggerating. but on sunday, after we visited the temples on anyuan road and some other temple elsewhere, we decided to get a little snack-a meal by normal people's definitions. actually you have to see the amount of food that we ate to appreciate how far we stretch the yuan. yeah the yuan should be made of rubber and not paper because we stretch it that far. ah what the hell everything's CHEEP! get it?
on the other hand, places like starbucks and haagen daaz are as expensive as those in singapore. given that it's bitterly friggin' cold now, you wouldn't expect haggen daazes to be popular here. but you are SO wrong. because i've seen so many haagen daazes all over the place, and one haagen daaz on nanjing road-one of the main shopping streets-probably had more patrons inside than the total number of customers in all the haagen daazes over singapore at the same time. today i saw a woman eating an ice cream. i remain confused and bewildered to this moment.
starbucks is all over the place. it's kind of sad actually. today we went to yuyuan road, a locale FILLED with tourist-y shops selling jewellry, knick knacks, food and memoribilia. right smack in the middle of this square, surrounded by all the low-rise buildings-the kind with red wood and sloping roofs like those on pagodas-was a bloody starbucks. i was at once sad and amused. there was a group of ang moh tourists standing outside the starbucks, and they were all sipping starbucks. inside the starbucks, there were more angmoh tourists and they were all sipping starbucks.
i thought: "we are experiencing the wrath of globalisation."
but then again, it's an artificial, built-up tourist attraction. it's not a perversion of culture, because that little locale wasn't really reeking of culture to begin with. more like a culture of commercialism-although they nice authentic looking sweets, candies and biscuits haha.
well there's the super expensive and the super cheap. east nanjing road is full of neon lights, but the shops are not particularly enticing. not far east-like shops, nothing of the like. but then there's xintiande in huaihai road and west nanjing road.
xintiande is uber-sophisticated; it's crazy. high rise concrete buildings, old french-style houses/buildings that are now bistros, bars and restaurants. super expensive i.t. (kinda like a hongkong version of club 21), a really chic shopping mall in the making, ultra-expensive shops like vivienne tam lining the street of which it's name i distinctly remember-corporation drive.
we drove past eastnanjing road today, 140305, and there was marc jacobs; ferrangamo; gucci, prada; louis vuitton etc. etc. some less expensive shops, but less is a relative word.
xiao long baos and the social strata
oh today at that same place (yuyuan garden) we had xiao long bao. there's this famous eatery called nan xiang something something something. they serve crab meat xiao long baos. actually it's more like pork mixed with crab meat, but here's the interesting bit.
there are four levels in this building that overlooks the (probably) artificial lake in the middle of the square. on the first floor you see a long snaking queue that's probably a hundred people long. there's a glass window that let's you see the cooks making xiao long bao on the spot, and people move past the window; money changing hands, xiao long bao changing hands; smoke, piping hot.
on the second level, you get to sit down. but you don't wait in line to get a table, you go to a table and wait for people to vacate, and you quickly chope your seat-a la food court style. the tables are always packed, so you have to share tables with others. you order and pay at the counter, they issue you a ticket and you wait long long for your xiao long bao to come. the skin of the bao is kinda thick, there's little soup inside and it's more pork than crab. my mum said she ate a crab shell-A HA! proof that there's crab meat inside!!
price: 15 yuan for 16 bao.
on the next floor, you get to queue for a table and there's a waitress who assigns you a table. you get to sit down at a table with the pleasure of privacy, and it's more expensive.
down a short corridor lies the last section in the building. okay it's not really a forth floor-but only in the physical sense. here, crab meat xiao long baos have crab meat. there's a selection of delicate tim sum; waiters wait on you waiters serve you tea waiters are at your disposal.
price: 30 yuan for 6 bao.
the people, the people who want to sit, the people who can afford to pay, the people who want to pay. we all eat xiao long baos but we all eat different things.
but all in all it's been a good experience.
on tekong i always looked up at the sky when airplanes flew past. they would bank to the left or the right or they would fly straight, above our heads. the roar of the engines would come distinctly after the plane moved off, such as if you were watching a bad movie with it's entire soundtrack delayed.
and i would always imagine myself on the plane, my head resting on the back of the chair, arms resting on the armrests.
shanghai is juxtaposition defined.
being here, sharing the same time as those back home, but experiencing a different time.
these days, though, the contrasts are not as obvious.
there are less beggars on the street, but there still are. dilapilated shophouses line the street opposite the hotel i'm staying in, but in between them there are convenience stores that have brightly lit facades that stand out sharply.
singaporean syndrome has kicked in very sharply. i feel like a bird haha... cheep cheep cheep! my dad said breakfast cost him a few cents-maybe he was exaggerating. but on sunday, after we visited the temples on anyuan road and some other temple elsewhere, we decided to get a little snack-a meal by normal people's definitions. actually you have to see the amount of food that we ate to appreciate how far we stretch the yuan. yeah the yuan should be made of rubber and not paper because we stretch it that far. ah what the hell everything's CHEEP! get it?
on the other hand, places like starbucks and haagen daaz are as expensive as those in singapore. given that it's bitterly friggin' cold now, you wouldn't expect haggen daazes to be popular here. but you are SO wrong. because i've seen so many haagen daazes all over the place, and one haagen daaz on nanjing road-one of the main shopping streets-probably had more patrons inside than the total number of customers in all the haagen daazes over singapore at the same time. today i saw a woman eating an ice cream. i remain confused and bewildered to this moment.
starbucks is all over the place. it's kind of sad actually. today we went to yuyuan road, a locale FILLED with tourist-y shops selling jewellry, knick knacks, food and memoribilia. right smack in the middle of this square, surrounded by all the low-rise buildings-the kind with red wood and sloping roofs like those on pagodas-was a bloody starbucks. i was at once sad and amused. there was a group of ang moh tourists standing outside the starbucks, and they were all sipping starbucks. inside the starbucks, there were more angmoh tourists and they were all sipping starbucks.
i thought: "we are experiencing the wrath of globalisation."
but then again, it's an artificial, built-up tourist attraction. it's not a perversion of culture, because that little locale wasn't really reeking of culture to begin with. more like a culture of commercialism-although they nice authentic looking sweets, candies and biscuits haha.
well there's the super expensive and the super cheap. east nanjing road is full of neon lights, but the shops are not particularly enticing. not far east-like shops, nothing of the like. but then there's xintiande in huaihai road and west nanjing road.
xintiande is uber-sophisticated; it's crazy. high rise concrete buildings, old french-style houses/buildings that are now bistros, bars and restaurants. super expensive i.t. (kinda like a hongkong version of club 21), a really chic shopping mall in the making, ultra-expensive shops like vivienne tam lining the street of which it's name i distinctly remember-corporation drive.
we drove past eastnanjing road today, 140305, and there was marc jacobs; ferrangamo; gucci, prada; louis vuitton etc. etc. some less expensive shops, but less is a relative word.
xiao long baos and the social strata
oh today at that same place (yuyuan garden) we had xiao long bao. there's this famous eatery called nan xiang something something something. they serve crab meat xiao long baos. actually it's more like pork mixed with crab meat, but here's the interesting bit.
there are four levels in this building that overlooks the (probably) artificial lake in the middle of the square. on the first floor you see a long snaking queue that's probably a hundred people long. there's a glass window that let's you see the cooks making xiao long bao on the spot, and people move past the window; money changing hands, xiao long bao changing hands; smoke, piping hot.
on the second level, you get to sit down. but you don't wait in line to get a table, you go to a table and wait for people to vacate, and you quickly chope your seat-a la food court style. the tables are always packed, so you have to share tables with others. you order and pay at the counter, they issue you a ticket and you wait long long for your xiao long bao to come. the skin of the bao is kinda thick, there's little soup inside and it's more pork than crab. my mum said she ate a crab shell-A HA! proof that there's crab meat inside!!
price: 15 yuan for 16 bao.
on the next floor, you get to queue for a table and there's a waitress who assigns you a table. you get to sit down at a table with the pleasure of privacy, and it's more expensive.
down a short corridor lies the last section in the building. okay it's not really a forth floor-but only in the physical sense. here, crab meat xiao long baos have crab meat. there's a selection of delicate tim sum; waiters wait on you waiters serve you tea waiters are at your disposal.
price: 30 yuan for 6 bao.
the people, the people who want to sit, the people who can afford to pay, the people who want to pay. we all eat xiao long baos but we all eat different things.
but all in all it's been a good experience.