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Since October (2005), time sure flew by. I arrived here in mild weather but with some of a bad jet hangover. A cold pretty much knocked me out which almost made me end up hooked to an infuse . I hadn’t been that sick for at least long enough so that I would never have to remember. Next thing, about the third day, I had an encounter with a mean cockroach which at a first gaze someone could easily mistake for a mouse. I can bear a few kinds of domestic pests, I abhor these ugly bastards though. I’m all about roach rage massacre syndrome and the bug that has the bad of meeting me in my bedroom (the worse place possible) is a dead bug. In a daze of panic armed myself with a big kitchen knife and I did what I had to do. And did it a few times more to make sure. More of these incidents occurred throughout my staying. Like that day I went to a hotpot restaurant downtown. A combination of cheap meat, a loud crowd and steamy windows. A lot of those pots aren't so clean, you're mostly boiling in soup of predecessor, it's not a happy thought. Chewing on a 10 years old piece of surimi wasn't that pleasant either, yet it was the rabbit with the rats' tail under table that drew my attention. First timer watching a rat that up close. It wasn’t so much that I was bothered by the rodent or the hotpot in particular though, it was more spraying pupu and cramps. Spicy food, through my digestion, mostly ends up messy muck. I don't need rotten meat thrown into the mix. I already miss it here though. Obviously it hasn’t always been easy to describe what it is that appeals to me most about this country. Sometimes I even feel pretty fed up with daily stuff around here. I hate queuing, as if you could even call it that. Car drivers are noisy and the traffic sure is frustrating. The internet seems pretty primitive. I’m tired of drinking boiled water, etc… If I was to describe this country in a nutshell, I'd say it's a surrounding of contradiction. Contradictions everywhere.They say Shanghai is about to turn into the worlds richest (Western?) metropolis. It sucks up most of Chinese tax earnings. 50 km to the east, towns are being turn into polluted construction sites. Villagers are labouring for scratch, while generation X’s getting educated to get a piece of the action. Shanghai sure has every look of a harbour city on steroids. Some say it’s digging a big ditch between the wealthy and miserable. I like Shanghai the most though, as a city, as a culture, the people. However adverse, the real reason I like it , is also a negative to me. It’s so western that it lacks too much of the eastern. I won’t give in to it’s expensive MTV commerce yet. Coz that’s what it is. Sixteen year old teens, living up to a status of their favourite movie or pop star. They go to a disco every weekend, a place that makes our nightlife the outdated original, almost an underdog. However it makes me appreciate ours more. Something is missing in Shanghai’s party fests and I’d say it’s quality. They seem to want to make it up with flocks of fair looking girlfriends, the professional kind.
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