Haochi and Xiangyang

Last night, we were invited to Penny's for dinner. Penny is one of Eric's coworkers. She is a Chinese woman who in addition to speaking Mandarin and Shanghainese (the local Shanghai dialect) is also fluent in English. A coworker from the U.S. had been in Shanghai for a business trip last year and he had been invited to Penny's for dinner. She had made a microwave steamed fish that he raved about. Penny lives in Hong Qiao in an apartment she purchased a couple of years ago. Her place is warm and inviting. She has blond wood floors and blond wood furniture, which gives the place a spacious and airy feel. Here Penny is wearing her apron and preparing the dinner. The entire meal was prepared in about 30 minutes, including the rice. She prepared several dishes, including cooked greens (something similar to baby bok choy), chopped cucumber salad, scrambled eggs with tomato and scallion, barbecued chicken, and of course, steamed fish. The ingredients were simple: soy sauce, vinegar, salt, oil. She did most of the cooking in a wok or in the microwave.
It's amazing that such simple ingredients could produce such delicious results. Partly too, food prepared by other hands seems to always taste better. Haochi (delicious)! I feel inspired to try my hand at cooking fish. Penny has a market near her place where she buys fresh fish. The grocery near us has tanks of fish, too. I'll have to get my nerve up and my dictionary ready. Once when we were at Carrefour, we saw an especially lively fish jump out of the tank and flop on the floor.

I went to the April meet and greet for the American Women's Club of Shanghai (AWCS). Pretty self-explanatory, but it is a group for and by American expat women. According to one woman, there are about 500 members in Shanghai. It is rare to see all 500 members at any single event. The newcomers are put into Huan Ying groups (huan ying is mandarin for 'welcome'), which are sort of peer cohorts of women who arrive in Shanghai around the same time. These groups arrange to meet 3-4 times during the following month and is a way for people to figure out Shanghai. You have a group to commiserate with when things seem overwhelming and people who can help you learn how to cope in China. I'm looking forward to meeting more with these women.

The meeting place for the AWCS was at a place in the French concession area of Shanghai. Briefly, in the 1800's, the British established a settlement in Shanghai after the Opium War. The French, Americans, and Japanese each established their own concession areas. In the concession areas, the law of the occupying country took precedence over Chinese law. Foreign occupation of Shanghai endured until the early 1900's (1930's? 1940's?). Discussing Shanghai history in the depth it deserves is a topic for another day and another blog entry.

Anyway, this was the former French concession area. The French concession was, and still is, known for its beautiful tree-lined avenues. I had taken the metro to Changsu Road and walked down Huaihai Road and then turned down Xiangyang Road. Along Xiangyang Road, as with many smaller side streets, are stalls selling a variety of goods and services. Restaurants, bicycle repair, fruits, vegetables, shoes, shirts. I saw a stall with styrofoam boxes filled with water and panting fish next to a woman selling shrimp on a tray. On one street corner, someone was getting fresh chicken for dinner. It appeared that there were live chickens in a metal cages attached to a bicycle. (Living in Shanghai, you learn quickly that you can buy nearly anything from the back of a bicycle -- plants, fruit, shoes, chickens.)
You would pick out your favorite chicken and the woman would butcher it for you on the spot. The pictures I managed to take are a bit rushed since I snapped them as I was crossing the street. You don't want to lose concentration when you're crossing the street as you an be easily taken out by an impatient and / or distracted moped. I don't know what that feels like nor do I want to learn. I've had enough close encounters with illegally turning buses and taxis and kamikaze bicyclists.

Further on the street, I saw a man calming riding his bicycle while reading. Maybe they're directions. I don't know. I suppose that it probably isn't as worrisome as it seems since most people on the road don't seem to be paying
close attention to the road. Many are talking on their mobile phones. It doesn't matter how hyper vigilant you are, someone else will be distracted. Some things are true the world over.

Tonight I'm going to cook chicken (packaged from Carrefour -- not fresh from the street). Tomorrow, or the next day, I'm going to try my hand at buying a live fish. I'm going to find the proper phrases for 'No, I don't want to carry it home in a bucket' and 'Please clean this fish'. I hope it isn't still blinking when I'm eating it, like the fish Kevin ate in Japan. Right now, I am off to Watsons Pharmacy to buy hand sanitizer. I thought I'd share that bit of excitement with all of you.