Friendships

I know I've mentioned the American Women's Club of Shanghai (AWCS) and the Huan Ying program of initiating and welcoming new members. What I hadn't mentioned was my low expectations of the group. The AWCS is a social club and I was expecting an older set of women. My Huan Ying group is fairly young -- the youngest member is 24. Aside from one mother of 2, the rest of us have no children. Another woman (she has 1 child) was signed up to join our group, but was unable to attend the Huan Yings. Our group clicked pretty well, which was a really wonderful surprise. It's interesting, and perhaps a bit sad, that it's easier to meet and make friends here in China than back home in the U.S.

Today I was wandering through a wet market in Hong Qiao. Originally I was going to a home store to buy a big container for cat food. I was already in Hong Qiao with my Huan Ying event, so I thought I'd visit this store while I was out there. If you know me even a little bit, then it'll come as no surprise that I got lost. This getting lost was more pathetic than usual as the store was less than a 5 minute walk from the metro stop I had left (I realized this as I was making ready to go home). My intuition told me to turn left though the map suggested that I go right. Which to follow? Map or my intuition? After all these years of my intuition guiding me in the opposite direction I need to go, I should have disregarded it again today. But common sense was never my strong suit. Just ask my sister. Instead, I walked in the opposite direction for blocks. After a while, I just thought that it was further than I had remembered or that it was on some side street I couldn't recall. In a lane between and behind the stores was the entrance to a market of some sort. I couldn't resist.

The market was divided into 2 main areas. One area had produce and the other had fish. Around the perimeter of the produce area were stalls selling various fresh meats. Along edges of the market were corridors, for lack of a better word, lined with stalls selling, in one area, prepared foods such as fried chicken and barbecued meats, in another area, household goods like house shoes, pots, and mats. The smells from the fish market were as you'd expect. Every kind of seafood you could imagine were on display: squid, long silver fish, round fish, fish heads, fish middles, eels, crayfish. People squatting and cleaning fish, letting the innards fall to the floor and then tossing the guts in the general direction of a rubbish pile a few feet away.

Outside were people with buckets, tubs, and bags literally full of live fresh shrimp. Shrimp skittering and hopping out of the buckets. At least I believe it was shrimp. It could also have been small crayfish.



I took a picture of a woman gutting a fish outside. In front of her is what looks to be a cage full of snakes. The woman who is waiting for her fish has a fresh chicken in her shopping bag.

I know that the pictures I choose to display in my blog tell only one part of the story of Shanghai, but it is a part that I find fascinating. Who are the people that work in these shops? The people that provide the goods in the shops? How do the local people here really live? How many of them shop in the modern supermarkets that we expats find so indispensable? I know that it is possible to live here on much less than what we currently spend. But it is hard to give up our comforts.