you say potato

a group of tibetan children led by a chinese man came through the pavilion today. my co-worker and i referred to the children as tibetan. the chinese man corrected us and said they were from "Xizang" - the China phrase for "Tibet Autonomous Region." he told us that our use of the name "Tibet" was greatly offensive. the three of us fell silent. we all three looked at the floor. i said, "well this is awkward."

post-plum rain season

quite thundery this morning. they talk about spring rains and summer rains in shanghai, but in truth it just rains here all the time. pours, even.

luse tong dao

at work i spend most of my time at the fast access line. it's the line that will let you bypass the 1.5 hour-long regular line and leads you straight into the next show. officially, the people who get to use this are: the disabled, pregnant women, expo employees+2 guests, volunteers, reservations, employees of any of their sponsors+whatever legion of people they choice to bring because we are completely sponsor funded, wheelchairs+2, strollers+2. unofficially, if you know someone at our pavilion and can prove it by getting him on the phone, and probably if you bribe the person working with pins (the ridiculous currency of the world expo) or other gifts. a man working in fast food offered to bring me a meal or vouchers. i shot him down. one of the biggest problems is that seniors (with old age identification cards) and citizens (our visiting Americans) do not have fast access, which they do at other pavilions. any deviation from these rules usually results with someone furious in your face. the americans tend to be the worst. whenever ambassadors see white people walking up, we start trying to pass them off on one another. you help them. no you help them. we sigh with relief when they open their mouths and turn out to be europeans. we turn away the truly oldest-looking, hobbling people i have ever seen and make Father Time and Mother Earth wait in line but let in strollers and wheelchairs simply because they do not fit through our turnstiles.

got into a screaming fight with a chinese man at fast access yesterday. he was trying to physically force his group's way in when he should have been in the regular line. i blocked him and he started immediately screaming inches from my face. while fighting with him, i realized i had raised my right hand up and was holding it close to his face. i would never hit anyone. but even this defensive gesture shocked me. at one point i yelled at him, do you really need to be this loud?! i've learned here that when someone raises his voice with me, i am not the collected person who can calmly but firmly deal with him and piss him off further. i always yell back. i wanted to tell him i wasn't scared of him, but i actually was. that he would sock me in the face.

coincidences at the flying elephant

went to dinner at a russian restaurant in puxi and was seated next to a table of old danish men. talked to one named knud. realized one of the kazakhs from the village was seated at the table diagonally. we exchanged awkward what are you doing here glances.

feet hurt

feeling exhausted from work, skipping three parties, eating a delicious pomegranate, watching infomercials on tv

this is not better city better life

spent the night drunkenly begging danish boys to let me borrow their bicycles

sat on a delivery truck of frozen food from australia back to the village

stuff chinese people like

2. kobe bryant, 科比 (ke bi)

as i lived my quiet life in los angeles next to the staples center, i had no idea that kobe bryant, and the lakers, but mostly kobe bryant, were such an incredible phenomenon over in china. every day, kids come to the pavilion completely decked in the kobe basketball outfit. people ask all the time when 科比 is coming to the pavilion. the answer is never. last week i visited a shanghainese home in xuhui and the 20-year old girl living there had a huge poster of ke bi dunking on her door. i was at work one day walking the stilt walker, who measures a good nine feet tall on stilts, and one of the volunteers asked me if ke bi is that tall.

friendship trip

had lunch with a Zimbabwean and a Ghanaian. they said that at the African pavilion, some Chinese people will use a finger to try to rub the black off of their skin. the Chinese don't believe their skin color is real because their palms are lighter in color. the Ghanaian said that he has been asked whether his blood is red. i was amazed by the Africans' patience and general graciousness. i certainly do not exhibit the same good-naturedness whenever expo visitors do not consider Chinese-Americans to be real Americans.

i asked the Germans what Hamburg is famous for and they said they have a very notable red light district, the Reeperbahn. women are not allowed in past its gates. if they go in, water and condoms are thrown at them.

on the three-hour bus ride home, an Iranian man asked me whether my friend also on the trip, ryan, was my husband and told me that LA is actually Irangeles because of the two million Iranians who live there. i loled.

back from taizhou

i used to be this no-nonsense, one-pillow sort of person. but i've recently discovered that i need four.

i am currently overwhelmed by the dichotomy of how fucking good irish cream tea smells and how terrible it tastes

morning sights of donghu

the Fijians, liberally tribally tattooed, are dancing shirtless on their balcony and drinking Budweiser at 9:45 in the morning

i want to wave to them from my 11th story kitchen floor-to-ceiling windows, sort of an urban version of the morning neighborly wave over the picket fence

stuff chinese people like

1. crocs

i counted thirteen pairs of crocs on my way home today from jing an district. a german girl told me that, in germany, people only wear crocs while gardening. well, they are serious footwear here.

i've been drinking weaksauce maxwell house instant coffee for so long that when i had starbucks today my heart almost burst out of my chest.

angryface

Missy may not like the flash light, I guess. She did not say or complained!

Dad

morning lol

i'm going to become a blogger

I write today to wish you well, but also to encourage you to contribute to the student ambassador blog that Pete edits. I do this because I know that you’re likely to have experiences and insights that others would benefit from reading about and also because it’s embarrassing that although ___ administers the student ambassador program and ___ has had the greatest number of ambassadors of any school, none of them are contributing posts or photos to the ambassador blog.

née superstition

donghu has both a fourth and a thirteenth floor. because here we ain't scared of nobody.

the tip of the tongue taking a trip

clearly i should have become a fluent russky before coming here. i spent a large part of the day on a bus with belorusians and ukrainians. i had lunch at a table of moldovans and a chinese girl who was so fluent that i didn't even dare to pretend to speak or quote hedgehog in the fog. if i were daniel tammet, this would be under control by now. also, i have been trying to pick up some phrases in shanghainese at work. but it is really really hard. i can barely count to six.