Desertification

One of the joys of the French Concession is that the roads are lined with large trees which bow across the road to create a green canopy in the summer. I was, therefore, mildly alarmed to read that Shanghai's council is to spend 3m Yuan on cutting down trees in Shanghai. This seemed particularly surprising given China's much publicised campaign to plant trees in order to stop the shrinking desert sands from invading the cities. This sounds like a contradiction but if I understand it correctly, the deforrestation causes the sand to blow away so the deserts are shrinking and the sand is invading the cities.

Visions of trees crashing down all over the French Concession as local government policy struck home did not seem too far fetched given that some London councils are allegedly going to cut down all the lime trees in their boroughs to prevent personal injury claims from people who slip on the residue. Further reading revealed, however, that only trees which were planted less than four metres from housing or those causing severe insect problems would be targetted. Apparently, in many houses and apartment blocks, people look out on a Jack and the Beanstalk like view where the foliage obscures everything else so they get no natural light through the windows. Whether this is due to expanding buildings or poor landscape gardening, I do not know.

On the subject of desertification, the key note speaker at a recent conference on desertification (is this a technical term?) in Beijing claimed that only 30% of the sand storms in China actually originated from China and the rest were "foreign invaders". He went on to say that despite being blamed for many of Asia's sandstorms, China only produces a third of the world's sandstorms - the other major culprits are Asia's near neighbours, Africa, the US and Australia. OK.

The gardener

Our house has a small garden which has newly laid grass. We lovingly nurture the grass and, following Jamie's mother's instructions, water it every day (or ask the ayi to do it). The result is that the grass grows visibly by the second and needs to be cut quite frequently. We duly procured a gardener but I rather suspect he is a rich Shanghainese who just happens to have a lawnmower and is doing a favour for the friend who recommended him to us. He does not volunteer to come but has to be tracked down and begged. He will not come if rain is forecast any time in the next three days. When he finally arrives, he shows up with a lawnmower wearing blue chinos, smart shoes and a quite decent looking shirt and proceeds to cut the lawn, trimming the edges with what look like paper cutting scissors. This is all he does. Things he does not do include raking fallen leaves, weeding, watering or even disposing of the pile of twigs we had collected following last week's exceptionally windy weather. Approximately half an hour after arriving, he departs with lawnmower, scissors and smart shoes, leaving the ayi to tidy up after him and do all the jobs he has left undone. I have no insight as to what exactly qualifies him to be a gardener other than possession of said lawnmower. It's a start I suppose.

Steamy baodzi and hard hats

The walk to Eliot's nursery takes us down a long, main road which is filled with flower shops, fruit stalls and snack stalls. If this conjures up images of quaint China, picture also motorbikes, cars, bicycles and builders. The whole of Shanghai is under construction. Every time I walk down the road, a different part of the pavement is blocked by temporary scaffolding and I have to launch the pushchair into the road, ignoring the cries of horror from the elderly ladies out for their morning constitutionals. If I can manoevre around the workers, we risk being struck by falling masonery or burnt by the sparks of the metal cutters so I am thinking of buying hard hats for the family or at least putting Eliot into his bike helmet.

As we get near the nursery, we hit the profusion of snack vendors. There are stalls selling what look like triangles of filo pastry sprinkled with sesame, greasy flatbreads, eggy bread with chives, baked savoury pastries, grilled dumplings and even a lady making what looks like pancakes on a parisian style crepe pan onto which she breaks an egg and then folds in herbs.

The most picturesque and typical stalls are the steaming bamboo stacks containing baodzi, steamed bread dumplings stuffed with meat and/or vegetables. Sinophiles and dim sum lovers will know what I'm talking about. Steam pours from these stalls in the morning but what should be a tasty breakfast snack stall is a scary sight for a small boy from England. Eliot has a love hate relationship with these stalls and I never know whether he is going to spend the whole trip to school moaning about going past them or looking forward to them. Today, we had the fear. "Mummy, I don't want to go to the steamy baodzi place" he whimpered as I wheeled him down the street. "But Eliot, they are just dumplings which people eat for breakfast". "But I don't like them". Well, if I buy one and let it cool down, will you try one and then you don't have to be scared any more?". "OK but then it will just be baodzi not steamy baodzi". "Yes, that's right" I said. As I got to the steamiest of the stalls, I checked again that he wanted one. Yes, he was going to try one. I purchased and broke open the dumpling. Steam gushed forth. Eliot shrunk back into the pushchair. "I don't like to try it. When I'm bigger, then I will eat one" he said. "OK, well, would you like to carry it in its little bag". "No" said my big, brave son but once the steam had stopped, he became more interested and demanded to carry the bag. He marched into nursery carrying it high infront of him and announcing to everyone that he had a 'steamy baodzi'. It was duly deposited in his favourite dump truck which he proceeded to drive around the playground and was not released when I left him. I wonder whether I will be handed it when I go to pick him up. Maybe tomorrow he will taste one.

House pictures part 2

House pictures

Summer is a comin' in

"Officials likely to declare the first day of summer today" read the front page of the 'Shanghai Daily', an entirely objective English language publication with no government input whatsoever, which I amuse myself with while drinking my rather good coffee on the way back from taking Eliot to school. I imagined a designated office for the declaration of the seasons in which grey suited men debated whether or not to change the season. Could an especially persuasive civil servant have summer declared in January? Sadly no. It seems there is a prescribed formula. When the average temperature is over 22 degrees for five consecutive days, summer is deemed to have started on the first of those days. As the temperature rose to 30, summer was duly declared to have begun. Today, it is 16 degrees and pouring with rain.

Doctors and nurses

Every foreigner who is resident in China has to have a 'medical' for which privilege they must pay $US 100. The medicals take place in an innocuous building bearing a plaque which states that it is the 'health inspection for foreign entry and exit persons'. Does this mean that you have to have a medical before you leave the country too? I wonder. On arrival, I was asked to present two passport photos. On handing them over, the receptionist said in polite English, "Excuse me, but do you have any other photographs with you?" "Only photos of my children" I responded, 'why?'. "Because this one is too small and this one is too big" she said, referring, I assume, to the size of my face relative to the size of the photograph. "No, that's all I have" I said wondering whether I was about to be deported but instead, I was given a metal tag bearing the number 90 and sent to the waiting room to sit with several other slightly nervous looking foreigners (after having paid the required fee).

"Candidate number 82 please come in" intoned a recorded message. Candidate 82, shuffled nervously forward and disappeared into a room from which he did not re-emerge. When my number was called, I went through the door. Forms were filled and I was ushered out of another door into a locker room. "Please remove upper clothing and put on this dressing gown. Please keep on pants" said a pink gowned lady. Doing as instructed, I was told to keep my shoes on but cover them with blue paper bags. I shuffled out in my dressing gown and blue slippers to join the similarly attired foreigners who now all resembled inmates of a lunatic assylum. "Room 110" I was told. I went towards it. There was a screen in front. "Go in please". I went in and had a few pints of blood removed. From there, I had a sight test in room 112, an x-ray in room 113, I was weighed, measured, had my blood pressure taken (all in separate rooms) and somewhat alarmingly, was hooked up to multiple electrodes in another. Orwellian images flowed through my mind but they were just doing an EKG. Finally, I had a conversation with a doctor. "Any operations?" he asked. "A c-section". "Please lie down and undo trousers". 'C-section scar present' I saw him type into the computer. What possible interest can the Chinese government have in that sort of information? I can understand that they might want to check you don't have any infectious diseases but can a c-section scar or absence thereof really be useful information? Will it provide clues as to whether or not I am an enemy of the state or a friendly alien?

My report will arrive 'between 9 and 12 on 29 May. Please pay 30 Yuan for delivery' intoned a further recorded message.

Pictures of the boys - Eliot 2yrs 9 months, Toby 7.5 months

White goods

I found a great way to spend Saturday afternoon in Shanghai. We have been suffering with a washing machine which doesn't drain and a (brand new) tumble dryer which doesn't dry. Desperation set in and we decided to invest in a new tumble dryer and persuaded the landlord to buy a new washing machine. Juli, our guardian angel, took me off to her favourite white goods place. First she harangued the sales ladies about the uselessness of the tumble dryer and then entered into protracted negotiations on our behalf as to which machine was the best. No sooner had she agreed which machine we wanted, we then had to agree a price. Everything is negotiable but I have no idea why some things are more negotiable than others. The tumble dryer went down in price from about £500 to £200 in the space of two minutes but the washing machine only went down by about £20. As soon as we had agreed a price, we then had to locate a chain of managers to sign off on the reduced price. Once this was done, we found out that they didn't have that particular model in stock and would have to import it from Europe. This was fine but it happened about four times. Nothing was in stock except the samples in the store. Undaunted, we entered into fresh negotiations for the samples. Two hours into the buying process and we were finally able to go to pay for the machines.

You would think they would have been happy to take our money but our troubles were only just beginning. For reasons which remain unclear to me, I had to go to another store out in the boondocks to pay for the drier so off we set with a sales lady in a taxi. When we turned up at the second store, a further chain of signatures and permits were collected and then....my credit card was refused. A hunt for an ATM which took foreign cards ensued and then, finally, we bought the drier. Total purchase time, over three hours. If you think this story is boring, you should experience the real thing. The pay off though is it gets delivered and installed the same day. Not even John Lewis would do that in the UK.

So, on to televisions. Those of you who have paid attention may have noticed that we had a rather small TV in London. During our negotiations for the house, Juli was keen to make sure we were fully TV'd up. She was rather puzzled when I said I only wanted one TV. What, nothing in the bedrooms, the study, the kitchen? Of course we would want a flat screen in every room. We finally settled on getting one new TV and keeping another that was already in the house. 'Don't get anything too big' I warned Juli. To no avail. On arrival we found a new flat screen TV about the size of our living room at home. We were so upset that it was so big that we considered getting rid of it and buying another smaller one. That was before we found out from Juli that it had cost nearly £1000. 'I told you not to buy a big one, I can't believe the landlord spend all that money on it' I said, stunned. 'But the landlord wanted to get you a 47 inch one. I had to talk him into the 29 inch one". Apparently, we are the only expats Juli has ever met who have required only one TV and have requested that it be small. This does not bode well.

Installation

Our things arrived yesterday. At 9.30am sharp as promised, an army of workers descended, not, apparently, to unload the boxes but rather to direct the lorry as it attempted to reverse around the L shaped bend of our lane. 'Left' 'No right' 'Stop' came the cries (at least I imagine that's what they were saying). The beleagured truck driver eventually threw up his hands and turned off the engine refusing to budge until our driver Mr Guo saved the day by taking charge. Eventually, the truck had got as far as it was going to and the army began to unload the boxes, wheeling them down the lane on a precarious wooden trolley.

The move started well when we couldn't get the book shelves we'd borrowed from our landlord up the stairs to the study and when our altar table failed to fit into the pre-assigned alcove by a couple of mms. Things did not improve when we discovered that a number of our nicesest pieces of furniture had been damaged. Gradually, however, things came in, went up the stairs and got unwrapped. Since then, I have been moving things around from room to room, slowly finding homes for things.

The army moved on to furniture re-assembly. We went to IKEA on Saturday and as we were loading up our bits of kit, two guys came up and offered to load it all up, drive it back to our house and re-assemble it immediately for £20. If only they had been around yesterday. The bed was put together backwards, the filing cabinets have been put in upside down, the wardrobes had to be put together and taken apart three times before they got it right and the brand new bunk beds we'd bought in the UK for the boys got scratched when the ladder got put on the wrong way. As I harangued the workers, the foreman started to laugh. 'I don't see anything to laugh about' I frowned. 'Well the workers are too frightened to carry on' he said.
So much for my maintaining my sang froid and saving face.

Communications

'Recover post' is one of the options when creating a blog. How pertinent as we don't seem to be receiving any sort of post at all other than local bills. This is particularly odd given we have two magazines which should arrive here every week and all our mail is being redirected from the UK. Maybe the Economist and the Week are banned here although their offices say not. In an attempt to stay in contact with the outside world, Jamie accosted the local postman as he cycled past us the other day. 'We live on Lane 351, are you our postman?' 'Yes' replied the somewhat bewildered man. 'Well, we haven't had any mail since moving in'. 'Well are you expecting any?' said the mailman. 'Yes' said Jamie 'If you get mail, I'll deliver it' replied the man, not unreasonably but clearly thinking Jamie had lost his marbles.

Having failed to solve anything by tackling the delivery point, we thought we'd go to the source so sent our driver Mister Guo to the post office to find out what was going on but he received more or less the same answer as Jamie. The Chinese post office now thinks we have no friends and are so desperate for mail that we have to beg for it.

A further problem on the communications front is that you have to apply for international direct dialling and it takes a month to come through. That means no international calls and no international texts for now. Not only that, but in order to get a contract rather than pre-paid phone which is what enables you to get idd in the first place, you have to go with a Chinese national who has to take out the contract on your behalf and hope you don't abscond with huge amounts outstanding.

Blog block and other bureaucracy

Yesterday we went to register our presence with the police and get our 'yellow form' - something all foreigners living outside hotels have to do. I was a little nervous as Jamie had already done this but somewhat belatedly and he had told our general factotum Juli who helped us find our house, that due to registering late, he had had to take the policeman out for lunch and buy him baijio - strong alcohol. Juli, not realising that Jamie was joking, was outraged and called the police station to complain. The policemen were duly called in and questioned as to which one had been corrupt enough to take bribes from a foreigner. Fortunately, the event passed off uneventfully and we were given our....blue forms. 'But they are supposed to be yellow' Jamie said. 'These are the yellow forms. They just happen to be blue' replied our friendly police woman.

Hotmail is the latest internet site to fall foul of the powers that be. Strangely, another site which is impossible to access from here is our blog. While I can upload onto it, I can't actually access it. Is the name 'Heywood' on some internet block list? Who can say? Our blog stands shoulder to sholder with the BBC.

First impressions

So, here we are installed in our large, empty house. The furniture should arrive next week but in the meantime, we are busy dealing with the house spirits who bedevil all the applicances and the internet connections. Why is it that when you speak on the phone, it picks up every noise in the house? Apparently, you need a special device on the phone connection to prevent this. Why is it that nobody can turn the stove on yet when the guy comes to fix it, he can do it straight away and is clearly thinking what a stupid bunch of foreigners we are because we can't even turn on a stove? Why, mysteriously, can we hear 'Staying Alive' by the Bee Gees every night at 9pm? Actually, that mystery was solved yesterday when we saw a promotional, open top, double decker bus advertising Robin Gibb coming to town with a dozen Chinese grooving away in afro wigs sailing past.

When it isn't raining, I brave the streets of Shanghai to take Eliot to his nursery drawing cries of amazement from the crowds when they see that there are in fact two children in the same pushchair. The pavement space is crowded and I play chicken with the motorbikes, bicycles and dumpling stalls (not to mention chickens) as I push my way through. At least I can collapse in an English speaking cafe on the way home.

On our lane is one of the most popular cafe/restaurants in Shanghai or so it seems. When we go in for a coffee in the early morning, we are lords of the manor but past 11.30 and you need a reservation. All the expats know where we live when we tell them and it's nice to have such a salubrious extension of our house so close. As you turn the corner of our lane to get to our house, the path becomes crowded with the neighbours bikes, outdoor kitchen, birds and other sundries and our car can't get anywhere near the gate. It remains to be seen how they will get our furniture in.

Eliot's nursery is on a rather charming tree lined avenue and he is thrilled with the large playground full of fun toys, so much so that he is reluctant to return to 'China' as he calls our house. I try and try to explain that China is all around us and not just in the house but this concept is just too much for him. It's quite a lot for me to take in so I'm not surprised he's having trouble. In other respects though, he seems not to have noticed that things have changed. 'Look' I said as I wheeled him out of the gate on the first day, 'everything is different, the people, the shops, the writing'. 'How are the people different?' he wanted to know. Ahh, where to to begin?

The House

Here are some pictures of our house to encourage friends and family to visit. It is actually a 1930s house which has had a modern extension put on. You can see the master bedroom and the view of the extension from the garden in these pictures.

The move

We are moving to Shanghai on Saturday 6 May. We have a large house in the former French Concession, a relatively (and I mean relatively) leafy and low rise area of Shanghai. Here is a picture of our Lane.