Re-entry culture shock

I've been home for over a week now, having had a bit of time to adjust back into UK life. Three months isn't a long time, but I got very settled in Shanghai and made some friends who I'll miss very much.
I left very early on a Sunday morning (again!), and in accordance with Chinese hospitality rules, my Professor offered to drive me to the airport, which meant that this was the second time he had to wake up ridiculously early for me! Furthermore, a few people in the lab had grown accustomed to my presence, so three additional lab members woke up at 5:30 am, just to join our ride to the airport and say goodbye. I was really touched and it was a very emotional goodbye. 

With Lu, who was a great friend to me during my time in China that I'll miss very much. She was one of the people who kindly woke up at 5:30 am to come and accompany me to the airport

While settling in to the first, 12 hour leg of my journey home, I discovered that the chap sitting next to me was a Spanish business man from Barcelona, who was importing Spanish wines like Rioja into the big cities in China (Western wines have become very fashionable in China, and they are big business at the moment). However, his English wasn't that good, and my Spanish is pretty terrible (Italian words just kept flooding my brain), which meant that we had a great half an hour communicating via the Google Translate app for the 30 minutes while we waited for a space on the runway (just when I thought I would finally stop living from that translate app!) It dawned on me during that conversation that my Chinese was now better than my Spanish, and I would have been better able to communicate with him through that language if he had known some Chinese. I didn't really expect to ever get to this stage, but it was a pleasant surprise at the end of my journey that I'd managed to absorb some of a language that was completely different to the other European languages which I know. I guess I owe more to Michael, my language exchange partner than I previously gave him credit for!
Despite only being able to communicate via pointing and simple words for the rest of the flight, I didn't really sleep much, on account of being a bit emotional about leaving behind this part of my life. But upon landing, I was glad to see my mother and husband, who came to greet me at Heathrow airport. 

Being back in the UK, obviously I was greeted with drizzly weather, but it was that familiar British rain. However, the joy of being able to go indoors where it's warm was just bliss. Not having to run down and back a freezing corridor just to go to the bathroom was great. I got so used to layering up that during the first few days I just automatically kept my coat on instead of giving the heating a boost, which lead some people on Skype to ask me "Where are you going? Or have you just got back?". Having a thick goose down duvet was also a welcome relief, since I wasn't staying in Shanghai for long enough to merit investing in one, I'd been using a summer duvet and a blanket only. 

Of course, now I'm no longer stared at in the street, since I'm now not a wàiguó rén (外国人), and it was a little weird doing some Christmas shopping and being completely ignored, but to some extents, it was a relief - at least people don't watch me for several minutes to see what I do like a zoo animal! The biggest relief is being able to understand everything I see and hear around me, although my ear still picks up whenever I hear Mandarin from the Chinese exchange students around Leicester, and I try and figure out what they might be talking about. I will certainly never look at exchange students the same way again!

Food-wise, there was a brief moment of weirdness getting used to a knife and fork again after three months (why are their no sticks? Using both hands at the same time for utensils?!). I am also surprised as a Hungarian, that I actually got used to the absence of dairy in the diet. At home, I would think nothing of having full fat milk porridge every morning for breakfast, but I got used to the steamed bread rolls (bāozi, 包子) so now it just seems far too rich. Also, I looked forward to cheese, but I'm having trouble dousing my food in it as much as I used to! And bizzarely, I'm getting cravings for white rice/sauce combos, which I never thought I would, and I'm actually missing some of the flavours, like the red bean paste (Dòushā 豆沙), which I may just have to fork out for at the local Chinese supermarket soon.

I realise I've been writing a lot online, and I appreciate everyone who has looked at my blog, but I don't expect many to have read a lot of my posts thoroughly, as they are far too long! I have treated this blog more as an open diary, to write down all of my thoughts and experiences. And in addition, I thought that letting everything all out here would help prevent me from talking about China too much when I get back. I watched one of the Halloween episodes of the Big Bang Theory on the plane home, where Howard just got back from space and he finds a way of incorporating his trip into every conversation, regardless of the topic. I think I'm pretty much the same, and I can link anything to China, so please don't hesitate to tell me off if I'm talking too much about my trip, and I'll try not to go too crazy like Howard and just start shouting "China! China! China!" when I don't get to talk about it!

But seriously, it's been a great journey, and I've definitely fallen in love with what I've seen of the country. It's a weird collection of contradictions that somehow charms its way into people's hearts. 
1) It's technically still developing, yet their technology, gadgets and infrastructure are way ahead of ours.
2) It has a reputation for rudeness, and people don't hesitate to push you out of the way in the street or metro if you're a stranger, but if you are a friend or a guest, then people will treat you like the most special person in the world, far above what people would do in the UK.
3) People are very concerned with relationships and guānxì (关系) and about saving face, yet they think nothing of getting up in front of their friends to sing a song, approaching strangers for photos or dancing in the park uninhibited.
4) Poverty is still quite a problem, which means that status is everything. This means that people are happy to pay through the nose for esteem goods (hence the popularity of the iPhone). I've never seen so many large, expensive cars driving around broken, potholed roads.
5) The government has a ridiculous level of control over people, and hires so many to keep its large population in check, yet it can't regulate the hygiene standards of any of its restaurants. There is no guarantee that anywhere you go you will not get ill. In general, there is this same theme running through everything, where some rules are adhered to far too rigidly, whereas others are just disregarded so easily.
6) Tied into the last comment, the governments thinks its controlling everyone, but the excessive control has turned everyone into criminals: as far as I could tell, nearly everyone I met was downloading TV shows online, watching Breaking Bad, House of Cards or other American TV shows with Chinese subtitles. Also, nearly everyone can access Facebook if they really want, but since none of their friends are on there, they don't see much point.
7) It's supposed to be a communist country, but it's a country where you have to pay to have extra children (as opposed to getting money from the government, like in the UK) and where healthcare is very expensive, and not provided automatically, and where competition for jobs has never been more rife.

Despite being full of surprises and strange things to the Western eye, it's a safe and friendly place, with such a wide variety of things to offer, that it's hard not to fall in love with this country and the people's determination and enthusiasm. I hope that my blog has given it justice, and inspired people to go there, or reminded them of good memories from their time in China. 

Thanks for reading, and hopefully there'll be another blog in future about another country! 

Happy New Year!

An incredible experience - where to next?

So, I'm back in the UK now, getting used to the time zone and food again. To say goodbye to my time in China, I wanted to show a collection of pictures from my favourite times, or from stories that didn't make it to a blog post.
Thanks for reading about my adventures, we'll see where I'll go next!
Merry Christmas

Wu kang lu

At Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre

At Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre

Sundial at Century Avenue

Cooked pumpkin stuffed with sweet rice

A street seller blowing sugar figurines - talk about asbestos hands!

Korean potato swirl on a stick

Pouring sugar shapes of Zodiac animals

Sugar dragon

A snail I found in my dish at the campus canteen!

Carving a pumpkin for Halloween in the lab

The Bund on our pumpkin - which won us the Halloween competition on Zai Shanghai!

Let's see how much fun we can have with dry ice

Lights at Nanjing Road West

What?!

My Hungarian friend Kálmán from my dorms discovered this bust of Petőfi Sándor, a famous Hungarian poet (whom incidentally, we had a reading of at my wedding!) Check out Kálmán's Hungarian expat blog here

Lotus pond at Renmin Park

Plate spinning

Sweet potatoes with melted sugar!

Cathedral at Xujiahui

Crying with laughter at KTV

Smoggy days

Fresh hot pot ingredients ready for cooking!

Ridiculously long sheet of tofu

Ice sculptures of polar bears at Xujiahui

My favourite little guy at the orphanage - I wish I could have adopted him!

So cute! I miss him so much

My friend Michael who taught me some Chinese, with his room mates (L -R Constantine, Chris, robot, Michael and Eric)

Blizzard thick ice cream milkshakes, so thick, they're served upside down!

Blizzard thick ice cream milkshakes!

Jin Mao Tower from the ground up

Looking down all 88 floors at Jin Mao Tower

Shanghai World Financial Centre (or the "bottle opener")

So that's China done. Where to next?

Christmas in China

Technically, I've spent the day before Christmas Eve onwards in the UK, but the whole of the run up towards Christmas was in Shanghai, and my department also held Christmas party before I left, so I thought it would be interesting to report on how Christmas is celebrated in a country to which it is so new. 

Of course, Christmas is not a traditional Chinese festival, and they don't get any holiday for it, but as with everything, there is a keen interest in anything Western at the moment, and nowhere more so than in the expat haven that is Shanghai. As with Halloween, Chinese people were aware of these Western traditions, and many people erroneously wished me Happy Thanksgiving when it was on (not realising that it is only a celebration for Americans), and the shops had sales for Black Friday. They also started to have Christmas decorations up when December started and were playing western Christmas songs by the time I left, but most people don't really know what any of these celebrations are about, and the shops just seem to be using it as an excuse to drum up more sales. Definitely, I was very pleased that interest in Christmas only seemed apparent after Thanksgiving had passed, unlike in the UK, where supermarkets encourage us to start stocking up from October onwards! The Chinese love of lights also meant that there were some really beautifully lit up shopping centres and streets.

Christmas lights on a street near Lujiazui

Christmas lights on a shopping mall at Lujiazui roundabout

Lights at a shopping centre on Nanjing Road West. A little bit premature during November, but pretty nonetheless! This photo was featured on the Zai_shanghai Instagram page

On the first weekend of December, there was also a really lovely Christmas market in the French Concession part of Shanghai, that was so close to an authentic one that it suddenly made me homesick. Until that time, I didn't really think about Europe, because I was so busy exploring and learning about Chinese culture.

Christkindlmarkt at Paulaner Brauhaus on Fenyang Lu

It was fairly busy and packed with people, not just because it was squeezed into a fairly small space. When I went, I saw several of my dorm mates there and on top of that there were plenty of curious Chinese people there too, eager to learn about these Western traditions (I guess this is just like how I like to turn up at the Chinese New Year celebrations in Nottingham each year!).

Apparently this place has a Christmas market on every year, and this year was better than ever. They had the most amazing tasting Gluhwein (German mulled wine) I've had in a very long time, and it was worth every penny. The 25 RMB entrance fee we thought was a bit unnecessary, but it turned out we could use the cost of the ticket on something from one of the stalls inside, so essentially, entrance was free, as long as you bought something. 
We didn't buy too much else, but it was a great experience, really pretty, and the quality I'd say was on almost on a par with any of the Christmas markets at home from Prague or Vorosmarty, and better than some of the ones we get even in England. The only thing that was missing was some kurtos kalács! Oh well, we can only dream!

Generally, the Chinese don't really give presents for special occasions like we do (which I discovered almost as soon as I got there, when certain lab people had a complete inability to wrap anything prior to autoclaving!) When it's someone's birthday, friends don't buy them drinks, but they buy their friends drinks! There were two birthdays in the lab while I was there, and on the first occasion, the birthday girl bought everyone milk tea, and on the second one, the birthday girl bought a big cake to share with everyone. On another occasion, a professor in the department had just had a new baby, and to celebrate, he bought everybody in the whole department a little box of some sweets, a bit like a favour box at a wedding. I didn't really understand how this could be a sustainable social rule, and I tried to explain that having babies was very expensive and that when someone has a baby in the UK, we get them presents or vouchers, to help towards the cost of looking after the baby. They just laughed and said, "yes, but in China it's the other way round". Nevertheless, some of my Chinese friends tried to be part of the Christmas tradition and got me some small gifts, a fan and chopsticks to remind me of my stay there.

Early December, it was also decided by the lab management team that this year we would have a departmental Christmas party. I suspect this was in no small way due to my presence, seeing as the last time the department had a Christmas party was three years ago (which coincided with the last time a western person visited the lab at Christmas time) and also because the party was conveniently scheduled just in time before I left. Nevertheless, I was very touched and happy that the lab were marking my presence and/or departure in some way, and although I didn't know everybody in the department, I thought it would be a great way for everyone to have a little fun and time off from the lab.
And boy, did the department put on a spread!  

Christmas party spread in our meeting room, with Prof Ou on the right hand side in a Santa hat 

They spent hundreds of pounds on food, drinks, microphones and decorations, including Santa hats, reindeer headbands and light up Minnie Mouse headbands too. There was also a tombola with prizes like phone chargers, memory sticks and the first prize was top of the range speakers! Clearly there was no expense spared, and I know that they spent the equivalent of about six hundreds of pounds, which is a huge amount in Chinese prices. It was quite clearly going to blow out of the water anything that my department at home has ever put on, simply because this department allowed a bigger budget for the party.
But the best part was that this party was going to be done in the Chinese way, which meant that everyone was going to do some kind of performance, kind of like a cabaret or variety show. Apparently, this is a very traditional way of parties in China, and my Chinese friend who's lived in the UK for nearly ten years was surprised that this way of celebrating had survived this long. I was happy to give it a try and excited to see what it would be like. And as the guest of honour, I was asked to perform first!
This came about because since it was discovered that I could play guitar (I mentioned that I used to play one time, so this automatically made me an expert apparently), so I was asked to perform some Western Christmas songs. But I'm really not that good, and I'm terribly out of practice. Last time I played seriously was when I had lessons with a self-taught, ageing rocker ten years ago, above a second-hand record store in Hull. I could remember most of the chords, but I'd never performed a song whilst playing guitar at the same time! The prospect slightly terrified me, but I didn't want to back out of a Chinese tradition and let the team down. So after some surreptitious practice sessions in my dorm room which I attempted to do as quiet as possible, followed by some louder sessions in the park (during which I was approached by some Chinese guys who were very interested in taking pictures, including borrowing the guitar to pose with it, while I tried to protest in my best Chinese: 这不是我的吉他！这是我朋友的).

Performing "Last Christmas" and "All I Want is You" as the opening act at our departmental Christmas party

The performance went relatively well, although I forgot to take a microphone, so the end result is available to watch, but very quiet and a poor quality recording. If you're still interested, it's here on YouTube and YouKu, depending on what country you're in and how good your VPN access is! The two songs I chose to do were "Last Christmas" (a massive hit in China apparently, so I was compelled to do it even though it's so simple and boring, just same four chords over and over again) and "All I Want for Christmas" (a much more challenging song, which I actually like, although I can't possibly live up to the Mariah standards, and her trained whistle register).
This was followed by some hilarious Bollywood dancing from a group upstairs:

Hilarious Bollywood dance performed by another lab. Had everyone shouting for an en core

My lab also performed a song together, although it was all in Chinese, so they didn't ask me to join in, but it was really cute, and there is also a video here:

My lab singing a cute Chinese song. Even Prof Ou joined in on the extreme right!

The rest of the evening had several more performances, including a duet by two of the married supervisors in the department, and also a song by the head of department, Professor Deng! After all the official, scheduled performances were over, the evening descended into a home KTV, where the guys accessed what seemed to be a karaoke version of Spotify, where you could stream any song that was converted to a backing track and had the lyrics appear on the screen, so it was a free-for-all to ask for any song they wanted. I was asked to sing the Dido part for Eminem's Stan in a duet with DB's room mate, which was great fun. 

Duet with Xu Min, doing Eminem's "Stan"

I really enjoyed my evening, and I much preferred it to English parties, where people just turn up and get drunk! Even though I strongly suspect that this was a show with the main intention that I go home and tell everybody how awesome China was, I think everyone had fun, so it was worth it. I think it's safe to say that their plan worked!

The only downside of Christmas in China was that the cleaning lady and one of the security guards were a little bit surly, and when we got the Christmas tree we had in our dorm out from underneath a staircase, they proceeded to break it and throw it away, followed by replacing it with a very ugly plant. I can only assume that these Shanghainese workers objected to us having any fun because they had grown tired of looking and cleaning up after us, and so they wanted to give us some kind of personal insult. But other than that, everyone else seemed very friendly and inquisitive towards Christmas, and I know that my dorm mates who are studying Chinese also had a party organised for them. The other downside, of course, was that the imported Christmas foods at the Western supermarket cost double the price than at home! It was £5 for one imported chocolate Santa! So I gave that a miss. 

But overall, just because it's the other side of the world and not a traditional festival in their country, I think there is a great Christmas to be had in Shanghai :)

On leaving China

So, in less than 24 hours, I'll be boarding a plane to go back to the UK. After three months, I've had such a great time here, it will be an emotional goodbye, but I am looking forward to certain things:

1) Christmas dinner with all the trimmings! I'll be home in time for Christmas, but due to complications with my family and my husbands working hours, I'll be staying in Leicester for Christmas. This means I will be making Christmas dinner all by myself, but at least I can do it just the way I like it :) So this means roast potatoes! Stuffing! No sprouts! Brandy butter! Cointreau cream! Snowballs! (although I did have a very tasty snowball this week at a western bar).

2) Radiators! Or not having to sleep with all my clothes on and coat and gloves and socks just to keep warm during the night. My air con has a warm setting, but the timer is limited to one hour, so I always wake up at some point during the night when it has been off for a while, and due to the poor insulation and lack of double glazing in my huge window, the temperature of the room pretty much goes down to a similar level as what it is outside. I'm so looking forward to going to home to my 13.5 tog down duvet and central heating!

3) Washing my clothes! This is one of the first things I'm doing when I get home. The laundry in the campus is really so terrible, and my clothes frequently come back with the same stains on that I'm not sure if they ever really washed my clothes or just made them wet so it looked like they did something. I know a lot of people suspect that they just use cold water in the machines which makes their washing power much lower. But I have also tried to hand wash things myself with hot water, and the "detergent" (if it can be called that) is pretty much useless with any grease stains. Sure, it lathers up nicely to look like it's doing something, but if you ever have a mishap with greasy food, that T-shirt will now become your lounging-around-in-your-room T-shirt. Several of the others in my dorm have told me they have the same problem. On top of that, one time they just took my money and didn't wash my clothes at all, so I swore never to use their services again.

4) Being able to read menus and being fairly certain of what's coming! This was more of a problem at the beginning, but now that I've got a fairly good experience of what Chinese dishes are like, I know what kind of food to order and roughly what to expect. Since I've picked up a few words, I am better able to ask for what I want when I'm by myself too. My reading is still very poor, and my speaking needs a lot of improvement, but I do feel a little bit like just as I'm starting to get the hang of some phrases, I'm leaving. Overall though, I made heavy use of translator apps, Google Translate, which I mention a lot, but also another app Pleco which was recommended to me by a Hungarian dorm-mate, and was really, really so helpful with translating text, as it was excellent at recognising characters, even when drawn by someone without any knowledge of how to write Chinese, like me. But in general, I am looking forward to not living my life out of translator apps!

5) Being able to cross the road without fearing for my safety! I guess this is also a little bit redundant now, as I've gotten the hang of knowing when to cross Chinese roads. However, they could still do with realising the benefits of filter lights and lanes, and also roundabouts! (Maybe they just don't get roundabouts yet, like how at first they didn't get the wheel?) Another important thing that all road goers need to discover, whether bus or bike rider, or even metro driver, is to oil their breaks!
Linked to this, I'm happy not to be holding on to a door handle in fear in taxis as the drivers swerve around negotiating the insane traffic that makes you wonder how some people passed their test, whilst not providing functioning seatbelts! I'm also looking forward to journeys not taking three times they should do due to the traffic. It once took an hour and a half to get just to the other side of the river from the campus! Driving really is so terrible in Shanghai.

6) Not having to take toilet paper with me everywhere. Chinese toilets are on a whole other planet. They could have a blog post all of their own. While squatting toilets are not new to me, as they are common in Turkey, Egypt, and we even had them in Crete on our honeymoon, the receptacle isn't really the issue, rather the standards at which they're kept. Also, in 90 % of places, they do also have western style toilets as an option if you're too squeamish about the squatting ones. But, toilet paper is not always guaranteed, and it shouldn't be flushed down the toilet either. On top of that, Chinese people either have a massive aversion to cleaning toilets, or are just not that picky about the cleanliness of them, because so many that I've been to have an intolerable smell, and at one of the more shocking experiences were when Sam and I had the misfortune of using the facilities at Beijing South Railway station, where we both almost fainted from the smell of the ammonia. It was actually hilarious but tragic. 
7) Not having to hear outrageously gratuitious spitting and clearing of phlegm anymore. I can't believe I almost forgot this! Clearly I'm getting used to this sound!
8) Not having to wait ridiculous amounts of time for a table at a restaurant. It's no secret that China has a lot of people, and especially living in a city with the largest population in China, it can get quite busy. When DB arrived in my lab in the UK in May, I did wonder if he was a little bit bored, because I knew Shanghai was a big city, and Leicester is relatively quiet. But he told me he loved the quiet, and that he especially loves not having to queue for restaurants. I didn't really understand that at the time, because I didn't really see how bad it could be. Surely if there were so many customers, they would just build more restaurants? How wrong could I be. Many restaurants provide seating areas outside their establishments for the people queueing and there is usually an electronic system where you get a ticket for your place in line. We once had to wait for one and a half hours! I'm so glad I never have to do that again!
9) Not having to sit through hours of people talking in Chinese while I sit in silence! Obviously, everyone in the lab couldn't speak English all the time, since it would be weird for them to speak English to each other, but there were a few times when they seemed to forget I was there and I didn't understand what was being said all afternoon! The flipside of this, is that I didn't get distracted half as much in the lab, unlike how it sometimes happens in the computer room in Leicester, and we end up in a massive conversation and before you know it, an hour or two has disappeared. So I managed to be more productive in my lab hours as a consequence, but I'm sure I'm not going to miss going to the lab meetings and just reading the English text on the slides whilst wondering what they hell they're talking about for two hours (actually, I pretty much stopped wondering, and just used the lab meeting times to keep up with my e-mails and check the internet on my phone!)
10) Not having to listen to the Xfm's graveyard shift anymore while I'm in the lab. I was happy to find out that the app for my favourite radio station still worked in China, however, the time difference meant that I listened to some really weird music that is normally only enjoyed by shift workers and insomniacs. However, the up side to this was that after lunch, I could catch the whole of the John Holmes breakfast show (which would start at 6 am back in the UK), which I discovered was on the whole, quite funny, and deserving of its awards. 
11) You may be wondering why cheese hasn't appeared so far on this list. Actually, there are a number of things that I'd like to add to both things I'm looking forward to, and things I'll miss. For although I actually really missed cheese at the beginning, I could see that it wasn't necessary in Asian cooking, which tasted great without it, and after a while I just got used to it. That, and the lack of a sweet tooth in the Asian tastebuds meant that I lost a lot of weight, simply by cutting out cheese and sugary things! I'm sure it did me the world of good to lay off these things for the last three months, especially in the run up to Christmas!

But of course, there are so many things to miss about this place.

1) The food. I never thought I would hear myself say this, after coming to the country with such trepidation from hearing horror stories of dubious ingredients and food hygiene standards, not many of which were assuaged by my attempts to familiarise myself with Chinese food before leaving, by watching Ken Hom and Chin-He Huang travelling and eating their way across China in the "Exploring China" series (really Ken, fried rabbit's head on a stick?!). However, as I've discovered the wide variety of Asian cooking with completely different and inventive ways of cooking, there are several meals that I've fallen in love with. My love for máqiú (麻球) I think was adequately expressed in my previous post), and although it seems difficult to make, I am undeterred in trying so, and if I am successful, my lab mates are sure that I stand a good chance in becoming a millionaire, since there is a massive gap in the market in the UK. And despite all of this eating, I've somehow managed to lose about 5 kg without noticing. Who ever said that Chinese food is unhealthy?!

Also, I never really understood what the fuss was about in hot pots (火锅), but honestly I have come to love them so much, that even my last supper that we just came back from was hot pot. It sounds so simple on paper - get a soup and put your vegetables and meat in and wait for it to cook in front of you. I don't know if it's a combination of the spices (I have stolen one of the bags of sauces from the restaurant! Well not really stolen, since they are free) or the freshness of the cooking, but it's really so delicious.

I also love the way that the Chinese have milk tea (奶茶), which is pretty much the way I used to make my tea as a child - 50 % tea, 50 % milk and lots and lots of sugar! The Chinese also add a random selection of things inside, like sweet red beans, cubes of pudding, tapioca, nuts and a whole manner of other things. At least this is something I can more or less recreate at home. There is so much other food to talk about but either I don't know the name, or it's so difficult to describe that I don't have the space here, but these are my top three favourite things!
Before I left for China, I asked DB if he wanted me to bring anything back, or what he missed the most about China. He said that I didn't need to bring anything, but that the thing he missed the most was the food, since you couldn't quite get the same food from the UK. I didn't think this was anything remarkable at the time; of course, anyone away from their home country would miss the tastes of home. But having experienced the breadth of Asian cooking during my stay, I can honestly say I agree with the sentiment!

2) The people, without a doubt, I will miss my lab mates very much, who have been with me every day, answering all my questions, and helping me get by in a new lab as well as a new country in which I don't speak the language. Without them I would not have lasted very long here, and I don't think I would have enjoyed it half as much. 

I will miss all the members of Ou's group who all showed me the meaning of Chinese hospitality

They took special care to make sure that I had a good time, and included me in all their lab activities, which were many. Not just eating together twice a day but also going out together at the weekends or other trips. I think this must be to do with Chinese culture, since I see all the other labs always hanging out together as groups, and they always seem confused when I tell them that it's very hard to get my lab at home together for a meal, when it seems so natural to them. The realisation also dawned on me that Dona won't be in the lab when I get back, so there'll be no one to chat to on those long evenings in the lab, and no one to have musical exploratory journeys with! 
But I loved the guys in the lab here and I really can't thank them enough for their friendliness and hospitality. It's a real testament to their friendly nature that no less than three of them are accompanying myself and my professor to the airport in the early hours of the morning tomorrow.

3) Not having to have any meeting with my supervisor (largely because he is out of practice with his English!). While we're on the subject of lab people, I have to say thanks to my professor, who has been very welcoming and just let me get on with things. He didn't say anything derogatory when the work was going slowly, and I managed to work through the problems to the point where he was very happy with my end results. Granted, I am just a visiting student, so probably I get special treatment. But overall, I think he is a fair supervisor and I think he is doing a good job at leading the group. 

4) The weather. Despite the unusual day of freak weather conditions which meant that the smog in Shanghai hit a new record while Beijing was basking in unusually pleasant air conditions, overall, the weather has been heavenly. When I arrived, it was a balmy 30 degrees during the day, with long, warm evenings that were great for exploring, and the autumn has not been a let down either (apart from it being too cold to sleep, but that's not the weather's fault, it's the inability of the South of China to adopt radiators). The weather has stayed largely dry and sunny, and even today I wore my sunglasses to go out for lunch, which means that there is no danger of vitamin D deficiency or SAD here! Absolutely perfect for me, and reason enough to be tempting me to move here more permanently. 

5) Cheap standard of living. Yes, my scholarship was proportionally lower to fit in line with the Chinese standard of living (only £200 a month), but still, it is perfectly possible here for students to live fairly exciting lives on this little money. The accommodation is extremely cheap (something like £10 a month, or free if you are staff or on scholarship), the meals cost about 70 p each, as I mentioned in one of my first blog posts, and even going out, you can eat a big slap up meal for under £4, if you go to the places aimed at Chinese rather than tourists. Also, the metro takes you from one end of the city to the other in about 2 hours for about 40 p, so it is perfectly possible to explore and visit around different parts of the city on a budget. Even the bullet train is excellent value for money, and I visited Yangzhou and Hangzhou for about £10 - 15 return tickets. Yes, the tickets to Beijing were £50 each, each way, but it was travelling over 800 km!

6) Fantastic ordering and delivery service, right to your door. With personal couriers (or put simply, guys on scooters) going around doing deliveries from 8 am until 9 pm sometimes, delivery can be really fast. In addition, this service goes on throughout the weekend, which is really convenient if you're in the lab and urgently needs some primers or sequencing done. If you order a package, they don't leave if you're not in, they come in to your building and leave your package at reception (yes, this is permitted by the university, although you shouldn't leave your package lying around for very long). This has made buying things so convenient, and living in a big city like Shanghai, it sometimes even means that you get same day delivery for very little charge (Lu once asked me whether it was okay to order something that I asked if it has a 5 RMB delivery charge. I told her that back home, delivery can cost six times as much!). It might be sad to think that this means some people give up their weekends just to deliver our shopping, but at the end of they day, there is a gap in the market for this, and if these people didn't do it, there are plenty of others who would come along who would fill the gap (this is a little like the problem of the builders I described in my skyscraper post). 
7) KTV! Or the plush karaoke bars with their glittering decor and touchscreen selectors harbouring thousands of songs in many languages. I will miss how much the Chinese share my love of singing, and how easy it is to impress them, thanks to my many years of singing in choir!
8) Eating dragonfruit for breakfast every morning! Which I picked up from a local fruit shop run by a cute couple who politely put up with my rudimentary Mandarin. 

Perhaps many of these plus points are due to the fact that I'm living in a big city like Shanghai, and especially one that is particularly friendly to foreigners. Definitely, everything here seems pretty fast paced. In the lab, they always use fast digest enzymes, and run gels at a high speed to get them finished within half an hour and so this generally means that work gets done much faster.Some people may say that Shanghai is not the real China, but I think that is like saying New York is not the real America, or London isn't the real England. Shanghai is every much a product of Chinese culture as the smaller villages and rice fields, and it will definitely always have a place in my heart. Yes, there is the spitting, and as my friend said "people use the street as the dustbin", but right now I want to say "It's okay China, all is forgiven!" I have really loved my time here and I cannot say enough good things about it. But it is a very emotional time now as I write this, as I must go to bed in order to wake up tomorrow for the flight, so this will be my last post from China! 

Merry Christmas, and see you all soon x x x

Chinese wedding photography

Chinese wedding photography - always crazy and over the top?
When I first arrived and my new lab mates found out I was married then inevitably we ended up discussing weddings. They initially told me that weddings in China weren’t really that big of a deal, but somehow I think that was playing things down a bit! My impression of Chinese weddings is that they can be very elaborate, and above all, a lot of effort and money is spent on the photography. All my friends here who are married that I’ve talked about this with had a photography session (usually before the wedding – so none of these superstitions about the groom seeing the bride before the big day and being put off), and the photos tend to focus on these staged shots, with several outfit changes, rather than the ceremony itself. And when it comes to dress changes, I'm talking about five or six dresses. Nowadays most brides will have at least a few white dresses, but there will also be some of coloured evening gowns in addition to one in traditional dress.  My friends told me that most of the dresses are loaned, so they don’t incur that much of an expense, but I know that the photography package can be quite pricey, and many start at around £1000.

When you see the photographers going around with a couple in the city and in the parks, it’s not hard to see why. Normally, wedding photographs will be taken at beautiful or exotic outside locations, and there will usually be at least one photographer, and one assistant carrying around capes to keep the bride warm in between the shots, or extra changes of clothing. Sometimes more people make up the entourage, such as in night shots, when someone is required to hold a spotlight to make sure faces are well-lit. I also saw a few photography groups that included bridesmaids, although traditionally, Asian weddings would only have one bridesmaid, or none at all (so this is probably another aspect of Western influence on the young people of China).

So, after this brief introduction, here is a selection of my favourite wedding photography sessions that I’ve seen on my travels:

Posing at the Bund was massively popular throughout the hot summer nights

A brave bride catches a chance lull in the traffice to pose at the famous and romantic Wai ba du bridge

As one of the oldest universities in China, even my campus attracts some couples hoping to get some romantic shots with the help of their entourage

The recently built Century Park is so huge that you can even hold a wedding there

Western style bridesmaids and groomsmen are becoming increasingly popular, as showcased by this group posing at Fuxing Park

The prize for the most adventurous couple has to go to this pair, who drove out to a relatively remote part of the Great Wall, about 2 or 3 hours away from Beijing in order to get what must have been stunning wedding shots

The competition to have better and more unique wedding photographs has driven a highly lucrative market to become more and more inventive. How about underwater photography? Or dressing up in your policeman work gear for a swat-themed wedding shoot?