China Rant #1

So, I officially miss the good ol' U.S. of A.

Here are my top Whines (bad) and my top Squeals (good.)

Whines:
1. Bathrooms. I know this is a weird topic to mention first, but the bathrooms here are God-awful. Most public restrooms consist of a hole in the ground, with two steps on either side for you to stand on. They are dirty, and don't even get me started about the smell. There's no toilet paper; you have to bring your own. Now that I think about it, all of the pubic areas in China are pretty dirty.
2. Beds. I can feel every spring in my bed, and I'm staying at an international hotel. My aunt's bed is basically a hard wooden board with a thin layer of woven straw as a "mattress." This is typical. So much for dreams of Tempurpedic heaven.
3. Traffic. OH MY GOODNESS. I'm surprised I'm still alive. China is so populated with taxis, cars, bicycles, mopeds and pedestrians that the streets are nothing short of chaos. No one, I repeat NO ONE, follows the traffic laws. Any number of things that would engender a middle finger and a good amount of road rage in the U.S. is commonplace in China. Practically expected.
4. Pushy salespeople. There are salespeople on almost every corner in Shanghai, most of them trying to push a flyer into your hands or draw you in to their little booth. I usually ignore them, but the other day, as I was walking down the street, one guy walked up next to me and tried to hassle me with some product. I pretended he didn't exist, but this continued for about half the block. Finally, I told him off, but on my God. I swear, I need my man-friend with me.

Ok, that took so long, I'm going to have to save Squeals for later.

Peace,

JC

Chinese Acrobats

Last night I saw some Chinese acrobats.

No, seriously, I went to the Shanghai Circus to see their "Intersection of Time" show.

This is a seriously updated version of classic Chinese circus acrobatics. As the name suggests, the show combined an old and new perspective of China's history. So while one scene opened with a farmer and his wife "rowing" across the stage in a primitive boat, another displayed futuristic apparatus and robotic acrobats.

These are pictures from their website, since flash photography isn't allowed.

Some of the stuff I've seen before, like the curtain acrobatics and the trapeze stuff, but I must say the giant ferris wheel was my favorite.

My brothers liked the final act: the motorcycles in a giant hamster ball stunt. There were up to 5 cyclists whizzing around at once inside.

I must say, I spent a lot of the 1 1/2 hours holding my breath and hoping to God that no one would slip or look away. Yeah, one hell of a show, but I don't think my blood pressure could take too many of these.