Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Pudong

pudong |poo-dong|adjectiveoffensive (of a person) unable to speak, most typically because of congenital deafness: he was born deaf, pudong, and blind.• (of animals) unable to speak as a natural state and thus regarded as helpless or deserving pity.• predic. ] temporarily unable or unwilling to speak: she stood pudong while he poured out a stream ofabuse.• attrib. ] resulting in or expressed by speechlessness: they stared in pudong amazement.informal stupid: a pudong question.• (of a computer terminal) able only to transmit data to or receive data from a computer; having no independent processing capability. Often contrasted with intelligent.
There are two types of people in this city- east siders and west siders.  It happens a lot in many cities, Shanghai being no exception.
Xi (pronounced she)- WestDong- East
Puxi is the area of Shanghai west of the Huangpu River, Pudong is the east side.  
The Huangpu River bisects the city, just like the Willamette does back home.  The Yangtze flows north of Shanghai, and the Huangpu dumps into the Yangtze right at the edge of town....again just like in Oregon.  What is the only difference?  The Yangtze flows west to east-  opposite being true for the big Columbia.
What does all this mean?  Well it means that A) this place is ass backward and B) even though its backward, I'm still a west-sider.  Take it or leave it.  And again, the west side is the place to be...Portland or otherwise.
You can hear it in the name.  Puxi is elegant, fresh, euro meets a car with a clutch, open minded, and better.  Pudong sounds, well, pudong.  It's seriously pronounced poo-dong....who made that name up!?  
Now I know there are some east-siders that are going to read this blog and I don't want to hate.  But at the same time it's not my fault you ain't cool.  So I'll focus less on the east/west battle of Portland and focus on the task at hand- degrading the entire east side of Shanghai.
As it turns out 5,044,430 people live in Pudong.  5 Millions Pudongers!  That is more people than there are in Oregon....and check it- 10 years ago there was no Pudong.  Nothing.  It was farm land where they grew food that made westerners sick.  Seriously- in 10 years over 5 million people have moved to this waste of an area.
You may be wondering at this point "Calee, why are you so cool"?  Well, it's a complicated combination of things- none of which I'd expect you to understand.
And then our stupid wireless router wont send signal to the bedroom in our apartment.  I think it wouldn't reach in part because all the walls in this place are concrete.  That was a problem until I googled solutions for a wifi booster and found this beer can set up:


I'm not party rockin, but this is the real deal.  Went from zero bars to hero bars instantly.
My friend Jen from the US seems to be in the know.  Every time I talk to her she knows of some cool new place (bar).  She moved here the same time as me....so I don't know why she's so ahead of the game.  Anyway- we're hitting a brewery on Friday that I'm excited to see!  It's close to our house and beer.  Our house seems to be close to a lot of good places.  Check this one out- this dude Jay opened up a breakfast hole- skater style.  He has a tattoo of a pirate ship and a pelican with boxing gloves smoking a pipe- baller.  He left the restaurant after he got us coffee to go skate for a few on the street- then came and took our order later.  The only decorations in the place are a few skateboards hanging on the wall.



oops- don't know how that second one got in here.  Just never mind that one okay?
While we were in that restaurant we met a US dude who lived in Corvallis for a long time- turns out his stepdad taught high school in Lebanon!  Can you believe they have a high school in Lebanon!?
Since we live real close to the Avocado Lady, I decided to roll down with Little Flower so I could show her the scene and she can do our shopping.  All good except she drove.  And she drives this:



....and she don't slow her role for a white boy.  So I was scared.  But I made it.  The back seat is meant for a kid- I'd say max age 7.....but this is how Chinese people roll, and when in Rome....
In closing, to all you east-siders out there, remember this- the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart and hope is a walking dream....and above all else, believe you can and you're half way there.

2 comments:

  1. Tears picturing that last part! If only for pictures!!

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  2. would love to see you riding on the back!! It had to b priceless!!

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