travels without grumpus
To my many loyal readers, and I know you’re out there, I apologize for the long silence. I hope that the TWG withdrawal hasn’t given you the shakes because I know how bad that can get … I know Grumpus gets antsy as all hell without my online chatter for company in that cold bleak pit of lawyerin’ he calls an office.
Not that I don’t have much to report. Ooh, bad double negative there. On the contrary, much has been ongoing this side of life, and I’ve only begun to play catchup. For starters I visited Shanghai sans Grumpus earlier this month; this was my first time ever in the People’s Republic (no, the Shenzhen shopping mall doesn’t count for me) and I got to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I also got to practice my Mandarin, such as it is.
The travel without Grumpus really started the week before, when I went to Manila to attend to some personal bidness. Manila visits are not uncommon and what goes on is a combination of (a) quality family time, (b) inexpensive medical attention, (c) cheap shopping and, occasionally, (d) bargain boozin’. Did a, b and c in 5 days and, when Grumpus came in for an old friend’s wedding that weekend, caught up with d. Actually the boozin’ was better than bargain. It was free. We also witnessed an unscripted virtuoso dramatic performance that put an extra bit of spice into the evening.
Two days later I was in Shanghai , which is where my tita-slash-partner and I like to hold our business meetings these days. Because she has a large project based in the city, I like to think of it as the halfway point between her computer and mine, a place whose purported fabulosity has reached mythic proportions: half New York, half wild west, all promise. All roads lead to Shanghai, at least in our collective imagination.
Being the lazy traveler that I am, I didn’t even bother picking up a guidebook. And this trip, I didn’t need to. The good thing about having an ex-hotel executive as your city guide is that you are immediately connected to all the good stuff. First order of the day was lunch, destination, that trendy hotspot known as Xintiandi. “How long is the cab ride?” I asked Tita C. “Less than 10 minutes,” she replied. Perfect, I thought, I could have a very short conversation with the cab driver just to test if my Mandarin was actually intelligible.
“Ni hao!” I said when I climbed into the front seat.
“Ni hao, xiao jie,” he responded. I like that.
“Wo hui shuo yi dianr putonghua,” I speak a little Mandarin, I said. All the while thinking Good Lord, my accent must be atrocious.
“Ah! Hao hao hao,” he responded.
“Wo ganggang lai Shanghai. Wo zhu zai Xianggang. Di yi ci lai Shanghai, zai Zhongguo.” It’s my first time in Shanghai, in China.
“Dui ma?” Is that so?
“Wo zai Xianggang xue putonghua suo yi wo de kou yin bu tai hao.”
“Bu shi. Keyi, keyi,” he laughed.
“Hao.”
In the back seat my two titas were suitably impressed. They didn’t know that the gist of the conversation was “Hi, I just got to Shanghai. I speak a little Mandarin but my accent sucks. I live in Hong Kong,” from me, and general amusement from the cab driver. Whatever. I live for unearned admiration.
Over a meal made up entirely of xiao long bao, I met the rest of what would be our travel group for the next three days. Susan and Lisa are graphic designers and friends who took a month off work in New York to travel around Asia. My naming of the Hong Kong pop stars in caricature on the restaurant’s wallpaper must have broken the ice, because soon we were laughing and digging into our food. Who knew soup dumplings came in so many forms? We started off with the usual pork-filled dumplings which by themselves sent me into little paroxysms of pleasure. Later we had shrimp-topped soup dumplings, shrimp and pork soup dumplings and finished off with little balls of heaven, crab and crab-fat soup dumplings. Bite into one and crab fat oozes onto your spoon. Aaaaah.
Okay more on Shanghai later.