March Favourites

I can’t believe it’s only been six weeks since I made my first favourites post - it feels like aeons ago. An ocean ago, which it actually has been: I’ve lived in China for five weeks now. Five weeks! Sometimes I think Christ, the weeks are going so fast; it’s going to be time to go home before I know it. And other times I think Christ, I still have 3 months here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying it, but it’s extremely tiring. I feel like i’m in a constant state of tension. Everything requires more energy. The thought of having to socialise makes me want to slit my wrists (I’m being literal here, as you probably learnt from the poem that was my last post (I still don’t know if I like it or not)).  This whole diatribe is basically just to say that my favourites will probably be quite Chinese. But - hopefully still entertaining for everyone not reading from China (which will be almost everyone, given that google and therefore blogger is banned in China lmao).

(Actually, that being said, I did get 3 views from China last week, which strikes me as very odd, because if you’re reading this in China via VPN, the country of viewing will register as the country your proxy server is at.)

Speaking of which, I should pledge allegiance and make my first favourite

ExpressVPN

Love you bae. Thank you for your service, even if you did pretty much stop working altogether for about 2 weeks while a big Chinese Communist Party conference was going on in Beijing. It’s funny watching youtube videos where the sponsor is ExpressVPN, when the only way I’m able to actually watch the videos is ExpressVPN. You’re preaching to the choir, baby.

Miniso hairties

So cute! So pretty! All for the price of 10 yuan for 3 ($2AUD). I like to use them when my outfit is a little stand-offish and masculine, to add a little bit of sweetness. And I also like to use them when I’m wearing a girly outfit, to match the vibe. I guess what I’m saying is that I like to use them all the time.

School of Humanities’ coffee shop

I have four hours of class every day (the routine is nice), and it’s mostly the same people in each class. During our break, three friends and I always get coffee together at the little coffee shop, the only place that I’ve seen has good coffee. I either have espresso or, if I’m hungry, caramel coffee, which is just moka-type coffee with caramel syrup and a bit of condensed milk. It’s very asian - it reminds me of how my friends’ mum, when I was little in Singapore, made me hot milo using a little bit of condensed milk and boiling water. You can pay with cash or by scanning their AliPay QR code, though they never actually check that you’ve paid. There’s a giant square table with random objects strewn in the middle, like a pot plant, cleaning products, a broken microwave (as well as an electric mixer by our feet), and we sit on one corner of it talking. We always end up walking back into class two or three minutes late, giggling.

I suppose my favourite is actually these three friends - Marianna (Colombia), Katya (Ukraine), and Carola (Sardegna). But I also do love the ritual, the warm woodenness of the room, especially as the sky sours to raincloudiness, and us, inside, with warm coffee and social acceptance.

FamilyMart Snacks

Snack selection is kind of limited in China, but I don;’t care because I’ve just been consuming mass quantities of dried mango and chocolate biscuit things, both FamilyMart’s own brand.

The chocolate literally tastes like a crunchier version of a brownie. Annoyingly they all come as little squares individually wrapped, like I’m not eating it all at once, which, of course, I am.

And as for dried mango - I love convenient versions of mango. Frozen and dried, basically. Actual mango is fucking annoying, messy, and you’re paying for something by the kilo when most of the weight comes from the seed that you DON’T EVEN EAT. But frozen mango makes more of the flesh available at once, and pre-cut, and with a less slimy texture. And dried mango concentrates the flavour. This, too, I eat by the packet. 

Nong Fu Spring Water

You can’t drink the water in China, even in the big modern cities like Shanghai (though Shanghai is nowhere as modern as I would have thought, considering that they filmed part of Her here. Which means you have to buy water. I, like most students, just buy either 1.5L bottles or 4L cartons of Nongfu Spring at convenience stores, and fill our small bottles up whenever we come across free clean water - which for me is only the School of Humanities building and the gym. Other people have water dealers - I know Katya gets her water from these men who have piles of office-water-cooler bottles and sit under an umbrella playing cards all day. They do this right outside my dorm actually - here’s a picture.

You can also order boxes of bottles water on Tabao or 饿了么, which is the Chinese version of ubereats. You can buy all your groceries on “ubereats”, actually. 

Vaping

Don’t look so disappointed in me. After my morning class on Tuesday, I decided that my adventure of the day was going to be to buy a vape. It feels more natural in China, I guess, where everyone’s smoking. I was actually quite hesitant, because social anxiety means that I have trouble walking into very small shops where the shopkeeper knows I’m there. But I got my arse out of bed, and found myself in a new neighbourhood. It was still in Xuhui, but very different - there were Cheongsam shops everywhere and there was a sections with a lot of international restaurants. In other words, it was a little gentrified - it reminded me of Tiong Bahru, a random HDB neighbourhood in Singapore that seemingly overnight became a hipster hangout, with funky cafes that were fusions of australianesque cafes and singaporean kopitiams. One of the shops (we’re back in Shanghai now) is a cute artisinal little vape shop. I walked in very tentatively, and there was a girl by the window using her laptop and vaping; it was just us. I said “你好” and she said hello and asked me what I was looking for. She spoke to me in English the whole time, including throughout the instruction of how to use the vape (which is very pretty and rainbow/iodised coloured). And then, when i was paying, I asked if I could use 微信, instead of using the English word, WeChat. And she was like, wait, you can speak Chinese and you let me speak to you in English this whole time? I just didn’t know how to tell her. This used to happen with tables of Chinese customers at work. Anyway, I got an oil that’s “strawberry cereal milk” flavoured - and it’s accurate.

Vapes help with anxiety, because using my mouth repeatedly (like with chewing gum) helps with the nervous energy. It also makes my room hazy and sweet. But, two problems - in a classic ED turn, I’ve become anxious that I’ll absorb the calories from the oil. Second problem - I only just realised a couple of days ago that the oil I’m using has nicotine in it?? So I've been SMOKING this whole time, and in my room too?! Will update you on what I decide to do with this information.

@shanghaiobserved

Marianna introduced me to this Instagram account in the coffee shop the other day, and it’s so comforting. It’s basically an account that chronicles all the weird shit you see in Shanghai - weird English phrases on T-shirts, old people doing weird shit at the gym (and in the same vein, the weird “exercises” old people do on running tracks and exercise stations, like an old woman I saw walking while vigorously windmilling her arms), multiple people stacked on one motorbike, etc. I myself have many anecdotes that would suit the account, such as the time I saw a girl riding a bike on the bike lane of the road, with her boyfriend wearing rollerblades holding on to the back.

It’s a funny account, but more importantly (at least to me), it makes me feel so much less alone. It’s hard walking through the streets and seeing that everyone around you is on a completely different wavelength, so it’s comforting to see that there are other people like me recognising that this shit is just a different level of reality. It also helps me try and view everything in a more positive way, like everyone else on the account. Here are some of my favourites:

"仙女"

In the rare instances where I’m talking to someone polite (god it would be so relaxing to be a waitress here - you don’t even have to smile), they refer to me as “仙女”. It has the same operation as, say, calling a girl “bella” in Italian, but the proper translation would be “美女“. “仙女“, on the other hand, adds a celestial element to that basic phrase. It literally is the word used for fairy. Here, I am a fairy.