China Diary #1: Making Connections
Aug. 16th, 2024 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wrote_and_writWell hello. I have been in China for two weeks now, and things are settling down. Ish. It's fine. It's moving along. I want to Be Settled, but I also know that it will take time, and I'm grumpy about it. However, I finally got a mattress pad, so I'm hoping a solidly good night of sleep in my new apartment will help.
I joined a social group chat, and I have (tentatively, in my head) agreed to a meet up with the new cohort. However, they are planning dinner at a buffet, and I don't like buffets. Even before COVID, buffets made me anxious, and buffets in China are extra stressful, in my experience. Just lots more people and different social norms. So I think I'm going to skip the buffet. Thankfully I have an IKEA delivery I can use as an excuse. But I'll meet up for a few drinks after.
I did go on a little adventure with one new coworker yesterday. We went to get soup dumplings, aka xiaolongbao. Richard has been to Shanghai before, and I was happy to let him take the lead. He wanted to go to a Michelin-starred place, but first we went to a little restaurant that he remembered from his college days. We had xiaolongbao filled with yellow crab, which is apparently a Shanghai speciality. I didn't love them, which I assured Richard was fine. I'm happy to try new things. I really only won't eat spicy food and a few exotic meats (and probably insects, that's not come up yet). I don't seek new foods out myself. I'm a homebody with a love of routine and a basic palate. But if I have the chance to go out with someone and try new things, I'm happy to do it. The crab dumplings were fine! I wouldn't get them again for myself. But I enjoyed the experience, and I'm happy that Richard was happy to have them again. Then we tried the starred dumplings -- pork with mushrooms. I can't say that I could tell the difference in quality, but again, I enjoyed the experience. I don't think I like xiaolongbao over other types of dumplings. I'm not dextrous enough with chopsticks, so I tend to burn myself. Which, as I think about it now, is probably why my tongue feels weird. I thought I was just dehydrated (and I probably am, a bit, I've been sweating SO MUCH), but I think I also burned my tongue a bit.
We walked around the Nanjing Pedestrian Street to the Bund and snapped a few pics of the Shanghai skyline. Overall, I had a great time.
And... one of the things that filled my heart (and also made me a little sad) is that I'm pretty sure Richard is queer. If you're queer, you'll know what I mean, even though I don't have quite the words to express what I mean. We didn't talk about ourselves so overtly. We're still strangers to each other, and we're in a place where being openly queer (in a Western sense -- we're both Americans) isn't really safe. But when two queer people meet and haven't openly established that connection, your conversation still has all these markers, you know? Where you're carefully sussing the other person out. It fills my heart because yay! Someone I share a connection with! But also it makes me sad that we're doing that careful conversational dance. Anyway.
Today I had to go back into town (Songjiang is like 11 km from the center of Shanghai) for a visa appointment. It takes 1.5 hours on the metro, so I figured I'd make it worth the trip. The appointment took all of two minutes. The worker looked at me, looked at my passport, made me sign something, and sent me on my way. Awesome. (I mean, I'm glad there were no obvious issues.) After the appointment, I went to the Foreign Language Bookstore. It's nice! I only gave myself 30 minutes because I wanted to get the metro before rush hour, so I did a quick turn around the ground floor. There were shelves upon shelves of various editions of classic lit. So much Shakespeare! Shelves of Christie, Tolkien. Game of Thrones books and merch. A huge display of Harry Potter books and stuff (🤢🤮). One thing that always drives me crazy about English sections in non-English bookstores is that they are never really organized. They aren't in alphabetical order. Even if the clerks don't read English, surely they can match the letters? However, I read about how some Chinese authors' names were fucked up at the recent Worldcon, so instead, I'll just be grateful that there are even books available that I can just walk into the store and buy because white people are NOT making the same "basic" efforts for non-English authors. I have no room to complain when things aren't to my liking. I bought a copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Book of Delights by Ross Gay (I'm not familiar with his work at all, but it looks like the sort of book I need in my life).
I'm looking forward to more explorations.
I joined a social group chat, and I have (tentatively, in my head) agreed to a meet up with the new cohort. However, they are planning dinner at a buffet, and I don't like buffets. Even before COVID, buffets made me anxious, and buffets in China are extra stressful, in my experience. Just lots more people and different social norms. So I think I'm going to skip the buffet. Thankfully I have an IKEA delivery I can use as an excuse. But I'll meet up for a few drinks after.
I did go on a little adventure with one new coworker yesterday. We went to get soup dumplings, aka xiaolongbao. Richard has been to Shanghai before, and I was happy to let him take the lead. He wanted to go to a Michelin-starred place, but first we went to a little restaurant that he remembered from his college days. We had xiaolongbao filled with yellow crab, which is apparently a Shanghai speciality. I didn't love them, which I assured Richard was fine. I'm happy to try new things. I really only won't eat spicy food and a few exotic meats (and probably insects, that's not come up yet). I don't seek new foods out myself. I'm a homebody with a love of routine and a basic palate. But if I have the chance to go out with someone and try new things, I'm happy to do it. The crab dumplings were fine! I wouldn't get them again for myself. But I enjoyed the experience, and I'm happy that Richard was happy to have them again. Then we tried the starred dumplings -- pork with mushrooms. I can't say that I could tell the difference in quality, but again, I enjoyed the experience. I don't think I like xiaolongbao over other types of dumplings. I'm not dextrous enough with chopsticks, so I tend to burn myself. Which, as I think about it now, is probably why my tongue feels weird. I thought I was just dehydrated (and I probably am, a bit, I've been sweating SO MUCH), but I think I also burned my tongue a bit.
We walked around the Nanjing Pedestrian Street to the Bund and snapped a few pics of the Shanghai skyline. Overall, I had a great time.
And... one of the things that filled my heart (and also made me a little sad) is that I'm pretty sure Richard is queer. If you're queer, you'll know what I mean, even though I don't have quite the words to express what I mean. We didn't talk about ourselves so overtly. We're still strangers to each other, and we're in a place where being openly queer (in a Western sense -- we're both Americans) isn't really safe. But when two queer people meet and haven't openly established that connection, your conversation still has all these markers, you know? Where you're carefully sussing the other person out. It fills my heart because yay! Someone I share a connection with! But also it makes me sad that we're doing that careful conversational dance. Anyway.
Today I had to go back into town (Songjiang is like 11 km from the center of Shanghai) for a visa appointment. It takes 1.5 hours on the metro, so I figured I'd make it worth the trip. The appointment took all of two minutes. The worker looked at me, looked at my passport, made me sign something, and sent me on my way. Awesome. (I mean, I'm glad there were no obvious issues.) After the appointment, I went to the Foreign Language Bookstore. It's nice! I only gave myself 30 minutes because I wanted to get the metro before rush hour, so I did a quick turn around the ground floor. There were shelves upon shelves of various editions of classic lit. So much Shakespeare! Shelves of Christie, Tolkien. Game of Thrones books and merch. A huge display of Harry Potter books and stuff (🤢🤮). One thing that always drives me crazy about English sections in non-English bookstores is that they are never really organized. They aren't in alphabetical order. Even if the clerks don't read English, surely they can match the letters? However, I read about how some Chinese authors' names were fucked up at the recent Worldcon, so instead, I'll just be grateful that there are even books available that I can just walk into the store and buy because white people are NOT making the same "basic" efforts for non-English authors. I have no room to complain when things aren't to my liking. I bought a copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Book of Delights by Ross Gay (I'm not familiar with his work at all, but it looks like the sort of book I need in my life).
I'm looking forward to more explorations.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-16 03:28 pm (UTC)The dumpling adventure sounds lovely, and like promising groundwork for friendship. ^_^
I quite like xiaolongbao, although potsticker-type dumplings are my actual favorite. *g* But the mouth-burning risk is so very real.
It fills my heart because yay! Someone I share a connection with! But also it makes me sad that we're doing that careful conversational dance. Anyway.
That makes perfect sense. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2024-08-18 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-18 03:50 pm (UTC)The dream, truly.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-16 04:19 pm (UTC)I'll be interested to hear what you think of The Book of Delights. I tried reading it a couple months ago but I couldn't hang onto the prose. I think it leaned a little to heavily into poetry territory which brain fog isn't allowing me to enjoy right now.
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