Ok there seems to be some mad problem with blogger. there always seems to be la sheesh. Hmmm or is it just me. maaybe I’ve already started to get de-civilized after being in china for a week. Haha better not say later kena gunned down by the KMT or something. This is not making it any better is it haha

theres so much i wanna say but lucky for all of you i'm not gonna blahblah about everything so yupp. whatever i can fit in :) . well before our proverbial shopping spree, for the earlier part of the trip we went sightseeing. I thought some of it was really sorta cool, like... how do I say it. in a sense that you can really feel the echoes of history that are like reaching out to you. creepy huh. Haha not to mention now i sound really psycho. but you get what I mean laaa huh. which was kinda amazing cos well. Not that I wanna be disrespectful or anything, but I thought I’ll be bored out of my mind. Its history man. The last impression I had of the Red army was chua gong droning on and on during last periods on hot afternoons while we sat at the back wishing we were anywhere but here. Haha poor ms chua. (Speaking of ms chua apparently now she’s become hot. Which is seriously kinda... unthinkable. Haha I guess her tv haircut made a comeback. which brings me to- hello guys we should visit mg soon!! I haven’t gone since.... ever. oh and go eat red bowl noodles :D ) Haha ok digressing. hmmm being a city sorta person I found some of the scenic areas quite boring actually. Haha I know each of it has a different significance to china’s culture and stuff but honestly once you’ve seen one park you’ve seen them all. Haha I suppose I’ll take it as cleansing our brains from the perpetual sight of school notes. Finally, looking at something that isn’t pixellated or requires logical processing-- just enjoy :)
Yeah so now I’m a much more cultured person *beams. did you know in china they call pretty girls “aiyo” haha then ugly ones are called “aiya”. Snort. Oh and in certain parts they don’t like the term "xiao jie" (Miss, for the chinese challenged haha) , which I always thought was pretty respectful. I didn’t learn the hard way la… I actually listened while the guide was yakking away. Haha you’re supposed to use "mei nu" (beautiful) , which I find kinda horrible cos it sounds so lecherous (ok you know what the translation thing really isnt working out. hahaha). interesting yah. Haha customs aside we also learnt about the usual stuff like zhu yingtai and tang someone and the guy who drowned himself so we now have ba zhang festival :D yah I know I’m sounding so cultured now. Haha

i thought being on tour with a buncha old folks was gonna be one agonising journey of toilet stops and nagging and complaining but honestly they're not too bad. haha i think i complain alot more :D you sorta grow attached to some of them la. Generally they’re really nice ppl, the type of uncles and aunties who will ask you about school and take food for you. Or maybe they just wanted the glutton to finish it up. Yumyum =D ( but seriously now if i look at another xiao long bao i'll scream. Haha so far since I’ve come back everytime I go out I’ve eaten everything BUT Chinese food. No more.). usually the group will be given time to walk about ourselves in shopping areas. so when the group congregates afterward the whole bus will be ablaze with their chattering and comparing their finds and bargains. they’ll take out their stuff to yak about it, and jan’s mom even paraded around with her new buys. Cute :D
But whoa I tell you Singaporean kiasuism really shows on such tours. The tour brought us to certain sightseeing places like the silk factory or introduced stuff like tidbit shops... aunty things la haha. and at the end they almost always try to pitch their stuff to brainwash you into buying it. And the aunties...well I’m assuming its kiasuism or maybe herd mentality, but its like widespread chaos. Everyone trying to get what they want and when they want, which is usually asap. So as you can imagine there is absolutely no order. I always thought I had dormant aunty tendencies esp during mango sales, but hell. I’m no match for the pros. It was honestly a mad house, and if I hadn't been so frazzled by it, it would’ve been nice to sit back with a camcorder and take in all the action. then upload it on youtube :D
After all was said and done though, at the end me and jan reflected that actually a lot of it were impulse buys. I hate to admit but I actually fell for some of it hehe. And it didn’t come cheap lor. I bought a silk pillow for me and my mum. Haha what! It looked SUPEr nice okay.

As I said, generally they’re nice. But kiasuism really reared its FUGLY head for some ppl in the group. There was this… this.. GANG of aunties who were so uncivilized and so lacking social grace, that beyond being angry with their rude ways, I was just so ashamed to call them singaporeans. Then I found out they were indons. phew haha. What made their barbarism worse was that on top of everything they were hypocritical, inconsiderate, and selfish. I’m not gonna elaborate on it, I’ll just post up her pic. HAHAHA kidding la but I actually had a pic which she walked into (see what I mean), should teach her a lesson by putting her lovely face up with a “WARNING”. Anyway I’m not gonna reminisce on such horrible ppl and things. I’ll wait for a bitchy mood :D

After all the sightseeing we got to… shop!! Haha mostly the REAL good shopping was in shanghai. I love shanghai. Haha not only cos of shopping la seriously *offended look. I’ve always liked it since the first time I went. The shanghai skyline and night lights are really pretty, it’s the kind of city you really fall in love and lose yourself in. dunno how to describe it to do it justice, but I guess its cos its such an incongruity. it isn’t a built up concrete jungle and its not some backward rural village, it’s both together. their coexistence seems so seamless and the ppl just fit into life that way which I thought was kinda special. And I’m not talking about like in Singapore, we have certain areas designated little india, chinatown or whatever- A tourist area segregated from the rest of Singapore. In shanghai its like a functional way of life, old and new being side by side, which has a certain charm to it la. Haha noww I sound like some mad culture nut but you hafta experience it to understand I guess. and i know its like sacrilege but i love xintiandi: its the an angmoh take on their notion of chinese culture, which as we all know is usually incredibly warped. go watch pirates of the carribean and see what ancient singapore looked like thru their eyes man. orientalism at its most cock eyed. but in the case of xintiand i thought it came out pretty nice --it seems like our eqivalent to holland v and clarke quay jumbled tog.

The only big fat stupid thing about shanghai is that it has to be the most fuckingly polluted country in the whole entire civilized world. The reason for the anger is what else- I got a lovely FUGLY breakout which explains why I’m driving everyone mad with my neurotic self imposed house arrest. I refuse to get out till I deem it relatively better so just save the trouble and save your breaths. Lisa’s not moving!!NONONONOOOOO. Sulk.. (dont worry i'm still going tonight :D)
Anyway I guess my good buys made the breakout worth it (I think. I’m still wondering really. scowl). But hell I got loads of good stuff!! Haha I wont start gloating la ok spare you all *grin. Jannanana bananana even wenta take pics of the stuff la!! Haha very obviously all that shopping has made her already mad mind even more addled. heehee :P

Oh and guess what ok!! Haha I’m so proud of this. Listen everyone!! some of the shopkeepers, as in we’re talking mainland Chinese here, the uh… keepers of our mother tongue language, commented that... my Chinese is good!! Lalala *doesn’t bother to hide the big fat gloating smile. Hahaha we were told to speak in Chinese only, when dealing with bargaining and the shopkeepers, cos its a pretty well known fact that they con angmohs cos like duh who doesn’t con angmohs. One of them even admitted to it when I was making strategic conversation la huh haha. I have a feeling it came from listening to the tour guide speaking in Chinese, and I guess generally being immersed in the whole cheena environment did me some good. Haha at least I’m not talking steph and ashton Chinese anymore :D

admittedly hearing them it can be quite a beautiful language, but in my opinion only when the ladies speak. And only the refined ladies haha. Often I find that the way alot of them speak is very.... sharp, even though they can be talking about normal stuff, which makes it come across as very fierce and crude. Like in the restaurants they will be yelling and barking in front of customers and usually its nothing much. At the rate they’re going you’d think there was some sorta disaster in the kitchen but they’re just talking about the weather or other boring stuff.
They’re seemingly loud and ferocious, esp when bargaining, but you can tell they’re good ppl la. They’re may be poor but once you agree on the price they wont try to shortchange you or grumble at being undercut, in fact transactions aside they become chattier and stuff.

Anyway I’m finally back in lovely homey home :) i did sorta miss my family and my mummy at some parts of the trip being so far away. i know sometimes i'm sucha sap. but of cos, that was shortlived once the nagging started :D

being there also i realised how much i love singapore. haha i always complain about how boring... and the gahmen.. and so hot..and all that but honestly. being there you really start to appreciate stuff we take for granted. as cliched as it sounds.

like most of us are roughly effectively bilingual but over there most can only speak mandarin and whatever native dialects i guess- almost always no english. at all.
and despite cringing at our need for public campaigns like the courtesy campaign and stuff (ugh) you really recognise its importance. in singapore we have at least reached an acceptable sense of civic conciousness and social grace to understand how to behave well. in china a queue is a luxury. flushing is unheard of. (their toilets. i tell you... their toilets are a whole new experience) there was once when we were all lining up and this lady pushed past me. i told her really nicely "i'm in the queue you biatch" *glares. haha i told her to join the line la. she looked at me and pretended she didnt hear. when i repeated myself she looked at me again and just ran in. whoa i tell you if it wasnt an frickin old lady i'll chase after her and haul her out la. and this wasnt the only incident, its just the most unbelievably blatant lack of regard.
and of cos. how clean and safe singapore is. the roads there are crap. theres total disregard by the drivers for anything but themselves and likewise for the pedestrians. you cross the road at your own risk and honestly no one gives a hoot if you're old and slow or with children etc. makes you wonder what they put up traffic lights for.

i should get paid for this propaganda man.
haha that was super long wasnt it. very chiong hei but hey, i want to share it :)








anyway. back home and loving it <3>

3:29 PM

Monday, May 07, 2007