A little hop around the supermarket

The Chinese penchant for eating anything on four legs that moves has been well documented. What was a little surprising during a recent visit to Hymall, one of the mid-sized supermarket chain-stores found around Shanghai that consistantly offers a reasonably pleasant shopping experience (a modest variety of western foods and refrideration standards simply a world apart from the open-air markets scattered around Shanghai that display the unrefriderated chunks of raw meat they are selling on wooden tables), was the open glass display of live bullfrogs - rather large ones.

The question immediately sprang to mind, why weren't these guys jumping all around the supermarket? One could speculate that perhaps their legs had been broken... The store clerks found it amusing that a westerner could find the live bullfrog display amusing, even if communicating the source of this westerner's amusement proved impossible.

Sasha, VIP Room, Shanghai, Nov. 4, 2005

As it has been widely noted by the Shanghai media, last time Sasha passed through town, his performance was memorable for all the wrong reasons. After only forty minutes Sasha walked off when his computer crashed, leaving the crowd unsatisfied and none to pleased. An obvious question one could ask was why he opted to leave his record collection back home in favour of a computer in the first place?

In any event, there was no vinyl to be seen either last night, but the booming three and a half hour set was rather more in line with what one would expect one of the world top ‘superstar’ DJ’s to produce. Taking the decks, or rather the iMac, just after midnight, Sasha had the capacity crowd on his side immediately (short memories?) and held them there for most of the night. The midway part of the set did lag a bit, so the crush on the dance floor thinned for a time, but he quickly returned to form during the last hour and the crowd dutifully reappeared. This time, when his computer crashed (yes, once again), he had an already queued CD ready to take over, It seemed few even realised what happened. In fact, many cheered thinking this was part of the show. An assistant rebooted the computer while the music played on.

Computer crashes aside, without question Sasha does have the tracks to back up his credentials. Obviously for his fans this is what counts most – as was the case last night. Nonetheless, one wonders why a DJ of Sasha’s fame insists upon relying on the click of a mouse rather than the (less crash prone) spin of vinyl upon which a good portion of his reputation has been built. His fans have faithfully held on, but the technology keeps letting him down.

Tim Anderson, timothyanderson2005@gmail.com.

One man’s fists, another man’s pleasure

It was on my third day in Shanghai that I witnessed my first little traffic altercation (of any notable significance), one that improbably concluded with a rare, rather poetic, resolution. I accept this term is more often used to describe countless insipid Hollywood endings, not traffic accidents.

Okay, here’s the story - one in a million.

As a traffic light turns green, a cyclist speeds across the intersection. Simultaneously, a fellow on a scooter turns the corner, oblivious to all going on outside his own little bubble. A scene repeated countless time every minute of every hour, all over Shanghai.

Crash.

The cyclist is knocked off his bicycle (uninjured) and the scooter driver crumbles gracelessly to the ground (also uninjured). A few short seconds lapse while the two recover their wits. Then the shouting match begins. I am unable to pull my attention away - there is an eager voyeur in all of us, I’ve long accepted.

The cyclist is incensed and raging - he has no doubt about who is in the right. His anger boils stronger as the shouting intensifies. These are two middle-aged men, I might add, certainly not ones who in any way resemble your stereotypical brawlers. Nonetheless, the dispute suddenly turns to fisticuffs.

Provoked, the scooter driver takes the first swing, a defensive jab aimed to deter his opponent from making a strike. The fuse is now lit. The cyclist follows up with a short flurry of punches of his own. He has managed to prop his bicycle in the middle of the busy intersection while the slightly damaged scooter of his opponent lies nearby. It appears to be leaking copious amounts of petrol, though it’s owner is oblivious to this fact at this point. He is rather preoccupied since the cyclist is now grabbing at his helmet, ripping at his shirt and trying to connect fist to face in the process.

At this point in the story, I have to come clean. I am all for the little guy on the bicycle. I know exactly why. He is the underdog and as a frequent cyclist, I know just what he is feeling. Most injustices on the road are left unresolved when the offending driver speeds recklessly away in a puff of exhaust fumes, oftentimes blissfully ignorant that anything at all has even transpired, much less that they may have been the cause.

Here and now, this is unconventional vigilante justice being administered on the Shanghai streets with no police in sight.

Finally a couple of middle-aged ladies manage to wedge themselves in between the pair. The cyclist kicks the scooter-driver’s helmet that he has managed to pull off across the intersection, walks to his bicycle still standing in the middle of the street, mounts it and pedals away. The dishevelled scooter driver stands in the road stunned, unmoving for a few moments, then notices for the first time that his scooter is leaking petrol. He has lost face.

Score one for the underdog. I wander away from the scene, feeling somewhat guilty for smiling. I’m not normally like this.

Shark Chasing Madness (A story from the Perhentian Islands, Malaysia, Sept. 2005)

Before arriving in Shanghai in mid-October, Elisabeth and I spent 7 weeks backpacking, starting in Singapore, criss-crossing Malaysia, then up the East coast of Thailand to Bangkok. This is one of my favourite stories from that trip. Hope you enjoy it!

On the first evening of our arrival on Kecil, one of the two Perhentian Islands off the northeast corner of the Malaysian mainland, we began chatting to a few fellow travelers as we ate dinner. An agreement to take a snorkeling trip together the next day was made, and details quickly arranged.

The next morning we met our happy guide, a small but energetic Indonesian fellow who spoke very broken English. We climbed into his simple, covered boat and headed for sea.

The first spot, close to shore, featured shallow waters with wonderful corals and plenty of colourful little fish that swam all around us. Since the others in the boat preferred to wear life jackets while they snorkeled, this spot made for an easy starting point. If our guide had revealed exactly what he was planning for later that day, the group may not have been quite so relaxed.

The day previous, on our way to the Perhentians from the Malaysian mainland, I had chatted with the ferry captain as we pulled towards Besar, the larger of the two Perhentian Islands. He had pointed to an area marked off by a lengthy rope buoy at one point, casually noting that sharks regularly swam in the area. I certainly wasn’t expecting that. I ignorantly asked him if the rope buoy was a shark net. His reply, “no, no, lots of people snorkeling there every morning!”

My curiosity was aroused. I had never seen a shark in open water before.

The second stop of our snorkeling trip - a cement buoy a significant distance away from shore - was a rather more challenging one for our group of skeptical deep-water swimmers. This time, after assuring everybody it was perfectly safe to swim (‘safe’) and that lots of corals could be found there (‘many coral’), our faithful guide donned his own mask and fins and jumped in the water. Now he meant business. He benevolently ordered everyone to follow and we gamely obeyed as he lead the group on a lengthy tour, further and further away from the boat. As we climbed back into the boat, he declared enthusiastically, “Now we find sharks...we see sharks today!” With that it was off to the infamous spot pointed out to me the day previous - Shark Point.

Arriving, he jumped straight in as before, reassuring us once again that these apparently shark-infested waters were safe, then pointing and summoning us to follow. We were on the shark trail now. Who would have guessed that those nervously floating around in life jackets a couple hours before would consent to this?

Soon he became excited and started waving. Three people in the group caught a fleeting glimpse of the target - a 150 cm Black-Tip Shark close by. It was hot pursuit time, like a chase scene straight out of Hollywood. Of course, the shark was not around for long.

Over the next while, two more sharks were spotted and pursued. Frustratingly, yours truly never managed to see any of them. Perhaps it was a case of simply trying to hard to see what was evidently right before my eyes. Or maybe I just didn’t really want to and willed myself not to see anything, I don’t know!

Following a pleasant lunch stop at a nearby fishing village (accessible only by boat) where sheep roamed around our tables hoping to scavenge a bit of food as we talked excitedly about what had transpired so far, it was time for the final stop of the day.

Pulling into a clear, sandy bay, one with beautiful clear blue water, but not a coral or rock of any sort in sight - and hence not much in the way of fish - we wondered just what our guide was thinking. A pleasant, if not all that exciting, swim to cool off before we headed home? We didn’t have time to question him, as he was quickly shouting, “there, big turtle! You lucky today!” And there it was, swimming close to the sandy bottom, but plainly visible in the clear waters. It was the largest live turtle I have ever seen.

We jumped in and like that were swimming along with him (or her). Our sharp-eyed guide quickly spotted two more, each of whom we accompanied for as long as we could keep up.

At last, we climbing back into boat and headed for home, still buzzing from all that had happened. Quite a day, indeed. I would recommend a trip to the Perhentians to anyone.