Personal Space: It’s a luxury, not a right



Qibao had shops filled with things you don’t need.



For Spring Festival, I had something like 10 days off from work. This is incredible because not only had I just arrived and really only worked a few weeks so far, but I don’t think I’ve ever had 10 days off from work for a holiday before.

I spent most of the time having “tourist” days with a group of expats. We’d essentially open a guidebook and whatever page we landed on that day, we’d go there, making pit stops along the way.



One day, on our way to The Bund – a touristy strip along the river – we stopped at a “fake market” and I haggled for a knock off Jimmy Choo handbag that feels a lot like a vinyl car seat.



Another day we went to Qibao on the outskirts of Shanghai. Qibao – a “river town” where we took a Venice-style boat ride and had tea at a traditional tea house – was not overrun with foreign tourists, like I’m used to in the expat area I live in, but rather Chinese tourists celebrating the New Year. And it tested my capacity to tolerate the Shanghai “zero personal space” policy.



Qibao shortly before dusk, looking a lot calmer than at midday!



There’s a lot of people in Shanghai, so things get tight. At 8 a.m. on a Monday morning, getting onto the metro is a lot being in the ocean. You sort of get caught up in this giant group of people trying to squeeze onto the metro and you’re carried on like a wave and then you’re packed in tight with nothing to hold onto and kind of sway with the others as the train goes around corners. When you get to your stop, you sort of just fall out of the train with the others. (On a sidenote, I just read today that in 1999, Shanghai’s metro had only one short line. But by 2007 it had become the 7th largest metro in the world. During the expo last year, apparently lots of new stops were also added).

In Shanghai, the streets are crowded. The stores are crowded. The restaurants are crowded. You learn to accept that there’s someone always at your elbow.



The crowds that I couldn’t handle.



But in Qibao it went beyond someone just walking close to you. The Old Town streets were narrow and packed with pedestrians. It was hard to peel off from the masses to even go into one of the little shops and there was always someone inadvertently touching you. It drives me crazy and I do not like it and I feel like I’m going through some sort of immersion therapy where I’m thrown into the deep end to get over my need for wide open personal space.





This guy was making some sort of “floss” candy that was a little like cotton candy but slightly chewier.





While our short boat ride was fun, the water was filthy and filled with trash. In fact, as you pass under the bridges, you sort of dodge trash people are throwing in the water.




This bridge was packed with pedestrians.



Mitten-hand and other cultural differences

Last week in one of my classes with older students, we were talking about cultural differences – how we do things in America differently than they do things in China. 

I asked them whether, when they got into a taxi, they sat in the front or they sat in the back. That was one of the very first things I noticed when I got to Shanghai. Driving into the city in a van provided by the hotel, I kept seeing taxis with the lone passenger in the front seat, not in the back. 

I told the students that most Americans would sit in the back seat of the cab and the only time you’d probably sit in the front is if you have four people in your group and someone was forced to sit in the front. 

Some of the students explained that they thought this was because Americans see the driver as lesser than us because he’s working for us. 

I think I agree and disagree. Certainly there’s some truth to it. We treat a lot of people who “work” for us in a lesser manner. Think about employees at department stores or waiters in restaurants. 

But I think we sit in the back seats of taxis because that’s just the way we do things. I sit in back seats of taxis because at some point in my life (not having grown up in cities where one would take a taxi) I started seeing movies and television programs where the characters got into the back seat of the taxi, not the front.

By the time I ever actually took a taxi, the idea of sitting in the back seat of a taxi was reinforced by seeing people sit in the back seat – not because someone told me, or that I think, the driver deserves less respect than I do. 

I’m sure I’ll eventually get tired of it, but I still find it really fascinating to talk about the differences between the cultures. 

I actually even find it fascinating to talk to other westerners not from America about the differences between our cultures. 

Recently, a South African co-worker pointed out that when asked “Where are you from?” American expats are more likely to say what state they’re from and nearby large-ish city. 

“I say I’m from South Africa,” she said. “Not Atholl or Bryanston or Johannesburg.” 

I’m definitely guilty of the state thing. When I first got here and people would ask where I was from, I would say U.S. But the next question was always “Where in the U.S.?” So to save time, because you get asked where you’re from a lot, I say “From Michigan in the U.S.” 

During orientation I also whipped out the Michigan mitten map and I’m not ashamed. The “where are you from” conversation with someone had progressed as far as me telling him I was from near Detroit. He, from the UK, said “That’s on Lake Michigan?” So, I explained the mitten-shaped nature of Michigan and pointed out, using my mitten-shaped hand, where Lake Michigan would be and where Detroit is. 

He didn’t seem at all impressed that I was from a state that allowed me to use my hand as a map. He was probably just jealous. 

Not a cultural difference, but definitely different – every time I cross the street I’m in danger of getting hit by a scooter. It’s a scooter bonanza here!

How the washing machine broke me in China

I’m just going to come out and admit this – I don’t know how to use the washing machine. Washing machines in China are of a different style completely and on top of that the buttons and controls are in Chinese characters.

So, while I’ve been able to go to a store and buy laundry detergent, I STILL don’t know how to use the washing machine and I’m running dangerously low on the clean-clothes supply I brought from home when I moved here.

I have a roommate, but I haven’t seen her since the first day I moved in and even if I did see her, she’s also a westerner and could very well also not know how to use the washing machine, either.

Sometimes I look at the buttons on the machine and I think, “I could just press this button. It’s probably this button. There’s a good chance this is the button I should use.” But then I have visions of flooding the apartment with an erroneous button selection and I retreat from the washing machine, dejected, broken and a shell of my former self.

Because, really, how could a washing machine be the single hardest obstacle I’ve come up against in China? I don’t know the language, but I’m able to get around on public transportation, order food in restaurants, buy clothing in stores and do my banking. But the washing machine is seriously killing me.

In the two months or so I had to plan before moving here, I did some hardcore Google research about what some of the challenges would be for me moving here and no one indicated using the washing machine would break me.

(I was however warned that dryers aren’t all that common, and I did move into an apartment where there is no dryer. But that really has had no impact on my life since I’d need to use the washer before I dry anything.)

When I do figure out how to use the washing machine, there will be a post for any other sad expats in China who also don’t know how to use their washing machines.

Speaking in gestures

When I first arrived in Shanghai I was really aware of the language being spoken and how I was NOT able to understand it. I still haven’t started Chinese lessons, but now rather than being hyper-aware of what people are saying around me (and my inability to understand it) it’s faded into some sort of background noise that I don’t pay attention to anymore. So much so that I was passing through security at the entrance of a metro stop the other day and by the time I’d realized the security guard had said ‘thank you’ to me in English, rather than Chinese, I was already headed down the stairs to the train and really regretted not being able to say ‘you’re welcome’ to him in English.


What’s (maybe?) worse is that I’ve stopped even saying English words when communicating with Chinese-speakers. Before, if I needed a bag in a store, I would bring up both hands like they were holding onto bag handles and say, “Bag? Bag?” It was of course the miming that made what I wanted understandable, but at least when I verbalized I felt like I was making some sort of effort.

(On the flip side of this, I would also launch into prolonged English conversations with people who clearly had no idea what I was saying, and for some weird reason even though I knew they didn’t understand anything I said I would end it with “Do you know what I mean?” As if they would understand THAT and give me some sort of verbal confirmation that, no, they did not know what I meant and would I please leave their store/restaurant/taxi before I wasted anymore of their time).

But lately, along with no longer actually listening to the language being spoken, I’ve moved into a phase where I sometimes no longer even speak what I want in English.

Last week I was at a checkout in a grocery store and instead of saying “Bag? Bag?” I just held up both hands, holding my invisible bag. The clerk just nodded and gave me my bag.

And strangely, even saying the few Chinese words I do know was intimidating because even though I’d heard them spoken many, many times since I’ve been here, I was worried I wasn’t pronouncing them correctly. So, the first time I said ‘thank you’ to a clerk in a store who handed me my change I half expected her to get angry at me for sullying her language with my American mispronunciations. But, she just nodded – the same nod as when I ask for a bag using improvised sign language – and we all moved on with our lives.

Just for fun, these are the Chinese words now in my repertoire:

Hello – Sometimes (OK, most of the time) if a clerk greets me with the Chinese word for Hello, I respond back in English because I’m afraid they’ll think I know Chinese and continue to speak to me in Chinese.

Thank You.

Receipt – for when you’re in a taxi. For some reason when I first arrived a lot of westerners told me to make sure I get a receipt when I take a taxi in case you’re scammed, but I have yet to understand how I would even KNOW I was being scammed. So, now I just have a collection of taxi receipts piling up.

Gam bei – which is a toast that I think equals ‘Bottoms up!’ and I think I usually use it in the wrong way, like “You need to Gam bei that drink so we can go.” I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to wish the drinker good health and then ‘Gam bei.’

Bathroom – This is the single most important Chinese word I know because I have yet to find sufficient body language that indicates the need to find a bathroom.

Pointing my way around Shanghai

I’ve gotten used to pointing to things in Shanghai. I point at menus in restaurants or if there are no pictures of the food (or English descriptions) I point at other diners’ food. I point at metro lines, I point at elevator numbers. I point at street names on maps. I point at bottles of water or images of mocha coffee drinks.


It’s embarrassing and sort of lazy. Most wait staff and shop employees speak at least a little English and most signs are also in English or Pinyin (the Romanization of Chinese characters), but I’ve found for now pointing and using other body language is easier.



Placemat at Burger King. When you walk into fast food restaurants (KFC, Burger King and McDonalds are plentiful here) they have picture menus at the ready for you to point at.



I came to Shanghai with my locked iPhone I used in the U.S. because I had heard that many shops in Shanghai would unlock it for a fee and then I could use a local Chinese SIM card.

At a mall in the People’s Square area an entire floor was populated with cell phone shops. I went from shop to shop to shop trying to ask if they would unlock my iPhone. I first would point to the phone, then I would make an “unlocking” motion with my hand, like I was unlocking a door. Then I’d rub my fingers together like “money,” hoping that would indicate I wanted to pay to have my phone unlocked.

When that failed – which was just about every time – I took out my China Mobile SIM card and tapped it on the top of my phone like I wanted to put it in there.

That never worked, and while everyone was polite, I could tell some were getting annoyed that I just wouldn’t go away.

The only time I successfully conveyed that I wanted to have my phone unlocked was with a worker at a Best Buy whose English was very advanced (who then told me that maybe a private shop would do it, but by that point I’d wasted almost half a day on cell phones and just broke down and bought a primitive Nokia model).



Because I didn’t want to only post a Burger King photo, this is the area where the school I work at is located.



7,000 miles later...

A little over 24 hours in Shanghai and I woke up from the last of a series of jet lag induced naps hungry. Aside from granola bars I’d packed in my suitcase, the last thing I’d eaten was some sort of odd omelet on my flight in.


After I’d checked in to my hotel the previous day, it was dark out and I didn’t feel like wandering the streets looking for food. The next day I’d lost all motivation to even want to leave my hotel room, but housekeeping opened my door (despite the “Do not disturb” sign) and then followed it up with a phone call a few hours later wondering when they would be able to clean the room.

So, forced out I had two goals: Find and ATM and find food.

Was I looking for dumplings? Pork Bun? Stir fried Rice?

No. I was looking for the most shameful, horrifying thing a person who just flew 7,000 miles from America could: McDonalds. (I justified it by telling myself I was tired! Cranky! Tired! Sad! And I just couldn’t muster the will to walk into a restaurant where I didn’t know the language).

As I was walking past storefront Chinese restaurants selling combos of dumplings and noodles and walk up windows offering fried, crispy items, I kept thinking, “All I have to do is open the door and point, they’ll know what I mean.” But instead, I continued scanning the distance for the familiar golden arches, dodging cars and motorbikes in the street.

But I was worried. I thought, “What if someone sees me going in? What will the locals think? That I’m not trying? That I’m some sort of sad American eating McDonalds in Shanghai by herself.” They could pay me to sit in the McDonalds like a mascot, some sort of sad nouveau Ronald McDonald.

Worse, I thought, what would experienced expats think of me? That I can’t even pull myself together enough to point to a plate of rice in a Chinese restaurant where – if I’d even attempted to go in – I’d probably find that they spoke at least enough English for me to order.

In the end, I never found a McDonalds. I’d walked on for awhile, it was cold and had started to rain so I decided to turn around and head back to the hotel.

Home is where the Starbucks is.

And that’s where I found a Starbucks. So, a little more than a day spent in Shanghai and I’d finally eaten – a Mocha and a warmed up chicken wrap that cost me the outrageous price of nearly 60 RMB or about $9 USD.

{It’s worth (worth it to me) noting that since the McDonalds near-incident my jet lag subsided and I’ve been able to navigate my way to authentic Chinese foods}

Modern carrier pigeon

This is Kim.

Kim's a friend, former co-worker at The Voice and a travel companion.

Until I figure out how to navigate China's firewall -- which blocks sites like Blogger, Facebook and Twitter -- she's going to be updating for me.

I'll e-mail her posts/photos and she'll update for me from Michigan. It seems a little backwards but still slightly more efficient than carrier pigeon. 

{And while we're on the subject of China, I leave bright and early on Friday (this Friday, two days from today) and I still haven't completely packed or picked up any books for the long flight!}