In talking about the differences between Shanghai and other places I know, I have to mention the traffic. The Shanghaiese really take bad driving to whole new level.

In Vancouver the drivers are what I would describe as "sleepy".
- They stop for red lights,
- They wait patiently behind someone turning left, or pull out to pass the left turner only when right lane is free of traffic.
- They drive around 100 to 110 km/h on the freeway.
- When traffic is very thick, they will wait until they can completely cross an intersection before crossing it, so that they don't block traffic if the light turns green for the other cars.
- If two lanes merge into one, Vancouver drivers will obediently use the "zipper" technique, with every other car getting their turn to merge.
- When a pedestrian tries to cross a road, both lanes of traffic will stop to let the person cross. This last behaviour is frequently recounted in awe by visitors to the city "You can sometimes just stand on the side of the road, looking like you intend to cross, and cars will stop". Which is sometimes true.


Basically, Vancouver drivers are the epitome of traffic rule followers. Why are Vancouver drivers like this? Mainly because of the stereotypical "laid-back" attitude they have. They couldn't be bothered to be "jerks". It's too much work.

There are obviously other kinds of drivers in Vancouver - usually, but not always, leanings towards the "jerk" variety - but they are the minority.

Montreal drivers, however, are reknown for being agressive. The speeds are faster (120km/h on highways is the norm), the red lights are less respected, there is no patient waiting, there is no "zipper" technique, and pedestrians are more often than not ignored, if not run down.

One typical Montreal scene is a quebecoise girl in a small car, flying up to an intersection, (missing 3 pedestrians by mere inches and now blocking all the pedestrians from crossing the street), looking for an opening, then flooring it to get into traffic. The whole time she's chatting with her friend in the passenger seat. If you look at their eyes, you can see that neither was in the least aware of the pedestrians. To a female montreal driver, when she is in her car, all she needs to worry about are other cars. I'm not only singling out women montreal drivers - men are often the fastest, most dangerous drivers in Montreal, taking great pride in weaving their cars at high speeds like race cars through dense traffic (Patrick? :-)), but they tend to be more aware of their surroundings. what's worse? I don't know. But what I do know is that Montreal is a much more dangerous city in terms of traffic than Vancouver (unless it snows, but that's a whole different story).

To me, Vancouver represents the "North American" style of driving, and Montreal represents the "European" style of driving. This is quite a generalisation, not least of all because Montreal is actually in North America, but I'm just writing a blog, not a Master's thesis. Get over it.

Back to Shanghai.
Shanghai driving is so much more extreme that Montreal looks like sleepy Vancouver in comparison. The driving is a reflection of the "me first, or else I'll never get it" attitude people have here. I'll talk about that some other time... But for now:

- Red lights? Merely a recommendation. If you honk your horn, you can go through a red light anyway. Other people will hear your horn and (hopefully) avoid you.

- Waiting patiently? Never! As soon as someone is blocking the way in front of you, it's the car driver's duty to get around the blocker, no matter how much traffic is on the next lane. Sometimes cars will pass people trying to turn left by passing on the _left_ _side_, going into oncoming traffic, and actually blocking the left turner. Just try to imagine that...

- Right of way? Hah! _I_ am right, out of _my_ way! This is the attitude of everyone on the road. Fortunately, a pedestrian can take this attitude as well. All you have to do is brazenly cross a road, looking only at your destination (a tactic tought to me by Eve). If the oncoming car sees that you don't see him, he'll drive around you. If you make the mistake of looking at him, he'll know you've seen him and expect you to get out of his way. It takes a lot of guts to cross a street without looking left or right. I've only done it twice, and both times I was very nervous... But I didn't get killed, which is a good thing.

- Even when traffic is not thick, cars will block intersections to ensure they get to the other side no matter what. In fact, this is so bad that once the light turns red, many cars continue to try to make it across the intersection. If there are already cars blocking the intersection, some drivers will even think "well, since there are already cars there, I might as well go there as well".

- Any kind of respect for pedestrians is non-existant. If a car is trying to turn in an intersection, and a large group of pedestrians are crossing the street, the car will still try to push his way through the people. Fortunately, the cars do slow down occasionally for this maneuver, but I have often been in a taxi that has driven full speed through a gap in pedestrians crossing a cross walk. Though no one was hit, the taxi did go by a few people by mere centimeters. This kind of thing is so common that even the pedestrians don't think twice about it. Unless they're tourists, at which point they become dutifully shocked.

- In other cities, busses respect the denizens of the street. They stop more for pedestrians, they are more patient when waiting for someone to get out of their way... In Shanghai, the opposite is true. A Shanghai bus driver must think "I'm bigger, therefore more important". Buses honk more, run down pedestrians more, cross/block busy traffic more, ignore red lights more... In other words, the bus drivers are by far the most agressive around here.

There are 3 things I find interesting about all this:
1. It works. Somehow, with all the cars blocking intersections, the traffic continues to flow. The Chinese have brought "nudging your way through crowds" down to a science - whether it's a bus making it's way through a crowd of 1000 pedestrians, or a biker making his way through in intersection with a traffic gridlock.

2. No one cares, except for the foreigners. When my taxi driver flew through the small gap of pedestrians crossing the street, only I got scared and reacted. The people who nearly got hit seemed almost oblivious to how close they came to being killed. They didn't completely ignore the taxi, they noticed it, but they didn't seem all that bothered. The opposite is true for tourists. They are incredibly paranoid about the traffic - rightly so, it's insane by our standards.

3. No one gets killed. In my western mind, I've been programmed to believe that if everybody drove faster, or didn't follow the rules, the consequence would be mayhem on the streets - bodies piling up daily as cars ran over people, crashed into each other and ran down fruit stands like in a cheap action movie. Instead, in the month I've been here, I have seen only 1 accident, and a little fender bender at that. Strangely, virtually all the cars here are new(ish) and dent free. How is this possible? I don't know. I think it's because _everybody_ drives this way, so they aren't surprised when a taxi turns into oncoming traffic, drives 100m, then turns left into a side street. They just change their current trajectory to avoid the taxi and don't worry about it.

Well, this has become quite the long post. Hope it was entertaining...

Here is an example of excessive lighting up of buildings.
1 and 2. Crazy lighting on the Bund. The Bund used to be the big "city center" of Shanghai, back when it was a wild and crazy wheeling and dealing place with lots of westerners. Then during the communist years in China, the Bund fell into decay, but now the buildings are being renovated and the Bund is beautiful once more.
3. Pudong buildings. Pudong is the newest area to be developed in Shanghai, with new, super high buildings springing up all the time. 10 years ago it was all farmland.
4. Jinmao Tower: also in Pudong. It used to be the highest building in Asia. It's one of my favorite high rises here. Definitely ultra futuristic looking.

(this is a continuation of my previous post below, so you might want to read that first if you want to get with what I'm saying here)

Okay, so the lights on buildings are bright. No big deal, eh? Well, that's true. The point of my last post, if it wasn't clear, is that things are in fact different here in Shanghai. Their passion for lighting things up is really just the beginning.

Let's talk about exercise. Where I come from, exercise tends to be practiced by youngish people. Sure, older people can be seen trying to get back in shape, but the vast majority of people doing sports out there are kids (cheered on by their parents) and 20/30 something young people (trying to look good for the opposite sex). This is a _gross_ generalisation. But I'm all about generalising at the moment - realise that there will always be many exceptions to what I'm saying. Anyway, once people hit their late 30s or 40s, many seem to say "well, I've got a family, kids, job... I don't have time, nor the motivation, to excercise".

In Shanghai, it seems like the opposite is true. I can't speak for kids - my assumption is that they do around as much in school sports as Western kids do - but 20/30 somethings seem to have the attitude "I already have a great body" (and many of them do) "why should I exercise?". Young people, it seems, only excercise with sports that are "cool" - skateboarding, rollerblading, basketball, soccer - but those that practice these sports are few and far between. The Chinese my age that I have asked all say "nah - I used to do that when I was a kid, but I don't have time anymore". So what's the secret to their svelte figures? They don't eat much! Their lunches are consistently 1/2 to 1/3 the size of ours, and they consist mostly of rice with some fatty stuff on top.

But when I go to work in the morning, who do I see _in droves_ doing physical activities in the parks, on the sidewalks, even in front of malls? Older people. 50s, 60s, 70s. But what's most amazing about all this isn't only the difference in age, it's the actual activity itself. Whoever thought that lots of backwards walking would be a viable excercise? Not me! Well, I lie. I do know that walking backwards is great for the quads. At any rate loads of 50-60 year old women can be seen walking backwards through parks. Quite frankly, it looks silly. But I keep my mouth shut.

Tai Chi is an obvious one, but Ballroom dancing is 10 times more popular, and you also see sword fighting (actually, more like Tai Chi with swords) and some kind of group aerobics with a ball that they throw up and catch and stuff. All this happens in the middle of a park, eary in the morning. But the best of them all are the elderly people who use the childrens playgrounds as their own personal aerobics gym. It's hard to describe, because the playgrounds look quite different from ours (I'll post a picture one of these days), but imagine a bunch of elderly people pumping see saws up and down to work on their leg muscles, and pushing swings back and forth to work on the arms. Now you've got the right image.

Anyway, I think it's great. Not only are they active, but it's extremely social as well.

Back when I was travelling in Spain, I saw something that warmed my heart and made me very envious - every night, from around 7pm to 9pm, everybody would go out for a walk. This was calld "La Marcha" (I hope I spelled that right). It comes from the 70's: when Spain's dictator Franco's died in the mid-70s, all his draconian laws came into question by the Spanish people. Franco's cronies tried to hold on to power, but were ousted a few years later... One of the ways the Spanish demonstrated their rebellion against Franco's rules was to go on La Marcha as a direct defiance of the 8pm curfew that was in force all over Spain at the time. This tradition has now lasted to this day, even though Franco's rule ended 30 years ago. What I found great about La Marcha was that it was literally everybody who walks around - from the youngest children all the way to the oldest grandparents. It's more than a rebellion, it's a unanimous societal rejection. And now it's a tradition.

In North America, with our cars, TVs and Malls, people just don't go out for walks . Well, they do, but it's only to "get some air". There is very little social aspect to it. I just loved the fact that all these people would get out every night and mingle on the streets.

The same sort of thing happens here in Shanghai. While it's not as formal as in Spain, people of all ages go out walking around socialising with their neighbours, especially in the early evening. It's gratifying to see so many people simply spending time outside, whether it's for exercise, walking backwards, or just to hang out with friends. When the streets are alive with people, there is a buzz in the air. A buzz that is much too rare back home (though Montreal has this buzz to a degree, especially in the summer).

Anyway, enough rambling for now. Until next time!

You know, I've lived in a couple of foreign countries in my day. Not a huge amount, mind you - Germany, England, Spain for a bit. You could even say that Montreal somewhat like living in a foreign country (the Quebecois would be ecstatic to hear me say this) due to the heavy French influence (though Montreal was still culturally closer to Vancouver than London was).

I've also visited a fair amount of foreign countries. I think 35 was my last count (if I count tiny countries like Monaco, the Vatican and Lichtenstein). But nothing has prepared me for the sheer amount of differences I would find here.

Let me start by saying that Shanghai, being a very modern city, doesn't feel totally foreign upon arriving. Since virtually everything is written in Chinese, and 99% of the people are chinese, you know you're somewhere different, but the cars are modern and mostly VWs, the buildings look like regular skyscrapers. They have traffic lights with the regular red yellow and green. The trees are green. It's all relatively familiar.

Then night falls, and you see that instead of the skyscrapers simpy being darker versions of themselves, many are garishly lit up with colourful neon lights and spotlights. "Hmmm... that's different" you say to yourself. The Chinese, at least those that are in charge of building things, love lights. The Bund - a historic/touristy riverfront area in Shanghai - is awash with huge lit banners, coloured search lights searching uselessly (but spectacularily) in the sky, buildings with the aformentioned neon decorations and lastly a good kilometer of the waterfront has a thin strip of neon lights that flash, change colours, show pictures - only visible to those on the other side.

The chinese are not particularily interested in saving money on electricity, I guess. But the results sure are colourful. It's the first step in realizing that priorities are a little different over here. Not a huge shock, by any means, it's just a taste of things to come...

Next posts - more musings on Shanghai and how it's different from the rest of the world I thought I knew. :-)

The World Rejoices, Zombie Hordes Averted

The United Nations declared June 14th a World Wide Day of Celebration in honour of Super Happy Metal Rocket Propulsion Man who rid the Earth of the nightmare of the Seething Zombie Hordes.

Super Happy Metal Rocket Propulsion Man was able to do what bats, bows and arrows, crossbows, catapults, guns, tanks, artillery, missiles, conventional bombs, fusion bombs, fission bombs, really really big conventional bombs, antimatter bombs, “droppin da” bombs, laser guns, graser guns, phaser guns, taser guns, maser guns, rasor blades and a good ol’ punch in the face could not do. He turned back the relentless attack of the zombies who have been rampaging cities and rural areas alike.

How was this amazing feat accomplished? Realising that the Seething Zombie Hordes were deep down simply just looking for a little love, Super Happy Metal Rocket Propulsion Man gave each horde (dis)member its own Bund Teddy Bear. Overjoyed, gleeful even verging on (slowly oozing) tears, the Seething Zombie Hordes' (dis)members to a man agreed to return to their graves and the world was saved.

Only the Bund (tm) corporation, inc. (ltd) was displeased. Said a spokesman, on the condition of anonymity, “They’re so gross. All rotting flesh and maggots and parts falling off. The zombies I mean. Not the teddy bears. Couldn’t those zombies have decided they loved Cabbage Patch Kids (tm) or even Ugly Dolls (tm)? You’re not going to use my name in this are you? I don’t want those things coming after me! The zombies, I mean. I don’t want the zombies coming after me.”

Katy Maheney, 6, of Miss Carpage’s kindergarden class disagreed. “Teddy bears are soft and cuddly. They makes those sad stinky mans happy.”



Super Happy Metal Rocket Propulsion Man topped his already busy day by jetting off to save a 90 year old grandmother from accidently wandering into traffic. What a guy.

Picture Night!
Here are some pictures of the view off my 31st floor balcony. Pretty crazy view, eh? Note the plethora of cranes in the first picture - there is always something being built in this city.

Picture Day!!!

These pictures are of my old Service Apartment room. Note the clean, modern hotel-like interior. Note the sink.
Missing from these pictures is the rest of the bathroom and the little kitchen.

Well well well,

All excited I was, Saturday, talking about my gig. Unfortunately it did not go very well. Afterwords I would refer to it as a collosal failure, in fact.

I think it all comes down to the fact that I was the wrong DJ for the wrong crowd. My DJ style of music is mostly house and lounge. Lounge is easy - it's very laid back and therefore does not make good "dance" music. This kind of music works well at restaurants, which is why it fits so well at Les Folies where I DJ in Montreal. I did not play Lounge Saturday night, because I knew it wasn't appropriate. House music also works well in restaurants, but it is fundamentally a dance music, so it's really good in dance clubs. These clubs are full of people looking for this kind of music, so it's what they expect.

On Saturday night I played for a group of people who were brought together by the love of a sport. What brings these people together has nothing to do with what kind of music they like. As such, a DJ who plays a specialized type of music will not be able to reach out to a big percentage of these people to get them to dance. The best example of the kind of DJ who gets a large group of disparate people to dance is a wedding DJ. They play hits that everybody recognizes and (sometimes reluctatly) can dance to. I can be a snob and say it's "the lowest common denominator" music, but wedding DJs are still talented professionals who work hard, know their music, and know exactly how to get grandma dancing (a feat I would have very little idea how to pull off).

I am no wedding DJ.
Nor am I a Hip Hop DJ.

If I had been the latter, instead of a house DJ, I might have had a better chance of getting people to dance. I got request after request for Hip Hop, and I guess I just don't have any.

Maybe some of the fine readers here familiar with Hip Hop could give me a short list of sure fire Hip Hop artists. But again, sure fire for a B-Boy would be different than sure fire for a late teen club girl, or whatever. But I guess I have to start somewhere. I'm a big fan of De La Soul, but that's a bit oldish now, so I need some more current, dancey stuff. Someone requested Usher. Is Usher good?

Okay, enough ranting about DJing. Saturday night obviously didn't meet my expectations, but I DJ in the end for fun and I'll just avoid these kinds of situations by refusing gigs where I know the audience isn't right (or try out different music styles, and grinning and bearing it if it doesn't work).

Other news:
Now I'm living in my new apartment, and I ended up being a very happy boy by yesterday evening. I DJ'd with my roomate, who is also a house DJ, and we had alot fun. Plus I just feel more like I'm at a home, rather than a hotel room.

Now it's time for me to work. Hope all is well with everyone!

A gig!

After less than 3 weeks of being here, I have landed a gig as a DJ! Tonight! Yippee! I'll be DJing a party for an Ultimate Frizbee turnament that is being held here in Shanghai. For those of you who don't know, Ultimate Frizbee is roughly like playing basketball, but with a frizbee, on a field, with no baskets, and you can't run (nor dribble) when you have the frizbee in your hands. so it's actually quite different, but at least you get a rought idea of what it's about. The sport is very popular in Vancouver, for one... And probably gaining popularity in many places around the world (I know players in London England, Montreal, Vancouver, Shanghai...)

Anyway, through a friend (thanks Kelsey), I know a guy (Wil) who is really into Ultimate Frizbee over here in Shanghai, and he's tasked with organising the party tonight and his DJ fell through. Falko to the rescue! I'm a bit nervous, but I think it'll be great... Aparently the bar is on the roof of a building, and since it's a balmy 31 degrees C here today, it should be a nice evening out.

Well, that's about it for the day. Tomorrow I move to the penthouse... Have a super weekend!

Pictures of the day: 2 scenes from my walk to work.
1. Alley scene
2. Bicycle parking lot. Can you spot the pair of jeans hanging to dry above the owner's bicycle? Yes, I thought it was strange too...

It's official!

This weekend I'll be moving from the Service Apartment (the word here for "long stay hotel") I'm staying at to an apartment I'm going to be sharing with 2 other guys from Ubisoft. The apartment is gorgeous - 3 floor penthouse suite with big patio on top, large living room on the bottom, and bedrooms in the middle. Dave and Derek are super cool and friendly, and best of all it's a hop skip and a jump away from where I'm living right now so I'm already familiar with the neighborhood.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Work is super busy, and will get busier and busier as every day passes. Hopefully I'll last through to the end!

Later!

Picture of the Day:
My work building seen from the alley I use as a shortcut on my way to work. We're on the 15th floor.

Apres-Birthday

How wonderful! Just when I was thinking my distance from home, coupled with my relative newness over here in Shanghai, would result in a really sucky birthday, friends from afar and friends nearby came through to make this among my best birthdays yet. Again, thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes over email...

On Saturday night my friend Ariel Gauthier threw together a barbeque in my honour (and also to show off his new apartment/patio/barbeque to some people who hadn't seen any of those yet). In the end, 25 people showed up, some from other friend groups. Also cool was that there were 2 other people who were celebrating their birthdays! So it was a big birthday vibe that night! After finally eating at around 11 pm (coordinating barbeque activities proved challenging), we all went out to two nightclubs - VIP (big and empty, but the DJ was cool) and then later to Dragon (tiny, packed, you could barely move, and the DJ was even better)... I finally got home at 6 am. Pretty successful evening, if you ask me :-)

Another interesting development: I've hooked up with two guys (Dave and Derek) who are renting a very large penthouse near my hotel. They have invited me to join them as a roomate and (if there are no problems with Ubisoft, since they are paying for my rent in Shanghai) I'm pretty sure I'm going to move there. The place is _HUGE_: 3 floors, including a large patio on the top floor, large solarium/greenhouse (which unintentionally turns into a sauna during summer months) next to the patio, 4 bathrooms, many rooms, large open design, slightly outdated, yet reasonably comfortable, furniture... Dave and Derek are super cool/nice guys. And to top it all off, Dave is a house DJ! So musical tastes are in line as well. Can't think of a better switch from my cold, impersonal, lonely hotel room, to live with 2 coolio guys in a swank penthouse suite.

Not sure when I'll move. Hopefully this week sometime.
Well, time to leave work! Cheers...

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me
(sung to the tune of "Happy Birthday")

Yes, that's right, I am now the big 3-4. The numbers keep creeping up slowly but surely, but that doesn't bother me. Life has been good so far, and there's still plenty of years for it to continue being good. (knocking on wood)

But alas, I'm sitting at work writing this blog, and I'd rather be wandering about outside feeling good about myself, so this entry will be short and sweet. More will come soon, I promise!

Oh, and thank you to all the people who sent me birthday wishes. It's really super cool to know that people are thinking of me even when I'm far away in distant lands :-) And those who didn't send me birthday wishes, no problem! I probably forgot your birthday, so don't worry about it. :-) I love you all unconditionally.