Yesterday (Sunday, 28th) I spent the afternoon with on of the administrators at my mandarin school - she isn’t too much older than me - maybe mid 20’s so we get along just fine. Anyways, she took me to the tallest observation deck in the world on the 100th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center. What a view! If the sky wasn’t so polluted you could see all the way till the earth curved out of sight. The floor was transparent as well so all you had to do was look between your toes to see all the way to the ground.
Bella (the administrator) and I got picked up from the SWFC by Bella’s older sister Julia who just so happened to have spent a year studying at Oxford while she was working on her masters and thus speaks excellent English (Yes!). They took me to this old style market - it was everything you expect from a market in a developing country - loud, crowded and hopelessly creepy! We stopped to buy a watermelon for dessert that night and I let my eyes wander to the stall next door where a woman was picking something out of a basket and pinching it. Apparently, the feistier the crab the better the meat. The woman was testing live grabs (big crabs) to see which ones she wanted to buy. Then the woman who was selling them stuck her choices - still live - into a plastic bag! you could see them moving around in there!. I got over my wonder, if only for a moment, and looked into the bucket next to the crabs. There were long, skinny, slimy things crawling over one another, with no obvious purpose in that one. I couldn’t help but go look closer. Why didn’t they put a cover on the snakes? Those can escape pretty easily, you know. Turns out that was my mistake. They were eels - I got informed just as I was gonna ask if I could touch. Good timing. Not that I couldn’t have touched them or anything but from what I’ve heard eels are pretty nasty creatures when they’re alive.
A few stalls down was the ‘meat’ market. Everything was still kicking of course. You go in, pick your bird, and they chop the head off right there (over a bag so you get all the blood with it) and then throw everything and the head into the bag of blood. In the Fish market they filled the bags with water, you pick your fish and they put them in - you know, so they’re still alive when you get home and all. Doesn’t get any fresher than that.
Sadly, that wasn’t the end of the ‘EWWWW/COOOL!’ combo for the day. I went to Bella and Julia’s (and Julia’s husband’s) apartment for dinner that night. It was actually a really great time - it was nice to find someone here that speaks very good English to start but the treat was actually Julia’s husband who doesn’t speak a word of English (except hello - which is a word. whatever). He is really into antiques and he had me polishing jade most of the evening - the more you touch it he says the smoother it gets. My project for the evening was a Song dynasty (I think that’s some 1500 years ago) jade bangle which I was meant to rub continuously and to check under the magnifying glass regularly while Julia translated between us.
When we sat down for dinner, I was going along nicely with my veggies and then I looked toward the chicken dish and saw the most unappetizing thing I may ever have seen on a table (aside from Chinese spider soup - which isnt actually made with spiders it just looks like it). The legs and head were just sitting on top of all the regular chicken bits and as the family worked it’s way down they kept pulling things out of the bowl and holding them up and going “And this is the stomach!” Great. I’m so pleased.
Today (Monday 29th) was my first day of work! It was uneventful for the most part - after getting acquainted with the system I spent the whole rest of the day balancing the office’s expenses/reimbursements account for the quarter. What should have taken no more than an hour and a half took me about 4 hours. Why? Because I kept coming up 6 cents up on the expenses side. I spent nearly 3 hours trying to figure out where I was getting that 6 cents, matching bank transfers to receipts to expense reports, to other people’s totals (cause I was doing the final check on it before filing etc). it just wasn’t adding up! The problem - in one of the reports someone’s 270.60 RMB for transportation looked like 270.66 RMB for transportation. I figured this out by breaking everything down into individual totals (FOR THE WHOLE OFFICE) rather than categorical totals and realized that Jasmine’s totals were 6 cents higher in my report than anyone elses! AHHHHHHH! I have taken this as a sign that I was not meant to work in an office. It is to quiet and too finicky. I have never cared more about 6 cents in my life. Tomorrow’s task - balance the offices accounts payable to bank payments. A project that, at this rate, will take me all week. Great.
Last thing for today - I have finally got the story (sorta) on the female flat mate. Turns out the bike isn’t hers - it is her boyfriends - I saw them come in (and dutifully ignore me) before they hoped into the shower. Where they still are. Damn them. I want to get ready for bed.