It’s the end of the semester. You might expect me to be busy with schoolwork, but I’m really not especially busy because all three of my graduate-level courses are based on essays which don’t need to be turned in until the beginning of next semester. So I have all summer to work on those. The one undergrad class I’m taking to make up credit, Modern Chinese (现代汉语), does have an exam. So that’s probably the only traditional exam I’ll have to take at ECNU.

Despite the lack of exams, I find myself very busy. I’m busy with ChinesePod as well as with a variety of other things. Most of all, my mind has been extremely busy lately, mulling over all kinds of developments. Maybe at a later date I’ll write about some of those things, but for now the time spent on personal reflection is usurping the time I might spend on quality blog writing.

I must say, though, that Joel Martinsen at Danwei.org has been writing some really great stuff lately. It’s great to have him combing the Chinese web for us. His latest gem is the translation of a story he calls Disability Certificate (scroll down to the story, at least, if you’re not interested in the analysis). Whether or not the story is true, I think it really captures some truths about China.

I found this 8-page Carrefour ad in my mailbox the other day, and I thought I’d scan it and share it. For those of you not in the know, Carrefour is a French supermarket chain that is super popular here in the PRC. It just recently opened at its new Zhongshan Park location in Shanghai. Anyway, I would think that this these pages might be very interesting for anyone interested in China, Chinese, or Shanghai.

Highlights:

• Page 3: find out once and for all what the price of eggs in China is.
• Page 4: the chicken’s not fresh unless the head is still attached.
• Page 5: the electric bug swatter is one of the coolest things you can buy in China, period.
• Page 8: maps and bus schedules! (Micah is loving this page even if no one else is.)

I have added a few of my own comments on the individual pages on Flickr. Note that on the individual pages for each scan on Flickr you can click on the “all sizes” button to see a much larger version of each image. You may just want to go to the Flickr Shanghai Carrefour Ad set page.

The pizza I most often eat in Shanghai is Hello Pizza’s. It’s not the best, but at only 10 rmb for a 9″ pepperoni or Hawaiian pizza, it can’t be beat. Thrifty pizza scarfer that I am, I’ve been a big fan of Hello Pizza ever since I moved to Shanghai.

a $15 Hello Pizza feast

So the other night I ordered pizza for dinner. Imagine my horror, then, at being told that the pepperoni pizzas are now back to 15 rmb (!) and the Hawaiian pizzas are now 18 rmb (!!!). Noooo… (The price changes haven’t made it to the online menu yet, apparently.) I guess those ridiculously cheap prices were really just too good to last. Even with the recent price hike, the pizzas are not even remotely expensive. The only decent pizza place I know of that can compete is the New York Pizza place in Jing’an Temple Plaza.

Actually, this price hike might be a good thing for me. I used to like to have pizza and salad from Hello Pizza for lunch, but since the minimum order for delivery is 30 rmb, I would get two pizzas. One pizza with a salad is enough of a lunch for me, but I would almost always end up completely devouring both pizzas. I think maybe I have some of those genes responsible for the tendency to eat a whole goddamn bag of chips.

Then last night I went with some friends to check out the new Tanghui (堂会). I used to really enjoy the old bar, but I hadn’t been to the new one yet. (That didn’t stop me from talking about it with Brad and Aric for GigShanghai though.)

I think the new Tanghui is really cool, but it’s a totally different bar. I felt like it shouldn’t even be called Tanghui. The intimate dive I once knew is gone, and now there’s this fancy new four-floor bar. One thing that I was happy to see unchanged was the Tiger on tap for 30 rmb* a mug. I’m sure I’ll be back to Tanghui in the future, but I think I’ll continue meeting most of my live music needs at Shuffle.

* Hey, that’s the cost of two pepperoni pizzas at Hello Pizza, even at the new prices.

The other day in one of my classes the professor was talking about innocent phrases having unintended meanings for non-native speakers of Chinese. His example was 有了, which on the surface seems to just mean “to have something now that one didn’t have before” (to put it verbosely) but in everyday usage actually means “to be [newly] pregnant.”

It’s a fairly common phrase, so it’s easy for the unwary learner to either inadvertently declare pregnancy or to be confused by someone else’s pregnancy announcement. (”Huh? What do you have?”)

I was thinking this was a circumstance peculiar to Chinese, but the same day my professor talked about 有了 in class I got a new comment on my Chinese blog. I had written about my plans to post English-Chinese translations of “non-mainstream Western culture” there (the first one is up!). One of my Chinese readers left a supportive comment in English that reminded me that the issue also goes the other way as well. The comment read: “I’m expecting.”

[Sidenote: I don't have any personal experience in this, but it seems to me that in English, the expression "I'm late" serves the same function as 我有了. Is there some kind of natural law that the "breaking the news to the father" line must be vague and ripe for misunderstanding??]

You know what the cool thing about buying DVDs in China is? I mean besides them only costing US$1. You may get stuck with bad copies if you buy from unscrupulous vendors (or if you’re too impatient), and not every mindless comedy makes it to the streets of China, but I am continuously amazed at the obscure stuff that does make it here. Any China expat can tell you stories of finding some really random old movie from his childhood on DVD in the unlikeliest corners of China.

Just recently I found The Ewok Adventure (1984) on DVD bundled with Ewoks: the Battle for Endor (1985). I grew up in the 80s, so ewoks were an important part of my childhood. I picked up the two-disc set. I was disappointed to discover that the contents of the DVDs did not match the DVD covers; it was the short-lived ewok animated series I had actually bought. Laaaame. (I may have a soft spot for certain 80s nostalgia, but I do have my limits.)

Bad 80s made-for-TV movies aside, all the exposure to less mainstream films is great. Some DVD shops seem to specialize in obscure movies. I’m not sure if the selection is intentional or if they somehow get stuck with the “dregs” of the DVD shipment. I see quite a few French films, but stuff from all over as well.

Two movies I watched over the weekend:

Les Revenants, AKA They Came Back (France, 2004). I was intrigued because this was a zombie movie with very different zombies. French zombies. And they didn’t attack people or eat brains–they just came back… only they were a little odd. This had serious psychological consequences on the loved ones to whom they returned. Pretty interesting movie, but it dragged a bit in the second half and didn’t have a very satisfying ending. Also, I kept waiting for a zombie to flip out and chomp on someone’s living flesh, and it never happened. At least this movie had good English subtitles, so it was only weird French cinematic metaphors for life and death and acceptance (or whatever) that were confusing me, and not language as well.

Tsotsi (South Africa, 2005). I picked this one up because I really know very little about South Africa (ignorance is bad), and I kind of wanted to hear the African hip hop mentioned on the back. I also had the foolish hope that the movie would be in English, so I didn’t check for English subtitles. Instead I was treated to 94 minutes of Afrikaans, with no English subtitles. Actually there was very little dialogue in the movie, though, so the Chinese subtitles gave me more than enough to follow the story. I definitely enjoyed this one.