Startled out of my sleep yesterday morning by the fireworks show that goes down several times a month on my block. Apparently Chinese people set off fireworks whenever they move into a new apartment to scare all the ghosts and bad spirits away. However, they almost always do this around 8:15 am, when I’m either sleeping or teaching class, clearly interfering with both. I’m not talking black cats or something, these are straight up mortors; fourth of July shit.  Usually lasts between ten and twenty minutes, and it never happens at night so I really cannot extract any pleasure out of this whatsoever.

Besides that I’m headed to California next week for one month with no real agenda except going to Chinatown constantly so my Mandarin doesn’t deteriorate. I bought one hundred episodes of Doraemon with no English subtitles yesterday to keep up. I’m really going to miss walking home from the club and buying the latest films for less than a dollar on the street.

Unlike seemingly every other foreigner in China, I have no visa problems. Back in August, bam. Time for bed.

My shining moment in China occurred aboard a crowded evening train flooded with noise from the cell phone of a lanky late-twenties Chinese with 1994 hair parted down the middle. There he sat, ten rows down, facing me with eyes closed, head bobbing, and lip-synching the pop songs blaring from his mobile. Obviously miffed, the other passengers looked on as they silently ate their bitterness.  In the United States, someone would pierce this sonic onslaught with a “shut the fuck up,”  drop multiple uses of the word “gay,” and probably threaten physical violence within three minutes.

But this is China. So instead of wildin’ out on dude, I played DJ and introduced something no one on that train had ever heard before - Baltimore club music, with its 7/8 tempo, stripped down production, and incessantly repeated, oft-sexually explicit samples. The sound flowed from a 20RMB (US $2.87) iPod mini speaker, which understandably couldn’t push the bass necessary to make the businessmen throw their briefcases down and start rubbin’ up on the the newly sexually awakened female passengers.

No no. Actually, people just looked confused. Except the man with the parted hair. I stared him in the eyes while I cycled through tracks. When the Bmore club ish couldn’t keep it hype anymore, I flipped it to some metal. Lamb of God (straight death metal) and The Sword (more Dungeons and Dragons, epic beast-conquering metal). This went on for about ten minutes until he lost face and slid his phone back into his jeans pocket.

Soon, Korean pop songs came over the loudspeaker. That’s when I felt powerless.

Bam. I felt the need to flee Shanghai’s intensity, consumerism, and air for the weekend. Took the soft sleeper train to Shaoxing, a small city of five or six million where I saw only nine foreigners in two days. It’s a city in transition; somewhere in between a life drying clothes in the sun aside the river and a cell phone/KFC existence. True wet markets alive with the squawks of poultry, old folks playing cards in the street, and cheap living. Plenty of ancient architecture remains and a slow pace endures. Furthermore, the modernization feels less Western than other Asian cities I’ve visited. Most store signs only contain Chinese characters and I definitely noticed an absence of the Western brand bootlegs so persistent in Shanghai.

Anyway, I know people like lists, so I’ll try to recap the key events in that format.

1. I read an article a while back about issues with toxic algae throughout China. Encountered this in some unfortunate person’s backyard. Notice the ladder protruding from the slime; straight up Ninja Turtles.

2. Shaoxing manages its waste far better than Shanghai, at least in terms of garbage can aesthetics. Also, they divide their cans into “recyclable” and “non-recyclable,” as opposed to Shanghai’s limited options of “recyclable” and “organic material.”

3. The picture didn’t turn out so well, but I spent over an hour talking to this shopkeep, straining to understand her accent while her retarded brother awkwardly broke out into laughter every few minutes. I inquired about the famed Shaoxing huáng ji?, a rice wine, and she filled my plastic water bottle with her batch from the back. My companion and I sat on the ground sipping while she gave us the annotated history of the town and some advice on restaurants.

She also explained the broken glass barbed wire outside the shop. It’s just cheaper.

4. After one of the cheapest massages in China, we headed for the shopkeep’s favorite Chinese restaurant. Through the window we saw about fifty Chinese university students getting wild. Drinking with Chinese people at restaurants can get really intense, because they generally insist on toasting then chugging whole glasses repeatedly until their faces turn red, often to the point of passing out. To refuse a glass usually means losing face, something totally unacceptable and shameful here. It’s taken me a long time to understand the concept of face.

Anyway, I jumped right in the middle of the debauchery. Thrilled to meet a foreigner, they continued pouring me glasses until I had to sit down. While gathering myself, glass suddenly shattered and screaming ensued. A few quick blows landed before each boy’s respective homeboys stepped in and pulled the two fighters apart. The cause - a cute girl, who soon stormed out of the restaurant as yet another young man ran through the rain after her, waving an umbrella.

5. Wet market - Lots of blood and animals, some alive some dead. This woman just bought herself a succulent whole chicken.

Overall a great trip, and even after the train ticket and hotel I spent far less money than I would have in Shanghai.