Happy Moon Festival!

September 31, 2012

I’ve been feeling super homesick the last couple of days so when Chelsea asked me to try again to go to IKEA, I jumped at the chance.  Being new in China, I can never anticipate what will happen or what each experience is going to be like.  This is super exciting, but it’s also exhausting.  I can’t tell you how much I just wanted to go somewhere familiar, a place where I can have expectations (lots of floors for display, arrows on the floor, a café with Swedish meatballs) and have my expectations met.

And for the most part, it was like that.  Except everything I do here, no matter how ordinary and familiar, will always have “Chinese characteristics”.  To get to the front doors IKEA you have to weave though a dozen or so illegal street vendors selling home goods and rip-off James Taylor CDs from carts and on blankets.  As you exit, there are dozens of taxis (regular, van-sized, and moped) waiting to carry you with your purchases to your flat.  Of course not everyone comes to IKEA to shop, in China it’s popular to meet your friends and family at IKEA so you can sit around on the furniture and chat, or take a nap in the air conditioning. (I’m not kidding, there were Chinese people everywhere sleeping on the couches and beds.) 

We took a taxi back to Chelsea's flat and helped her set up all her new stuff!  Then we tried to have lunch at a Chinese hole-in-the wall but unfortunately I was only able to eat my rice because my piece of chicken came out lukewarm and in dangerous pink and black colors. Blech.

We went back to our hotels to rest then went out later because we don't have to work all next week.  It's the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day!

From what I can tell the Mid-Autumn (or Moon Festival) is mostly celebrated by exploding firecrackers in the street at all hours of the day.  It's also the time when every place is selling moon cakes.

The traditional flavors are egg or red bean but now you can get them in every flavor imaginable, they even sell them at Haagen Dazs and Starbucks.

Lots of things are closed, and people have 2-3 days off so it's also a time for people to visit their families.  Before I came to China I heard countless stories about the crowded subways where people push to get on the train.  I ride the subway everyday and so far it doesn't really seem that much worse than New York at rush hour, but now everyone is leaving or coming into Shanghai to see family.  It's a mob scene of people carrying suitcases and pushing to get a seat.

Also...

 It's also a time for people to gather with friends on the street corner and play cards or to set up small billiards tables.

                                             And to hang your laundry out on the sidewalk.

Or to do a little public napping.  I've seen several people setting up chairs to take a few winks on the sidewalk.

 In the evening on Sunday Chelsea, Stacy, Cam and I went down to Nanjing Rd. for dinner.  It was packed with people towing suitcases, shopping, eating, and ballroom dancing.  Even though it was crowded, I love those glittering street signs and the energy coming from so many relaxed and happy people.

 We found a restaurant where we could have pizza and $1 glasses of wine and nescafe.  We sat there for a couple of hours talking and laughing and by the end my homesickness had subsided a little bit.  I hope I have such nice friends when I get to Hangzhou.