Massages and Genji Japanese restaurant

Sunday 16 March - Genji Restaurant

A week ago we had our fortnightly massage at the place we always go to. Once again we have very interesting conversations with our masseuses (that word looks funny typed out). Hubby's Mandarin is getting better and can have a decent conversation with them too although I still need to translate a few things for him, and also I don't understand everything they say myself!

They are interested to learn about our lives back in Australia and we are interested in learning about theirs.

We pay 60 RMB for a 1 hour massage (either full body or foot (which also includes a back massage done sitting up)). From this they are paid a measley 16 RMB per hour (that's around $2.50) but they get an extra 5 RMB if we specifically ask for their number. Ones that we like are 8,16,17,27,37. Every time our list of numbers just grows because often we can't ge the one we want, then we realise we are pretty happy with the new person/people we get! Maybe it's because I'm not so fussy but maybe it's because I realise that back home in Australia it costs more like $60-90/hour for a massage and they aren't nearly as good.

I also learn that they work 12 hours, every day of the year. They are allowed to take time off (most will take a couple of days off during Chinese New Year only though) but choose not to because they are so hard-working and intent on making more money. However, they don't actually work for all of those 12 hours. (they work in shifts either 10am-10pm, 12noon-12midnight or 2pm-2am). Usually they only work 5-6 hours but they still have to be there in case they are called upon. During their time off they hang out in a little room next door where they either watch tv, play mahjong or sleep. The guy I spoke to (no. 27) says it's really quite boring and he doesn't like it because he's sitting there and not getting paid.

Most people have horrible calluses and protrusions growing on their knuckles from using their knuckles so much. They say it doesn't hurt anymore once it gets to a certain stage.

While they were telling us their 'stories' I almost felt like crying. Well, I was crying on the inside. That they work so hard, and make so little money, and they still seem so happy, cheerful and cooperative.

Hubby got a lady, no. 37 last week. We hadn't seen her before but she's seen hubby plenty of times. Mostly because he is tall and fair-haired and stands out easily amongst the sea of black-haired people! (most customers are Japanese). At 30, she would be one of the older staff members although she is still younger than me! She has a 4 year old son, who lives with her inlaws (as is the case with all traditional Chinese families). She says she misses him heaps but what can you do?

All of the staff members come from poor country towns and different provinces, noone is actually from Shanghai. The scary thing is that although the pay seems so low to us, the pay in Shanghai is actually the highest in the whole country! (Shanghai also has the highest cost of living, even moreso than Beijing). No. 27 - the guy I've had 3 times now says he is 25 and already feels a bit 'old' because he's not married yet and most of his friends are. Most of these country people marry in their late teens or early 20's and have had at least one kid by the age of 25 or by 29 at least. Also, in the country they can get away with having more than one child, especially if the first is a girl.

If only all of us Western brats (and yes I admit I am one) could learn something from these poor hardworking people who have hardly anything...


Congen Massage Healthcare Club

兴义店 - 兴义路48号新世纪广场1F

XinYi Branch - 1F, New World/Hong Kong Plaza, 48 XinYi Road

(they also have branches in Gubei, Jing'an, Pudong, etc..)

Ph: (021) 6209 3813 / 6209 6615




OK onto dinner!

Instead of going to our usual place we tried a new one. This place is usually very full but we never went in because it was usually full of lots of smoking Japanese men. Erk. I HATE SMOKERS! Anyway for some strange reason it was kind of empty so we decided to give it a try.

The waitress asked us if we wanted ala carte or buffet. We weren't sure but decided to go for the buffet. Of course the Chinese/accountant side of me took over and I had to calculate if we were getting our money's worth. The Japanese buffet offered here (and at many other places) isn't like Sizzler's or your typical buffet. It's still ala carte (in that you have to order off a menu) but you can get as much as you like!

It was 145 RMB per person and we ended up eating about 450-500 RMB's worth. So a total bargain! We totally stuffed ourself with as much as we could take. It also included as much tea, coffee, juice, water or beer as we wanted. Anyway enough about the rave, on with the details!












源氏

新红桥开发区兴义路48号新世纪广场

Genji

48 Xinyi Road, Hongqiao (next to the massage parlour)

(also at 1414 Huaihai Middle Road)

Ph: (021) 6208 7910

I hate banks

I hate banks. I hate queues. I hate queues inside banks. Don't get me wrong though. I don't hate queues because I'm inpatient. I don't mind waiting but I hate them because more often than not I want to do something that takes 2 minutes and am forced to stand behind 10 people who all decide they need 20 mins each to do their 'business'. To me that is not fair. So that's why I hate queues. It's a bit like wanting to buy 2 things at the supermarket and standing behind a queue of 3 people, each with a trolley loaded up with 50 things. Same principle, right? They have express queues in supermarkets (well not in Shanghai) why can't they have express queues in banks?! Grrr...

So it's bad enough that I have bank/queue phobia in my hometown, but when I'm in China it's 10x worse since I can't even read much.

Let me backtrack a bit. I amazed at the goodness and honesty of people here. I honestly don't feel that unsafe and feel like I'm going to be robbed or mugged. Generally speaking people are very honest, kind and friendly. Last week I ordered some water bottles to be sent as we had run out. I said I needed them ASAP as there wasn't a drop left. Usually they deliver them in the afternoon. That day I went to the Chinese doctor as I felt like I wasn't getting any better. It just so happened that they delivered the bottles to me while I was out (I didn't think they'd be that quick) and just left 3 of them outside the front door. Now, I had not paid them for this and they left them here (probably more trouble to take them back with them - they are 19 Litre bottles!) and, my neighbours/the cleaners didn't 'steal' them either. So I have a lot of faith that people here are generally 'good'.

Now, my dad decided to order me some asthma medication that his father had taken and had good results with. He thought they were sending them to me C.O.D. and that's what I thought too, except they were sent EMS (EMS seems to be really cheap domestically here.. everything is sent this way and it is super fast). Anyway, so they sent us this box of 20 packets (needed to order a large number since they normally only sell wholesale) and I hadn't paid them a cent. How weird...

The next day, the guy rang up asking me to pay him. He wasn't demanding or rude or anything. He was very friendly sounding. So obviously he had faith in me that I was going to do the right thing and not get away with getting the stuff for free... OK. So I got his bank details and said I'd pay him in the next day or two.

True to my word, two days later (yesterday) I went to his bank. Now, I had no idea where this bank was. I asked my ayi and she told me how to get there. Her instructions were very precise. She said I could catch this bus, and get off, walk across a small bridge and the bank would be right there. I followed her instructions. Crossed the road, caught the bus 6 stops, got off at the stop she told me to, found a bridge that crossed a little creek thing, and there was the bank. Too easy!

Inside, was that dreaded queue. With 20 people in front of me (yes I counted). Yikes! Luckily it seemed to be moving at a steady pace and there were even seats. That's right! A queue with seats arranged bench style so you kinda just shuffled along every few minutes. After 45 minutes it was finally my turn to be served. It seemed like a long time (and there were 3 tellers serving). The lady was rude as. She asked to see my ID. "Oh shit!," I thought. I don't have any ID on me. Only my foreign credit card. I needed my residency permit thingo or a passport. I said, "Is there any way I can do this without it?" and she said "No, you have to go home and come back." and I was like "What?! I'm not going home, coming back, and queueing up for almost an hour again. By that time you're probably gonna be closed..." and she said, "You won't have to queue up again. Just come back to me." But I really didn't want to go home. It wasn't that far, but it would take me around an hour to go there and come back. Ugh.

Finally, she said, "Oh there is a way but you have to round it up to the nearest 50 or 100." Since I had to pay 378, that meant I had to pay them 400. Luckily I had 4 100 RMB notes on me. I said, "I'm from overseas. I can't read Chinese (read: I'm hopeless). Please help me, what do I do?!" She said, "Go over to that security guard. He'll show you what to do." OK so he went outside and I followed him to an ATM where of course there was another queue. Great.

And as if this wasn't dragging on long enough, my bladder decided to speak to me. In fact, it decided to YELL at me. "I need to go to the toilet, NOW!" Great. I asked the guard if there was a toilet inside the bank or nearby and he said, "No, you'll have to go to that intersection, cross the light... What?? I'll never make it. I was busting. Geez. Great timing.

Not knowing what to do, I walked down the road, back over the bridge and came across a restaurant. Yes! Please be open.. thank God they were open (it was not lunch nor dinner time) I waltzed in and found the toilet straight away. I had visions of one of the workers yelling at me for not eating there or something so I did my business and got the heck out of there ASAP. Phew!

Went back over the bridge and back to the bank. The guard was now back inside the bank. I asked him what do I do.. He said, "Is it your turn yet?" (He didn't even know I had gone and thought I was still in that ATM queue). I said, "No.." He pushed me into the queue. There was two guys in front of me and he pushed me to the front of the queue. Weird.. but great! So I wouldn't have to wait much longer. Just my luck the woman in front of me decided to make about 5 transactions which seemed to take forever. I wasn't the only one getting impatient... the guard and the two men behind me were all wondering why she was taking forever.




While I was waiting I noticed the hood on her top. It had some funny Chinglish on it so I took a photo of it (as you do). Then, right at that moment I had this brainwave that I'd take a photo of the screen in case I stuffed up (still paranoid that I would). OK then it was finally my turn. The guard told me what to do, what buttons to press and I took a photo of each of the screens. I had to enter in the guy's bank number (19 digits!) and then his name came up. I matched it up to the one on his business card. Yep, so far so good. Then I put in the 4 100RMB notes. Then it spit out a receipt. Too easy! The guard also told me they charge a 0.5% surcharge so I actually only paid them 398, but that's OK since I only needed to pay 378.




Phew! With that done, I got the hell out of there... On the way to the bus stop I passed this cool looking homewares shop where I just went for a quick browse. This swinging chair looks like fun!

After I went home I noticed more decorations had been put up in our apartment foyer. It's looking very festive...






Not long after I arrived home the guy rang me to ask if I had paid. I told him yep and then he said he would check and ring me back. A few minutes later he rings back and says it's already in there. I'm gobsmacked. I actually did the transaction correctly and it's already in his bank so quickly!

People and prices

People

I'm not sure how many people there are in Shanghai and I can't find any conclusive answers. All I know there is more people here than in Beijing and there aren't that many cities in the world with a bigger population than Shanghai!

OK according to wikipedia there are 18.6 million people in the municipality and 9.8 million in the urban area alone.

I have thoughts running through my head every time I go out and these little occurences have slowly made me realise not just how many people there are in Shanghai, but in China as a whole.

Shopping in the supermarket in the middle of the day on a weekday you'd think it'd be pretty quiet, right? Wrong! It's still just as busy no matter what time of day you shop. And every aisle is filled with people and their trolleys and the aisles never seem wide enough and I'm constantly dodging trolleys and trying to avoid hitting something or someone with my runaway trolley. As part of my early days here and still dealing with culture shock I complained to my mother, "Why are there so many people here?" and all she could reply was, "This is China!" which about sums it up.

Queues

They are everywhere, except Chinese don't quite understand the concept of queuing or waiting. In their mind you just rush to the front of the queue or counter and push in to get served, simple. Hmmm...

Prices

I am still gobsmacked and shocked at the divide between the rich and the poor. A few weeks ago Mike and I went to Grand Gateway 港汇广场 shopping mall (which, incidently we can see out our living room window) for some lunch and some window shopping. We went into a store which caught my eye, called Vero Moda a fashion label started in Denmark. The clothes in there were really beautiful and Helena Christensen was one of the models.

Some of the t-shirts were $40 or $50 Australian which I thought was absurd. I mean it is probably the going rate for a European label but I'd never pay that muh for a t-shirt in Australia, let alone China! Yet, I think most people in the West think of China as being really 'poor'. But noooo. On this Sunday afternoon, this shop was absolutely packed and I was constantly being followed with an overly zealous sales assistant wearing false eyelashes and bright blue eyeshadow.

I felt kind of sickened that these spoilt little rich fashionistas could afford this kind of stuff, yet there were people out on the street starving, or pulling tricycle wagons and sleeping in old, run down shacks. Erk.

A few days ago Mike and I were talking about where to go for the October public holiday. After researching endless options I decided it'd probably be best to find somewhere close by so as to not waste time and not spend too much money, and decided that Sanya in Hainan would be a great place. I started looking into the 5 star beach resorts and Mike said, being a public holiday, it would most likely be very crowded and booked out. I quickly blurted out, "How many people in China do you think can afford to stay in a 5 star resort?" without even thinking or realised how stupid I sounded. Mike said back, "More than you think. There are more rich people in China than any other country." And I thought to myself, Oh, shit, yeah... since there are over a billion people, even a small proportion of that is a huge quantity of (rich) people. Yikes.

So my conclusion is, you don't realise just how many people there are in China until you come here, and if you hate queues and crowds don't come here ;) And if you want nice designer label stuff (for anything, not just clothing) be prepared to pay the price because, even in China, it ain't cheap!