Notes on Not Running Away Again: Dealing Sensibly With a Shanghai Winter
It was some time midway through my London years that I found myself huddled in a phone box outside the Lords Cricket Grounds, surrounded on three sides by layers of postcards of hot, horny, available women who wanted to do dirty things to me. It was December, or maybe January. It was freezing outside my naughty little BT phone box.
I was working as a wandering home care helper for the elderly and infirm: essentially, tenderly flipping bed-ridden grannies, doling out mountains of pills, shaving tired old men, collecting meagre pensions, buying groceries that consisted of boil-in-bag mackerel and tins of corned beef, and having long, fragmented conversations with people who had seen too much.
Every morning I was given a photocopied map of a region of London, marked with little red dots where my 7 or 8 clients lived. How I got to them, how I long I spent with them, and when I finished for the day didn’t matter as long as I did what they needed. Working for social services was fabulous that way: I got paid for an 8 hour day, even when I was done at noon. I worked on a semi-casual basis- I could work every day, if I needed the money, or I could bugger off for a month if the mood struck.
And it did. A lot. In the three years I had that job, I ran away constantly: Ghana, Paris, South Africa, road trip across the US, Prague, home. I incrementally covered most of western and central Europe. I lived out of a backpack and lived in backpacker hostels for three years. I was fabulously unstable, but my gut cried out constantly for a hint of unattainable stability– or if not that then at least a room of my own and more than one pair of shoes. That would come a decade later.
So on that freezing day around 1997 or 1998, having spent nearly my full 8 paid hours running around the Abbey Road end of Westminster trying to track down my elderly clients who weren’t answering their doorbells, and shelled out a fortune’s worth of my own coins on calls back to the office to follow up on their suspicious silence (after all, they could have had a stroke or died), I decided I needed to go to Ireland. Now.
I called Pieter, my boyfriend at the time, and told him we were catching the night boat to Dublin and would be going to Galway for a fortnight. And then called my office to tell them I wouldn’t be coming in for the rest of the week, or the next. And then went to the National Express booking office and bought two bus and ferry tickets to Ireland, via Holyhead. And then we spent a fortnight in Galway, drinking pints by the fireplace in Neachtain’s on Quay Street and walking out to Salthill along the freezing, windy strand.
I felt much better after that. I resumed flipping grannies with extra vigor and tenderness.
This week, I’m feeling the need to do something similar, to just pack up and go, to call Doug at work and say, hey, Doug, pack your bags because we’re going to Kashgar for the next fortnight. I’ve got us a Kyrgyz tent out in the desert and I hear the night sky is lovely at this time of year. Do you like camels?
But that’s not going to happen because I’m booked solid for work until past the middle of the month, and even then things only reduce down to a normal workload. For the next three weekends, I’m away for work: Jinan, Nanjing, Nanjing. During the week, I’m marking the usual nonsense, reminding myself that every ridiculous essay I grade is worth at least one decent cocktail in Bali. I’m also tending to my day job, which is still such a work in progress that sometimes it feels intangible. It takes up a huge percentage of my daily headspace but very few actual hours of physical work.
It’s weird having a job that’s mostly in your head, where you don’t necessarily have to go in to the office but you have to be around and you have to think about it constantly. It makes me feel physically disengaged but mentally overwhelmed.
And I’ve been having such strong day dreams of going away. I’ve been researching random, remote places around China for, ostensibly, educational tourism for expat families in Shanghai for an article I was asked to write for a local magazine.
This has led to me having long, dreamy, back and forth email conversations with random tour operators in, say, Kashgar or Urumqi, chatting me up as only good tour operators can, telling me all about their desert hikes and sleeping under the stars and camel rides and informal Uyghur language lessons and cooking demonstrations in local women’s kitchens.
At night, I’m insomniac, thinking about all the places I’d rather be than stuck in Shanghai, earning money and doing normal life things.
Not that Shanghai is bad, no. It’s still Shanghai. Same same. But it’s grey these days. And it’s so toxic most days that I wonder whether we are nuts for staying. And it’s getting colder but buildings aren’t being heated, as usual. And today our water was turned off so they could flush out the pipes, so I can’t do the dishes or have a hot shower or use the loo. I feel defeated, deflated, exhausted.
It’s one of those weeks, one of those seasons. It happens every year around this time. I should be ready for it by now, after nearly 4 winters here.
This is a city that requires specific reasons for you to be here, otherwise you’ll too easily slip into a dark funk, wondering why you’re still here. Maybe you’re here to save money or get laid (if you’re a guy) or to learn the language (though Shanghai is a terrible place to learn Mandarin since they don’t really actually speak it here) or study tai chi or to take photos of mops or whatever. You need a reason, a goal, a purpose.
It’s not pretty or easy or emotionally forthcoming here. It’s not somewhere where you can just chill out and , like, be. That’s why we’re going to Bali for 3 weeks come Spring Festival. But for now, we both need to figure out why we are here, what is our purpose and what is going to get us through this cold, grey, polluted season without going slightly nuts. Again.
The question du jour is: how do you keep yourself motivated when you are, geographically, not where you really want to be? We have great jobs (finally) and a lovely flat and a very comfortable life. But the fit isn’t always right.
How do you make it fit, at least until your contract is up?
“How do you…?”
That’s a tough one. As for myself, my lifelong m.o. in such situations is to…
Flee. And the (lost) rubles, whatever, be damned!
Seriously. When I find myself someplace I don’t want to be. I can’t cope. I simply MUST extract myself from the situation sooner rather than later – as in a.s.a.p!
Cowardly at best, I know. But there it is.
That said, if I WERE to imagine myself somehow being all grown-up about the situation, I guess I’d try my best to take on some new challenge/hobby/project that would so consume my every moment, the time would fly by til my contract was up.
Not sure if more mop pics would do it, but maybe for you… perhaps a wholly new visual treatise on… brooms?
Dyanne@TravelnLass recently posted..ROBBED in Vietnam! (a.k.a. Thanksgiving Foolishness)
I usually flee too… but I’ve got a few things that stop me from doing it. Doug’s still in the middle of a 3 year contract at work so I can’t demand he break that. Same with my job- I’m running the school and can’t just bail on them. Same with our flat. I think my next stop needs to involve fewer commitments. I took these on because I craved stability and continuity; now I’m not sure what I really want. Grrr.
I hear ya! It’s taking everything I have not to run away from here, and it is HARD. Also, a 3-year contract? I’m freaking out just thinking about that!
I’ve never had a 3 year contract myself- too overwhelming! It was Doug’s only option though, after his first 2 years at his school– 3 more years or nothing.
I hear you. I’m coming down with a cold, and preparing to be over-committed for the next half-year, which means constant illness and stress and…what sounds like your life has been lately.
Sometime in the last couple of years we came to the conclusion that it’s not so much where we are that’s important, but what we’re able to do there, that we can’t, anywhere else.
It’s a longer term brush/four treasures project that’s keeping me going here, structuring my years, (and gobbling up all my finances too).
Your voice and writing/documenting skills are mature enough to spin one of your interests into a larger, longer-term project. If you want to.
What is unique about Shanghai that’ll keep you interested in the place? What can you do/photograph/write about there, that’s not possible anywhere else in the world? Something unique and quirky, and that is so very Virgo-y you. Yes, maybe mops. Your mop series is so unlike anything else I’ve ever read. People will get it – or they won’t. But those who get it will curl up with your mops in a book or album or app and be surprised at every turn of the virtual page.
To stay sane – or insane – I’m always looking toward the next step. It’s a kind of escapism but I go about it in a realistic-ish way. Planning, scheming, researching. Our next locale will have even more miserable weather and have a completely different set of stresses, some of which will be harder on our relationship because it’s the Man’s home country, not a ‘foreign’ place for us.
Ebriel recently posted..Fakes in China
I think it’s winter. And work. And burn-out. And the fact that all my close friends have disappeared, one by one. I feel like all I ever do is work or stay at home and just chill– which is fine but oh, I do need more than just overwork and recovery! I am looking around for something to inspire me… even the mops aren’t coming easily right now.
So much to think about! I wish I had your focus, your drive, your creativity. I mean, I probably do somewhere but it’s hidden under all those hours giving exams and marking…
Yep winter’s gotten to me here. Bad. But at least we have heated buildings.
The 7 days a week thing is too much! Could you do every other weekend?
And focus…I don’t really have it, it’s more: I arrived here last year with lots of things I wanted to do. Most have proved impossible or impractical, so I’m clinging to the one thing that’s left.
Ebriel recently posted..Fakes in China
when I read this I get worried – since I felt the way you do when I lived in Bangalore for a year. I got really depressed. the solution I finally found, after being so resistant, was to hang out w expats. At first I wanted nothing to do w them, but by the end I found they were organizing things I enjoyed.
I’m happy now in Johannesburg, which surprises me. We are thinking of living in China.
What makes me happy is probably different, but for me it is cafes, libraries, art museums, movies and good food. I hope you find something that speaks to you. It is hard if you are cold all the time, find some warm things.
I think the thing is that although there are expats here (tons of them), I don’t really have any around that I’ve clicked with. My job is way out in the outskirts and all my colleagues are Chinese. There’s NO socializing outside of work. They go home to their families and that’s that. I think if I ever got a normal job with, like, colleagues I clicked with/related to, it’d be a whole different thing. Turkey was great that way. Here, I was out on my own at Tongji University for two years, the only person left in my program, stuck in a mostly abandoned campus in a far away end of the city. Now I’m out in Minhang, far from everything. I just feel rather isolated.
The things that make you happy also make me happy– I think I just need to stop working weekends so I can do them sometimes… Or maybe find a new city so I can feel inspired enough to enjoy them again.
For me the best thing about Shanghai was the cycle lane/bus lane between Baoshan where I lived and worked and the Hongkou football stadium . I had a fabulous Giant racing bike ,( it was the ladies version because I liked the polished coppery pink colour) and it went like a dream . Very sexy bike said the IT guy ,hugging me,when I left him it upon leaving the school where I worked, he also said “I love you Edward” so you can see it was no ordinary bike. And no ordinary cycle route either . It was brill! The things to see on my nightly 2 hour rides, arrow straight , speedy lane with the overpass to move under in case of rain . But I had to stop when I got heat rashes in the summer, and eventually with the only thing keeping me sane gone, I ran away too . I wasn’t going to , I promissed myself , but then everything fell into place, I just slipped out and everything changed, except the pace: still fairly frenetic , but healthier because it’s Poland.
If you go , the mantra should be “Hold on tightly , let go lightly. ” But I loved Urumqi too, only there the pop music was driving me slightly insane 🙂 . Good luck , you’re so cool Mary Anne. The ace-est blogger ever.
Dude, that bike sounds magical. And that bike lane. Sometimes i think about getting a bike but then I look around at my neighbourhood and realize i’d have to either be doing a major stop-start thing with all the traffic lights or I’d be killed by the onslaught of cars. I dunno. It’s a tough call.
I think I just need a change of scenery. Hell, I need the introduction of scenery. Plotting when to let go…
And thanks for your vote in the Ace Blogger competition. I’ll frame it and put it on my wall.
And you have been here only a few years.. Wait until you blow out the seventeenth candle…
I couldn’t live in Shanghai..
I write too http://www.simplestie.com/jonims
This was comforting to read because it’s kind of how I feel about Chicago right now — another cold, dark, difficult city in the winter. I love Chicago and I don’t necessarily want to leave it (I’m moving in February), but at the same time I don’t have any specific reason to be here, and like you said, sometimes you need a reason to be in a certain place at a certain time. It probably is just a winter funk you’re experiencing, like you said, and I hope it ends for you soon! Maybe we both just need to move somewhere that doesn’t have winter next time?
Jackie D recently posted..Thoughts: Only 24 Year Old on the Bus
Yeah, I’m not good with winter. Not just the cold but also the grey, the heaviness. Shanghai is bad at winter, mainly because it doesn’t do the nice stuff- no lovely snow or lacy frostiness, just overcast skies and damp chill for months on end. I do think I’d do better in a less extreme place– summers here are stupidly hot and humid too. We don’t really have spring or autumn and I miss those transitional seasons as they ease you into the next one gently. Here, I just feel like I barely finished dealing with the hot weight of summer and now must deal with the crappiness of winter…
I’m thinking Mexico….
Where will you go in February?
For now I’ll be headed to my parents’ house in Los Angeles (talk about ideal weather), where I hope to only spend a few months before moving somewhere else around June or July. But I have no idea where I want to move, so… this will be interesting.
Mexico could be nice — they have cheap beer and hammocks and sunlight, so I would pretty much be set for life. We could be neighbors?
Jackie D recently posted..Places: The Greyhound Station at 7am
I feel yeah this week. What with the freezing weather, poisonous air and VPN issues, Shanghai hasn’t been exactly paradise. We’ve just returned from 3 weeks in Thailand and it was SO MUCH easier there! The only thing saving me from the post vacay blues is writing about our trip on my blog. We also just booked our tickets for our Spring Festival trip – YAY!
My husband’s job here has an end date so I am able to work backwards from that to ensure we’ve made the most of our time in China. That helps too. I know we’re leaving 🙂
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Dear MaryAnne, we should meet, have a drink and complain about the winter here.
The funny thing is that for most part of my life I was convinced that Quebec city had the worst weather in the whole world. But obviously, that was before coming to Shanghai.
Veronique recently posted..Shanghai + Urbania
Veronique,
Definitely! I used to feel the same way about Vancouver winters… but no more! They may be grey and rainy, but at least you can breathe and there are trees and mountains everywhere. And heated buildings!