Shanghai was never supposed to happen. My GF and I had ‘planned’ to travel to Japan taking an overland route from Singapore, but along the way we had too much fun/spent too much money/took the long way round…basically ran out of all our baht, dollars, dong and riel, and were only left with enough Chinese yuan to tide us over for three days in Shanghai. As a last desperate attempt to keep on the road we decided to throw ourselves to the mercy of headhunters (the city type) and get ourselves that dreaded three letter word, a J-O-B.
Working in Shanghai
A city of 25 million plus, with a GDP still accelerating at warp speed, the opportunities to work are plentiful. Getting a job is easy if you can (1) speak English and (2) smile. You don’t necessarily need to be a fluent English speaker, for a Hungarian friend of…
Shanghai is considered the Paris of Asia. There’s a reason for this, and I hope the photos and video in this post will show that.
Notice the Chinese middle-class tourists on the boat (click on the photo to enlarge it). Study how they dress, see the cameras, and ask yourself this—if these people are so brainwashed and downtrodden, why are they out taking a cruise on the Huangpu River taking pictures as if they were visiting the Grand Canyon or New York?
Pudong side of Huangpu River
See the city skyline along the river.
This is only a small portion of Shanghai.
Shanghai side of Huangpu River – the crowded Bund
West of the Huangpu River is Shanghai. On the east bank is Pudong—fifty years ago, the land on this side of the river was farm land.
A close up of the crowded Bund on the Shanghai side of the river
Check out the number of Chinese tourists visiting the Bund in this photograph. I’ve waded through these crowds. These people are laughing, smiling, eating, taking pictures of each other, clowning around. They are having more fun than I see from most American tourists when I travel in the United States.
Look at the signs: Nikon, LG, and Nestle.
China has about five hundred million people living in its cities. Another eight hundred million live in rural areas. There are now more Chinese surfing and Blogging on the Internet (642 million), and that’s more than twice the population of the United States. And there are ways to get around the censors to visit forbidden websites hosted in other countries. The average time spent on the Internet in China is almost three hours a day or more than 19 hours a week.
The population of Shanghai—the undisputed largest and wealthiest city in China—has a population of almost 24 million people compared to the largest city in the United States, New York, with a population of 8.5 million.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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China has a unique food culture compared to the West. For instance, my wife loves noodles. I’ve followed her down narrow Shanghai streets to a well-known won-ton and noodle shop on the corner of Chang-le and Shang-yang Road. The front is open and the ceiling low with each narrow table crowded with Chinese sitting on small chairs shoveling noodles in with chopsticks.
My wife orders a small bowl of noodles with peanut sauce for me and a bowl of blood soup and another bowl of noodles with spicy hot Sichuan peppercorn sauce for her. As she eats, sweat beads her face but there is not one word of complaint—not one sign that she is suffering. Instead, this seriously satisfied look spreads across her face as if she has entered a Chinese noodle heaven.
When visiting Nanjing Road in Shanghai between People Square and the Bund, we always stop at the same food shop where my wife orders steaming hot noodles with the same peppercorn sauce, and I order deep fried, fresh chou dofu (stinky tofu) with the same sauce that causes me to sweat too.
At celebration feasts, a wider variety of food will be served from whole fish, crab, a variety of vegetable dishes and tofu.
中
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
Subscribe to “iLook China”!
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As of 2014 there were more than 460 Hooters company-owned locations and franchises throughout the United States. The company has restaurants in 44 U.S. states, the US Virgin Islands, and Guam. Hooters also operates restaurants in 24 other countries, and China is one of them. In fact, the first Hooters in China opened October, 2004.
With more than 234 million middle class Chinese, 113 million more than the United States, the fact that Hooters is doing business in China shows how fast China is changing as the Middle Kingdom evolves into an Asian Super Power that is beginning to look more like the U.S. China is roaring toward capitalism with all the trappings of a consumer society.
Will the two countries become equal partners one day, because of companies like Hooters, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Ford and GM? For instance, KFC has more than 4,500 outlets in China and Chinese buyers are obsessed with Buick. According to the New York Times, Buick is the hottest luxury brand in China. Imagine the profits that American companies would lose if China and the U.S. went to war.
I’ve never been to a Hooters in any country, but on my next trip to China, I might visit one since they are six spread out between Shanghai, Beijing, Xi’an and Chingdu. I’ve already watched the YouTube videos. See for yourself.
As fast at McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, GM, and Ford are all growing in China (and making money), it’s easy to imagine that Hooters may have more stores in China one day than the U.S.
中
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.
Jews settled in Kaifeng, Henan Province in 960 A.D. after arriving along the Silk Road. These Jews were welcomed by the Song Dynasty and encouraged to retain their cultural identity by building a synagogue that was finished in 1163 A.D.
The Kaifeng Synagogue had a Torah written on sheepskin. The architecture of the buildings reflects Jewish culture. Evidence indicates that the Kaifeng Jews were very traditional and obeyed kosher dietary laws and practiced circumcision for males.
The Jewish community in China thrived for centuries before it was assimilated into Chinese culture through intermarriage. By the middle of the 18th century little survived of the Jewish community.
In 1849, the Yellow River flooded causing what was left of the Jewish community to break apart. Today there are about 500 descendants of the Kaifeng Jewish community, who want to reclaim their Jewish tradition.
“Jews were not newcomers to China. Some had lived under Chinese rule from sometime after 92 CE, during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE- 220 CE), when they resided in what at the time was called the Western Region (roughly Xinjiang Province today) in special enclaves that were set aside by the Chinese for foreigners.” — The Sino-Judaic Institute
中
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.
Shanghai was never supposed to happen. My GF and I had ‘planned’ to travel to Japan taking an overland route from Singapore, but along the way we had too much fun/spent too much money/took the long way round…basically ran out of all our baht, dollars, dong and riel, and were only left with enough Chinese yuan to tide us over for three days in Shanghai. As a last desperate attempt to keep on the road we decided to throw ourselves to the mercy of headhunters (the city type) and get ourselves that dreaded three letter word, a J-O-B.
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