Rich man, Poor Man (Marcus)

This evening after we had finished with our three classes of the day, and I had enjoyed my third and final coffee, we walked over to the 'front door' supermarket. The school's campus has two entrances; the main entrance known as the 'front door' and the...see if you can guess the name of the other one? Yep, the Back Door! Both entrances have a guard station and some of the most friendly security guards ever. Every single time we pass them they make sure to give us huge smiles and a wave. One day we even brought them back some snacks which we aren't sure if they appreciated or not.

Actually that reminds me, the other day we came back from the shops (to them it must look like we're setting up our own supply chain as we are always coming in with bags and bags and misc items), one of the guards calls us in. We go into the guard station and he has written something down on a piece of paper. Twice he has a word in what looks like attempted English, one above the other, then beside the top one, there's chinese characters. To me it looked like he had seen us, had been meaning to ask us something and quickly wrote it down. The thing that had me stumped, was the english word looked like this: ozedolar - like..aussie dollar?! but Ozzie or somesuch. Anyway after about 3-4 minutes of language barrier failure, we smiled and walked on our way. This is where it's extremely frustrating not being able to speak a conversational level of chinese. It feels really awkward when you simply can NOT understand what the hell they are saying. I think I expected more people in China to at least have basic english knowledge - and by basic I mean really basic - but it is surprising as most actually can speak precisely 0.0001% english, and that is HELLOOOOOOOOOO.

* For the record, I am not one of these American style people who arrived here expecting everyone to speak the aryan language of English.

Anyhow the two supermarkets are seemingly both from the same chain, Shanghairuhai or somesuch. The back door one is basically just a supermarket with some street food vendors out front. The one out the front door is a whole lot different. Both of them aren't across the road or anything, but they are approximately the same distance away. We cross the road(no small feat here), walk down one block, then it's on the corner across the road - demanding another street cross(which again is no small feat!)

The front door supermarket rocks - plain and simple. It's a much larger supermarket for one, but the cool part is the fact it's upstairs. Below it is a massive fresh food market. The fresh food market is where we have been buying slowly increasing numbers of produce. This combined with the supermarket upstairs(which is actually kind of Western style - devoid of english or western products though of course) and the fresh food market, it's a great place. The clincher here is the 'food street' that runs beside it. Now this place just outright rocks. This is the kind of place I am going to miss most when we eventually head home. Here you can buy a massive assortment of 'cooked on the spot' goodies. From sweetened breads, to omelette style pancakes, to the freshly popped honeyed popcorn that Courtney has basically been living on. Stuffed buns, dumplings, fresh fruit, you name it, it's here. It has simply the best atmosphere and is full of some of the nicest people.

On the way into the supermarket there was a beggar. We have seen a few of them around - in the Shanghai train station and sometimes around this supermarket. There is something about these beggars that really gets me. Mr Pan said something when we passed one in the car one day that really stuck in my mind. He said, "When I am working, I like to give them a coin." That comment is so China to me. China is so diverse, from people have incredible amounts of money, to people who are so poor we can barely comprehend it from our comfortable western lives.

These people are _so_ poor. Not only poor, but they look incredibly weathered. These are not dole-bludging druggies like we'd find back home - homeless by choice(and I know not all homeless are there by choice) - these are people who are impossibly poor for some reason or another. Everyone here works their fingers to the bone until the day they die. For someone to beg like this, we can only guess the situation behind it. They might have injured themselves so they couldn't work or something similar. Either way, these people still don't look like they are complaining. They are just there. They don't hassle you or follow you, they just sit or stand there with their bowl, hoping people will help them. I have been trying to likewise give them coins when I see them as I did tonight. I dug through my coins the other day to give some to a beggar but he was gone by the time I got back.

When we drive around the place - in particular between campuses, when you look down some of the side streets, you see shanty towns. You see people washing their long black hair in a bowl by the side of the road. Some of these people live in absolute squalor, yet next door are some quite modern looking highrise apartments. I cant help but think that every time we complain about something in our place, these people are a stone's throw away, likely without running water or electricity.

So when I see these beggars, I like to give them a little. To us, it's absolute peanuts, to them, it might be the only meal they have that particular day.

We were at the lights the other day, returning from the other campus and this old man..he must have been 90 or so, seriously, this tiny old man came walking across the intersection. Across his shoulders, held on a stick(you would have see the way they carry things on TV), he's bearing two huge sacks full to the brim with rubbish. It looked heavy as hell, and he was stooped over almost in half. He would likely return home and pick through his stash for things that can possibly be recycled or sold. You would never see this kind of thing back home. As hard as this old guy likely lives, I bet he's never once complained about his lot in life. This is one of the things that constantly strikes me about the Chinese, they just are who they are.