Semester 1

Chapter XII: Winter Is Coming (November 17 – November 24, 2016)

Last Friday, I visited one of the mainstream local clubs after some time. Not that I changed my attitude towards those but this M2 joint hosted Jillionaire which seemed appealing enough. M2 is probably one of the more acceptable poshy spots but it still kinda sucks. The system of rich Chinese partying separated at their expensive tables and poor whites mashed on the dance floor drinking free (and most likely fake) booze is there, of course. However, the music was fine and the place is quite spacious so the party wasn’t that bad.

I don’t know what it is with Shanghai but I lost my voice for the second time since my arrival. This time for almost two days. I charge it to the pollution but I’m not really sure. Fucked up thing is, this time it happened one day before my English classes so I spent Saturday consuming liters of ginger tea and drinking bottles of water. I was able to deliver on Sunday but I sounded like a fucking Malboro man 5 minutes before his death. Kids had to be thrilled by that.

It seems that the nice weather is officially over too. What amazes me is how fast the switch was. On Sunday you could hang out outside late night with just a sweatshirt, feeling completely okay, one day later, you’re dying if you’re not wearing a winter jacket, beanie and a pair of gloves. It went literally from 18 to 6 degrees. Which also made me to switch my AC for the very first time. They don’t really do central heating system so every room is equipped with its own AC unit. Since landlords try to save as much money as possible, they usually go for the cheapest, least ecological option. There are three energy labels in China, my AC is the fucking worst. If you have a look at buildings and see that each one of them has hundreds of ACs installed, you can get an idea of how inefficient it is and how harmful this gotta be for the environment, air, etc… It’s China though, who cares…

It kinda sucks that my favorite activities, such as reading outside or biking around the city are gonna be either impossible or highly inconvenient for the upcoming couple of months. One thing that calms me down a little a bit is the idea of the Malaysian trip in the middle of January. Oh, and I managed to get a haircut and visit the Power Station of Art again the last week too...

I’m still working on my first paper, narrowing it down, adding references and shaping it into a form I would feel comfortable with. Yeah, and I just gotta mention how much I fucking hate my Chinese culture class. It’s not like I don’t wanna learn about that, it’s the fact our teacher is the fucking worst. He takes super Asian approach and for each 90 minutes lesson, he just gets a 70 slides presentation full of names, dates, titles etc. and wants you to memorize all that shit so you can pass a test the following week. It’s all part of your final grade so you have to try. And it feels like being back to secondary school again. No value whatsoever. Plus the guy has that kinda energy that makes you wanna punch him just for opening his mouth… Some of my classmates have a different teacher, they go to fucking museums and write reports on it. Talk about bad luck…

It’s Thursday morning, I just finished my coffee (blacker than my soul) and I’ll be heading to to (guess what) the Chinese culture class. The raining stopped, which is good, but the temperature is like 2 degrees, which fills me up with despair. I’ll try to go for a run after the class so if you won’t hear about me after this blog, I didn’t make it.

Highlights:

• While I was reading in Jing’an park one afternoon (Gutmann’s book The Slaugher gives you chills), over the course of couple of hours I was approached by two elderly Chinese guys who just felt like talking. One claimed to be a former coach of the national diving team, the other one was a retired banker with super critical attitude toward Chinese government. It was super random.
• A vegan friend of mine made a happy muffin for me. That was fun…
• I tried Chinese red wine for the first time. Took a 1 liter bottle for like 23 RMB and surprisingly, it was actually good. Wouldn’t expect that in my lifetime...