I’ve just been missing home a lot lately. I’ve been missing the vegan potlucks we used to have on Dwight street. I’ve been missing the red of the fall New England leafs. I’ve been missing biking up to Edwards St or getting Tahini at the Muslim grocery on East Rock. It’s getting colder in Shanghai and now my commute to work is about twice as long as it used to be, and for those 30 minutes, I’ve tended to get lost in thoughts about home.
And then those thoughts leave me when I accidentally (gently) brush past a man on the Réel Plaza and get a not-so-friendly “GO FUCK YOURSELF” (in stilted English) as I scooter past him. I hate China at times like that. But then, on my way home, I walk into the fruit shop on Yongjia Road and the shy girl from the noodle shop next door smiles at me, speaks a few sentences of English, and tells me her English name is Yo-Yo, before running away in nervousness. I tell the girl’s mother that her English is really good (it was much better than my Chinese was after one year). And suddenly, I don’t hate China anymore.
To be honest, dealing with this yo-yoing (see what I did there?) is hard. Living in China is hard, but I think that’s why I do it. Because despite the almost-heart-attacks that I have almost every day on the way to the office (you try crossing an eight-lane city highway, where no one is obeying traffic laws, on a razor scooter), I kind of relish in this insanity, assholes who call my driving out notwithstanding.
Which VPN are you using? I had issues to log into my wordpress.
I use Astrill, but I know some people have had issues with it recently after the military parades!
I’m a vegan based in Shanghai for a few months, any recommendations on where to get items like tahini? I’m desperately missing it!
Absolutely! If you’re looking for a good vegan restaurant, Ji Xiang Cao (by Xintiandi) has amazing, light vegetarian (but largely vegan food.
In terms of getting ‘natural’ foods, I’d definitely recommend going to Sproutworks on Fuxing Zhong Lu 复兴中路 and Shaanxi Nan lu 陕西南路, because it has things like Kombucha and Quinoa pasta, or Green and Safe on Dongping lu 东平路, which has a better health food variety than your average expat grocery which only sells cereal and wine.
I also heard that the avocado lady on Wulumuqi lu 乌鲁木齐路 can get you virtually anything, so that may be worth checking out!
Hope this helps 🙂
thank you, i will definitely try to check these out! just wondering, what is your job in Shanghai?
my bad! I realized I never replied to this! I used to work in an education start up doing web development and I just switching to a small British-based company doing operations and development on their us side. It’s not the most exciting of gigs haha 😐