srah blah blah

And if I dig a hole to China/ I'll catch the first junk to Soho

It occurs to me that a) I have nothing to write for NaBloPoMo today and b) I have not yet finished writing up all the little notes that I took in China of things to blog about. Now keep in mind that I got back from China over a month ago, so I may be a little fuzzy on what my notes meant...

• shoes - Um, apparently I wanted to tell you something about shoes, but I have forgotten what. Chinese people wear 'em, if you're curious!
• "what watch?" - After several days of communicating in broken English, I got the following exchange from Casablanca stuck in my head:

  Mr. Leuchtag: Frau Leuchtag and I are speaking nothing but English now.
  Mrs. Leuchtag: So we should feel at home when we get to America.
  Carl: Very nice idea, mm-hmm.
  Mr. Leuchtag: [toasting] To America!
  Mrs. Leuchtag: To America!
  Carl: To America!
  Mr. Leuchtag: Liebchen, uh, sweetness heart, what watch?
  Mrs. Leuchtag: Ten watch.
  Mr. Leuchtag: Such much?
  Carl: Hm. You will get along beautiful in America, mm-hmm.

• shopping theory - While shopping in a Shanghai mall, I realized that there were many stores that I recognized from the US or France, but many others that I didn't. I checked out some of these stores, but walked past others, and I was trying to figure out why certain ones appealed to me more than others. I realized that subconsciously I was guessing whether a store was in my price range based on the number of items I could see for sale. If you look at the Gap family, for example, there is a greater quantity of clothing on the shopping floor in an Old Navy than in a Banana Republic, and Old Navy is much less expensive. I went into shopping in China with the same expectations and it seemed to work!
• every child in China @ museum - I went to the Shanghai Museum, and it seemed that - due to the upcoming Golden Week holiday - every elementary school in the area had decided to have a field trip to the museum. Chinese schoolchildren are every bit as noisy and bored in museums as American children.
• Crocs - I only saw three pairs the whole time I was in China, all on the feet of white people. I did see a Crocs store in one mall, though!

There are more tales to tell, but I will save them for another night when I can't think of any NaBloPoMo content!

srah - Wednesday, 5 November 2008 - 11:43 PM
Tags: china, nablopomo, nablopomo 2008, travel