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May-May's Diary
Entry for July 17, 1998
I don't know about you, but I have been enjoying the heat over the past few days. I am told that these past few days have been the hottest experienced in Shanghai in 50 years. Which just goes to show you -- we're going back to the future. But while most people have been scurrying for the cool of air-conditioning. Not me!! The hotter the better. I wrote a special report about this and put it in the second edition of the Shanghai Buzz, the new newspaper which I am helping to produce. Look out for the newspaper when it is published this Friday!!! How exciting!!!
I am continuing the search for the best value coffee in town. In pure monetary terms, the Westgate Plaza basement still holds the title -- only four yuan for a cup of brewed coffee! The environment is not ideal -- stainless steel and fast food plastic chairs. But for four yuan, I'll put up with it! But where else? The City Hotel's coffee is well spoken-of, and the Ruby restaurant on Huashan Lu is becoming famous for its breakfast coffee. George V, the bar on Urumqi Nan Lu, is as fanmous for its coffee as anything else, although it also seems to be becoming a tequila haunt.
Park 97 has the richest, most individualistic coffee in town. Indonesian. It is also the strongest coffee I know of in Shanghai. Sometimes when I feeling a little lacking in energy but need to be wide awake and active through the night, I will go to Park 97 just for the coffee. One cup at about 8pm, and I'm still active at 3am!!
At the other extreme, the coffee in the Mingdu Tao Yi Coffee Shop on Maoming Lu, near Fuxing Lu, where you can mix pottery with art and a coffee, is not strong enough by half. At least not the last couple of cups I have had there.
If you have had a great cup of coffee somewhere in Shanghai, let me know!
Byeeeee!!!
Entry for July 15, 1998
Last night, I went to the re-launch of Club Absolut on Shaanxi Nan Lu, once one of the great discos of Shanghai fallen on somewhat tacky times. In the past couple of years, it has gradually become more of a KTV joint just when the KTV market is shrinking. The KTV rooms are still doing reasomable business, but the main hall has seen declining numbers, in spite of, (or who knows, because of!) the OTHER Sunflowers all-girl band which was playing there nightly in recent months.
Enter stage right -- Mr Li and Michael!! They have couragously decided to take over the main hall and try to recreate the glory of Absolute Past. Mr Li took me to one side and asked me for advice on how to make Club Absolute more attractive to foreigners. I think he has his eye on the crowds that swarm to Judys Too on a weekend. I looked around and saw three of those reflective balls turning in different corners of the room, and I said: turn them off. Much too seventies. And he listened!! Last night, as the music played and the pretty girls shook their heads from side to side, the shards of light from the disco balls were nowehere to be seen. And the ghost of Saturday Night Fever slept peacefully.
At last! The football is over!! It was quite painful, being a non-soccer person, to watch everyone staring at the green screen night after night. I managed to make it through the whole World Cup without watching the whole of a game, although i saw bits and pieces of various games. if I wanted anyone to win it was Brazil, but it was painful to watch the young boy Ronaldo being built up by the media and all his sponsors, only to see him fail. The pressure!! I know how he feels!!! In my own little way, people see me as being a star, the saviour of Shanghai's nightlife, and I know how difficult it can be to meet the expectations that are built up in people's minds!!
Byeeeee!!!
Entry for July 13, 1998
There seem to be a lot of feminist jokes floating around at the moment.
There's a grain of truth in every joke, and there's more than a few grains
in the jokes my girlfriends have been sending me.
Here are a few lines that I think are particularly relevant to us girls here
in Shanghai. Not an easy place to be a lady. But I don't see too many guys
trying to be gentlemen!!
- Remember you are known by the idiot you accompany.
- So many men - so many reasons not to sleep with any of them.
- Never let your man's mind wander. It's too little to be let out alone.
- Go for younger men. You might as well. They never mature anyway.
- The best way to get a man to do something is to suggest they are
too old for it.
And my favorite:
- When he asks you if he's your first, tell him "you may be, you look,
familiar."
Two or three taxi drivers have recently mentioned to me that their Shanghai
girlfriends or wives don't want to have even one child. Which brings to mind
the following joke:
Once upon a time, a beautiful princess happened upon a frog in a pond. The
frog said to the princess, "I was once a handsome prince until an evil witch
put a spell on me. One kiss from you and I will turn back into a prince and
then we can marry, move into the castle with my mom, and you can prepare my
meals, clean my clothes, bear my children and forever feel happy doing so."
That night, while the princess dined on frog legs, she kept laughing and
saying, "I don't think so."
It's that kind of attitude which is really going to make a difference
to the world's over-population problem.
Byeeeee!!!
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