Scissors for sale!

Used scissors for sale! Get yer scissors! Every pair must go!

Trouble with the Feds Part 2

China likes to occasionally twist the thumb they’re keeping us under.

About a month ago, my colleagues and I started getting hassled by street cops AKA Black Cats or ‘Hei Mao’ in Mandarin, so named because they are in place to rid the street of ‘rats’ – mainly illegal sidewalk vendors. We had been deemed ‘rats’ because:

There is a white rectangle painted on the sidewalk. We were supposed to sit inside of it. The local business we patronize frequently had tables a bit too big for this to work out. Here is the rather wide sidewalk and aforementioned tables and our fave Hei Mao…sitting with us….at the tables he wants us to move…hmmm….

So last week the Real Police decided they’d had it with these rebellious shop owners and patrons sitting a tiny bit outside the white rectangle *gasp* and disturbing the peace by occasionally making a pedestrian take a half step to the side during a one hour window perhaps 3 days a week now that the weather is nice, THE NERVE.

As reported to us by a school parent who witnessed the event, a garbage truck arrived along with the police. While people were sitting at the tables, they quite literally ripped the tables and chairs out from under them, tossed them in the truck, and took off.

So now we sit at this table.

And once again the neighborhood is safe…from tables and chairs…

Trouble with the Feds

But before that – one of a zillion acrobatic junk collectors in Shanghai

At our surprise tree lunch place, the street cops have been giving the shop lady a hard time about the placement of tables and chairs on the sidewalk. It is a wide sidewalk with somewhat steady foot traffic, but never to the point of congestion. He made us move about 2 feet to the left. We felt pretty good that the shop lady gave him a bit of a fight about it – a display of loyalty to a handful of expats in the midst of a xenophobic culture. I managed to get this shot of them arguing.

Surprise tree

Today after work we went for a couple bottle beers at a little local import shop around the corner from school. We bring lunch from school or home to this shop, get a soda, and eat at their sidewalk tables regularly when the weather cooperates. Occasionally, we come for the beers. But today is, and this is embarrassing to admit, the first time we noticed the place is built around a tree. Honestly I think we thought it was a fake trunk.

But as you can see, there’s a very real and tall tree growing out of the roof.

The thing is, this is China: this building was put here because they simply wanted to put a building here. And it was probably cheaper and faster to put the walls up than to remove a big tree. Not because it looks hip or ‘green.’

Anywho, carrying on with beer and people watching…

PS The municipal board of education came to our Kindergarten for Big Important Official Inspections yesterday, and this is how work rewarded us for not making them lose face during inspection.

Mangoes!

Ready to hit the metro with a box of mangoes and a $7 bottle of wine I found on sale at the tree shop.