Logic and perception- an authentic experience

On traffic: During the university years, my good friend Jazzy fizz got run over by a push bike twice in as many weeks. I don't believe I have to explain why this is utterly hilarious. Four years later I still feel the familiar rumbles of a gimpish giggle arise within me at the memory of her second frantic phone call, which essentially blamed the crack heads of Hull for her idiotic inability to look before she crosses the road...we've all seen the hedgehog advert, we all know the process, we all, by the age of 21, are able to apply said process to our general lives. Anyway, since moving to the Orient, a whole new meaning has been applied to 'stop, look and listen' and I can say with a pretty insistent certainty that lovely Yaz should NEVER venture to the East. On the way from the airport I was in a minor car accident when a man decided that he didn't quite fancy stopping at that inconvenient moment and would instead stop slightly wedged into the boot of the car that I was in. I sat there for an hour watching police, random men, my driver, their driver, the driver's great aunt Mildred and the shopkeeper around the corner come and fight to inspect the damage. Oh, and to inspect me of course. As my curious sleep deprived face met theirs through the window, I thought, 'wow, so this is China.' Strangely, unexpectedly even, it made me feel incredibly happy.
The traffic in China is mental. You can buy licenses on the black market and red lights, like security checks at the metro stations, appear to be 'only a suggestion.' It's not uncommon to see whole families going on a lovely jaunt all on one moped and there's no telling whether that moped will stay on the road or whether they'll want to jazz things up a bit by cruising along on the pavement. On my first day of work I decided to take the more Chinese route to the centre. My school’s location is much more Chinese that the majority of Shanghai. This is, in my opinion, amazing because after all, I didn't travel half way around the world to live in a European-esq China. As I was walking through the small roads lined with make-shift shops and hole in the wall food places, a mix match of chairs and tables lining the pavements, I had to dodge bikes left right and centre. It took me almost twenty minutes to cross the road and at one point I looked up to see about thirty bikes hurtling towards me, all of this down some small back streets. This evening I was on this same road, eating dinner on the pavement outside one of the makeshift places where you pick your veg and meat and they cook up a delicious feast in front of you. My friend Kat and I were discussing the intrinsic value of edeamame beans when two women drove their bikes full on into each other, their responses being a mere death stare, quick brush down and back on their individually treacherous ways. Kat looked at me, shrugged and said, 'It's China.'

Of faking it- The Chinese are well known for their incredible ability to make a counterfeit for just about everything. They even have fake eggs, a concept which is incredibly complexing to meine thoughtuals. My favourite example of faking it came when we went on a dragon boat race outing to Shanghai's sculpture park. As we approached China's largest man-made lake complete with fake beach, Laura proclaimed, 'what the hell is that? Are those children NAKED??' As we got closer we realised that those naked children were in fact naked statues of children...urrrm (???!!!)...these statues of frolicking infants were accompanied by several other, pretty damn life-like statues doing all kinds of fun, beach-related activities. There was Justin and Debbie chilling with a book. Gloria applying sun tan lotion to Pete and the Chinese sugar babes splashing in 'the waves'. The BEST part was that in the brochure this whole interesting display was explained as being: 'To simulate an authentic beach experience.' God I love China!