Chinese Confession - Life Post-Wipha

She’s crafty, that Wipha. I admit that I was a bit skeptical when I was watching her on the weather maps and the predicted path didn’t seem to be lining up with what I was seeing. She ended up unleashing her fury south of Shanghai late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. She must have detected my building anticipation for witnessing a true storm firsthand. Rather than give me even a slight taste of nature’s fury, she decided to rein down upon Fujian, swing to the north over Nanjing, then ditch China to go torment Kim Jong Il for a while. *sigh* My hopes were crushed. I won’t lie though: if I were a typhoon, I would do the same thing. That man has got such a Napoleon complex that I wouldn’t be able to help myself. But I digress…

After landfall, we received no more than half an inch of rain at the most and the winds weren’t too bad either. Well, being in a city this size with so many big buildings, it’s natural for the winds to die down, I suppose. The bulk of the crazy weather that we received was on Tuesday, a full day before Wipha landed. As I mentioned in the blog, the rain was coming down pretty heavily at times, and we probably got close to two inches the entire day. When I decided to head out to the store to get some water and such, I brought my camera along just in case I saw anything interesting. The narrow two-lane street that runs on the north side of our campus, which gets completely jammed even in the most ideal of conditions, had become a soppy, chaotic parking lot. Horns were blaring. Somehow two lanes had turned into three. Cars had pulled over on the sidewalk and parked, most likely to conserve gas. Meanwhile, scooters and bicyclists zipped through the whole contorted mess. Water had filled the streets so that it was 6 inches or deeper in some parts, and it relentlessly continued to pour down upon all of us. I had my trusty umbrella that I purchased from a street vendor for $1.40 – the best $1.40 I’ve spent here so far – but it did little to keep me from getting soaked from the waist down as an occasional gust of wind would send the rain in a completely different direction. It was a blast. Who would have thought that a trek to the supermarket could be so exciting?

Here’s a short video clip I took as I navigated my way through the insanity:

I was actually really impressed with how Shanghai and the other provinces in this part of the country handled things. China is an extremely populous country, but they are quite capable of moving large numbers of people very promptly. Even before the arrival of Wipha, they set to work and relocated about 2 million people in this entire part of the country – a feat that would be far more difficult for the United States, as is clearly illustrated by Katrina. Most of these people moved on Tuesday, and there were shelters set up for them already. Just think of it: 2 million people have to leave their homes to seek shelter, but everything maintained order. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are things that can be learned from China, just like I am learning so much while I’m here. As for the effect of the storm, the last number I heard for the death toll from the typhoon, at least for Shanghai, was six. Everything is pretty much the same. There is a staggering amount of buildings that have been built in the past twenty years, and they are all said to have been built to high standards. My room is on the 9^th floor of a 12-storey building, and it seems quite well built. Even in the wind, it didn’t sway at all. The storm hardly even delayed construction on the 101-storey Shanghai World Financial center. Typhoons, after all, are expected in this area, and the buildings are designed with that in mind.

The rain let up enough Tuesday evening, despite the approaching typhoon, that we all decided to go to the World Cup match between the US and Nigeria. The stadium is a mere 10 minute walk from campus. We fully expected to be completely soaked within five minutes and to keep warm by jumping up and down, screaming our lungs out, and engaging in all kinds of riotous behavior that is appropriate for such an event. Much to our surprise, however, our seats were sheltered by the roof hanging over our head. Those down in the lowest seats, and the actual players of course, were the only ones fully exposed to the elements.

I can now personally attest to the fact that Chinese people are much mellower at sporting events than most other nationalities. I had not bought a ticket before the game, so I ended up in a completely different section, but I had a couple of friends with me. The stadium, which has a capacity of over 25,000, only had 6,000 people in attendance that night. Those of us who did show up were the true die-hards. As our luck would have it, we ended up in the same section as the loudest, most fanatical group of Nigerians. With so many open seats, we moved down as close to the game as we could, and ended up sitting behind a group of Japanese and in front of these Nigerians. The three of us cheering on the US somehow managed to be extremely entertaining for Japanese people perhaps more so than the actual game. As we would commence our spur-of-the-moment three syllable cheers, they would occasionally join in, scream, and share some high fives. At one point a crowd control person came and told us to sit down, which lasted for about five minutes. All this time, of course, there was a huge group of Nigerians jumping, singing, cheering, and waving large banners behind us. Only occasionally did those banners happen to be upside down, not that we would tell them when such was the case. All-in-all it was a fun game, and we didn’t even get too terribly wet in the process.

One strange thing I noted while I was there was the crowd control group they had seated in the same row, forming a ring that wrapped all the way around the field. They all remained there at their seats for the entire match. I could not resist snapping a picture of the sight, just to show how ridiculous it seemed because the crowd was so few in number. For some reason it just makes the word “commie” come to mind.

Now that Wipha has moved on, we are getting excited for our trip down to Shenzhen and Hong Kong. We will spend a couple of days in Shenzhen, where we will also celebrate China’s national holiday on October 1^st. The following day we will head to Hong Kong and spend five spectacular days there. I promise I will take a ridiculously large number of photos. It will be amazing.