We now know how to find our way around town without much issue: we’ve grown adept at using the subway system and communicating with taxi drivers.  In a town this size it would be ridiculous to claim that we know where everything is, but we’ve grown very familiar with the various neighborhoods around Shanghai, or at the very least how to get to them.

We’ve learned which restaurants we like to frequent, both Chinese and Western, and how to order off a menu printed only in Mandarin.  We’re no longer intimidated by wait-staff who don’t speak English, though it can still be tricky to have to order for a large group.  (It is commonplace in China to order everything “family-style”; usually only one person at a table is given a menu, and that person will order for the entire table.  It is considered an honor to do so, but it can be tricky knowing how many dishes to order for everybody, especially when you’re unfamiliar with the food, or what the group’s tastes are.)

We now know which stores to go to to find particular items (“one-stop shopping” is all but impossible here), and we know which stores to avoid (or at least at what times they should be avoided — we know when certain stores are going to be too crowded and busy, which is my call to avoid them). We’ve also learned which stores have staff who can be counted on to be friendly or at least somewhat polite (something Westerners like me are way more concerned with than the Chinese are), versus stores whose employees are more likely to be unhelpful, or downright rude.  (Note: I will still go to a store where I know the likelihood of running into rude staff is high, I just make sure I’m in the right frame of mind before I go.  For instance, if I’m having a really bad day, I know to avoid the B&Q store in Jinqaio at all costs, as the staff there are usually openly hostile to foreigners and I know the limitations of my own patience at such times.)

Now, you’ll notice I titled this post Fitting In; I purposefully didn’t call it Blending In.  Our white-faced, curly-haired appearance (mine red, Phil’s dirty blond) tells everyone we meet immediately that we weren’t born and raised locally, so we aren’t capable of blending in anywhere in Shanghai.  We both stick out like sore thumbs — plus we talk funny.  But we’ve both learned how to move with a purpose, as though we know what we’re doing, which certainly helps with the fitting-in process.

There is also the fact that our pale visages have become familiar enough, at least in our immediate neighborhood, that we no longer garner the kind of open-mouthed stares we did when we first arrived.  (And when we do get stared at, as still happens sometimes, we’ve developed a thicker skin and are no longer as creeped out by it.)  The grounds staff, security guards and cleaning ladies around our apartment complex have come to know us and almost always greet us enthusiastically with a smile and a hello, as do a lot of our neighbors.

Being able to make even the most basic conversation in Mandarin also helps us feel like we’re fitting in.  I was thoroughly pleased one day recently when the elderly lady behind the counter at our on-site dry cleaners inquired if I was English, and I was able to respond to her that I actually come from America.  My pronunciation is poor enough that it took her a second to understand my reply, but then she gave me a broad grin and two thumbs up and said in English, “Ooohhh…U.S.A.!”  I gave her the thumbs up signal and a big smile in return, and was tickled by the exchange for the rest of the morning.

There is a crowded, filthy and chaotic outdoor “farmer’s market” that springs up daily alongside a narrow underpass not far from where we live.  It is a place where locals go to buy or sell live chickens and rabbits (and have them butchered on the spot after purchase, if they so choose), smoked duck carcasses on strings, slabs of raw beef, pork and chicken parts laid out on tables (all really unsanitary and unsavory-looking to my Western eyes), all manner of fresh fruits and vegetables, plus roasted nuts, yams, and ears of corn.  There are also usually one or two people selling parts for bicycles or scooters, including helmets and rain gear, and sometimes clothing which appears to be hand-sewn.

As it sits in the middle of a route I like to take for long walks, a few times a week I walk on my own through this muddy and bloody marketplace, teeming with people on foot, bicycle, or scooter.   So far I’m the only white person I’ve ever encountered there; though I’m guessing there must be others who pass through, there can’t be many.  But surprisingly, even this exercise adds to my feeling that I’m fitting in.  I walk my purposeful walk through the crowds and muck — it is seriously filthy and muddy — greeting the vendors and shoppers who look my way (some with mouths agape, I’ll admit), maybe not exactly feeling like I belong there, but feeling like I look like I know what I’m doing and where I’m heading (which I do) and so don’t appear to be just some tourist who’s gotten terribly lost.

I guess it is just human nature to want to fit in (which is not necessarily the same as to belong, at least to my way of thinking).  Living in a foreign place, there can be a welcome sense of ease that comes with not always feeling like an outsider…or more accurately, not looking like I feel like an outsider…or better still, looking like I don’t give a damn if I am an outsider!  (Ah, there’s the real rub, eh?!)

Well, here’s to fitting in!