Just sit back and relax

In honor of the yearly Girl's Spa Getaway I do with the ladies in my family every year around March, I decided it was time to get another massage. This time I opted for a foot massage, after trekking all over downtown and a long night in heels, the day before. I should preface this by saying while the massages are fabulous and the prices unbeatable, the ambiance isn't everything you'd imagine in a spa. It's a cute little building with the slippers and a real toilet, magazines, soothing music and smells and a lounge to relax in. However, people are smoking, you can hear them spitting, the towels covering the chairs are old and the walls a little grungy, the place just looks a little beat up. Honestly, I haven't been in a place here that doesn't look, smell or sound like that though. It's a developing, not yet developed, country, there's a lot of humidity and everything here is done cheap and the materials used are made cheaply. Truly these are minor details when you are getting a massage you will cherish much longer than the actual activity takes!
This was no ordinary foot massage, this was, start to finish, over an hour of divinity. In my own little warm room, soft chair, reading my book I sat with my feet in a barrel of hot tea water while the masseuse worked wonders on my shoulders, neck and back. Then she took my feet out, put a nice scrub on my feet gently caressing in and out of each toe, up the groove of my arch and dipped them each in the water for a warm rinse again. She put warming pads with hot sand on my knees, behind my back and neck and moved on to lotion my feet and legs and work on pressure points in my feet and soothing rubs. I couldn't wipe the smile from my face even during the painful moments. This was the defining moment that I truly understood what my friend Rachel used to always call, "a good hurt". She really worked the knots out of my feet and softened those suckers up. If any of you know my feet, they are not your average girly, soft, gentle feet, they are my native american feet, they are hard and callassed for walking on any surface. Then she moved onto my calves and all the way up each leg, massaging, stretching and popping them from top to bottom.
70 full minutes of strong massage, that is what I call a foot massage and (with a student discount) all for only 55RMB = $8.5. Beleive it!
Who is coming to visit for a spa retreat??? I've got plenty of room at my apartment for guests!
xoxo Lolo in China

The Rat Race

Children bounce on the backs of autobikes, sometimes the front, and friends balance sideways on the backs of bicycles, most holding onto nothing and entrusting in blind faith that their driver will make all the right decisions. We do this everyday when we get in a car, we believe in everyone elses, including our own, competence and skill at driving cautiously and confidently in order to get where we need to go, accident free. Yet, here it is a different story, there are more than just cars. There are big trucks stacked beyond measure with junk, cardboard, bamboo, bags, water jugs, metal barrels, and buses, bikes, autobikes, scooters, wagons stacked high with piping, recyclables, you name it, all driving, only sometimes obeying the rules of the road. There are no seat belts or helmets, no guarantee that the vehicles of all sorts are well maintained, no mirrors or headlights on the hundreds of bicycles in the roadways and frightening methods of securing the materials carried by these transports. Scooters and bikes may be coming the wrong direction down the road squeezing the space you have to ride in even moreso. Admittantly, it scares me sometimes to brave these roads but there is also a thrill to it. When I jump on my bike to go somewhere I know I am taking a risk and there have been moments when I wondered if I would become a statistic but often it's more of an exciting voyage. The thrill seeker in me loves this part of my life here. I've realized that things seem to go alright as long as you move with the crowd and ease into braking, if you have to brake at all. It's really a wonder how it all works, the traffic here, but it flows as long as you move with confidence and are a bit aggressive, but DON'T put on your brakes out of fear or it messes the whole system up, people will move around you if they see you coming, put on your brakes and they don't know WHAT to do.

Really it's no better to be a pedestrian on the sidewalk. There are people fighting for a space on the sidewalk amongst more bikes and scooters, wagons and workmen carrying large obtrusive objects. This is why it is important to have a bell on your bike, in case you need to ride on the sidewalk, but more importantly, as a means of saying "get out of my way" to those people avoiding the chaos on the sidewalk by walking in the street instead. A bell is also a very important bicycle accessory in order to tell other bikes and scooters you're coming and for them not to make any sudden changes in their course of direction. It's a wild world, China, but mysteriously things get done and people get where they need to go.

At times I miss the comfort of getting into my own car, going directly where I want to go, with the heater on and listening to the music I want to hear. But mostly I enjoy the fact that I don't have to deal with a car, maybe it's because I'm used to crappy cars that aren't that comfortable to drive, that worry me they will break down, overheat or have some kind of problem or another. I enjoy traveling with the masses, people watching, doing my part for the environment (kind of, the buses here are pretty big polluters). I feel proud that I can navigate the subway system and find the bus I need from a Chinese sign. I like riding my bike and being in the open air so that I can take in everything I am seeing. Not to mention, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than having my own car! So I've joined the rat race of public transport in Shanghai. No matter where you are, there are people fighting to get somewhere, so it's useless to have road rage. I just float along doing my best to avoid any accidents and to enjoy my journey.
xoxo Lolo in China

Forever Young

I've always been an old soul caught in a young mind frame. Sometimes, I feel wise beyond my years, spiritually rich and in touch with a deep understanding of why it is the way it is, the psychology behind everything. Sometimes, I feel more in tune with children, desperately wishing to be one again, immature, full of dreams and hope and naive in ways. Some days, I feel so fortunate to have had such a full life at a young age, to have experienced so much of the world, raised by a big family, been welcomed into so many different friend's cultures, worked so many different jobs. I feel able to take on the world. I feel capable of whatever I'm put up to. Some days, I feel anxious that I will never figure out a path, that my indecisiveness and ability to do so many things well but nothing excellently will keep me from finding a career I love, from choosing one specific route. Some days I'm scared shitless of taking on something completely new and wonder if I have the capacity to move up in the world. Most days I know I am going to be great in this lifetime and will end up in the place I need to be, maybe through hard work but probably in my case by stumbling upon something on my way.
I am a Pisces and moreover, a dreamer so I generally believe that as long as I continue to be a good person and work hard, I will end up where I want to and should be. Maybe that is my young mind tricking me into optimism in this dark and desolate world? Maybe it is my optimism that will shine light where it is most needed?
Since I do not have a real job I haven't met many people outside of the Fudan students and because I met a lot of the students in Levy's EAP program they are who I know best. Therefore they are usually the people I call to hang out with. However, they are all in their very early 20s. I have a younger sister their age which gives me some point of reference regarding the generational differences between us. This helps but still I feel old and yet they bring out the young in me. It is so unsatisfyingly satisfying. If that makes any sense at all? I'm lapping at the opportunity to be so young and excitable about the simple things, while simultaneously I feel almost burdened by the constant urge to advise from experience but can't help myself from wanting to share too. Of course there are similarities in their EAP program here to mine in Ghana and I am enthralled by them and the differences, so I want to discuss them but I am afraid I will, in turn, isolate myself as the older one.
I am secretly enjoying living vicariously through others' first experience away from all they know so well. It's thrilling to relive studying abroad although it's not my program and I am not studying what they are, I do not have the same routine as they do every day here. I do not live in the dorms with a bunch of new international students experiencing something so foreign all together. I do not share a small room with someone new, go to class with the same people everyday who are in this new experience with me. I have not made a click of friends, I am not giggly about the new boys that I can flirt with, the new prospects that flirt with me. I am not able to call my parents for money to travel all around China or am not living off financial aid (well not completely). I am not going home after to finish school or live at my parent's house for the summer and enjoy friends, family and a part time job. I am, on the other hand, living and working here and now as an adult who already tried what they are doing, I am able to offer words of encouragement and advice and I am someone they can be on the same level with or they can choose to look up to (hopefully not down to). I am grateful to be with a group of younger, vibrant, enthusiastic, learners eager to explore and experiment. Now if only I knew what all these crazy acronyms they use mean, like dtp ("down to plow") which means, want to hook up with, and for the even older crowd, want to make out with. I have Ashley to thank for torturing me with all those NSync posters and Backstreet Boys songs, the Barney and Nickelodeon shows because at least now I am familiar with the pop culture of their youth.

Now maybe I can appreciate China from a younger perspective and I can help advise and even BE advised from a fresher outlook. Part of me being here is enjoying a life with less work and learning more about China, gaining experience living in new lands. This is allowing me to channel my youthful spirit. I fought this feeling at first, searching day in and day out for a job when I arrived and even before I left. Now I realize this is time for me to be young again, work less, explore more. I need a break so I am not so jaded by the reality of working the rest of my life. I need a chance to see things, learn about myself and channel what is next. I needed a reminder that I can be forever young.