One of my favorite ways to explore new cities is to define tasks that need to be accomplished. The more random these tasks are, so i discovered, the bigger the chance of having a cool adventure.
Our first task for the day was to try to find some red string. You know these Chinese good-luck knots kinda thing? So we want to make one in the shape of a Chamsa, which is (kind of) a Jewish good-luck kinda thing. I know, we’re disgusting. Anyway, we need red string. We went to the fabric district, which is mostly this three-stories tall building packed with tiny fabric and clothes stores.
Everybody was yelling at me, of course. “Halo! Come in! Look-Look (which is a weird translation for the common Chinese expression "kan-kan”)“. Most would say "scarf!”, which for some reason they seem to think I need one. Some of them would hold in their hand some gloves as they yelled “scarf”, and, when I declined, took a scarf and yelled “gloves!”
We didn’t find any string. However we did find me a really smooth black, Chinese-style jacket, and a nice light jacket for Julia, which they had to make for her. We declared our task to find string as a temporary failure, and we moved on for our next task - finding the Chabad House of Pudong.
Chabad, in case you don’t know, is a movement in Judaism. They are known for having centers all over the world that help travellers and Jewish locals with their religious needs. I have never actually been to one, but I was told by friends who travelled that attending a holiday meal is a memorable experience. It was the last night of Chanuka, so we decided to go. We didn’t know what to expect, so we defined the task as lighting Chanuka candles.
It took us a long time to find the place - a taxi dropped us off pretty far from the address we had, so we walked for a while, and when we finally got to the approximate location we realized that I had the wrong address the whole time. We corrected the address on my phone’s google maps and followed the directions, and when we got there we realized that this time the phone was wrong. We walked even more, and just as I was about to give up - we found it.
It was a house in the middle of a “nice” neighborhood - the entire neighborhood was surrounded with a fence and had a guard at the gate. The door was open, and the Chinese housekeeper let us in. Nobody else was in sight, although we could clearly hear children. After a few minutes of waiting, Julia asked the housekeeper if she could call somebody.
Rabbi Greenberg and his wife were super nice to us. It turns out it wasn’t that kind of a Chabad house. Theirs is more focused on the local Jewish community. Rabbi Greenberg’s brother is running another Chabad house closer to the center of the city, which is more dedicated to helping travellers. Regardless, they sat to talk to us, gave us sufganiot (doughnuts, a traditional food for Chanuka. It’s not all about latkes, you know) and gave me candles to light. Mission accomplished.
We left after a short time because we didn’t want to be in their way as they prepared for dinner, and went on our way to meet Phil.
Phil is colleague of ours from our days in the Media Lab, and is now working in Shanghai as a design technologist for Frog Design. Accompanied by Eva, his German co-worker, he met us near his work and took us to “Mr. X”.
Mr. X is a complex of rooms which you can book. Your party is locked in the room, and in order to get out you must solve a series of puzzles. This was so much fun! The room Phil booked for us was called “The Book of Isaiah”, and had interleaved Jewish and satanic motifs, so I would describe the experience as being ignorantly, harmlessly, and amusingly anti-Semitic. Otherwise, it was fucking awesome. The puzzles were hard and challenging, the execution was very good, and the atomsphere was actually a little scary, which was perfect. Solving the last puzzle (we actually used a hint for that) helped us open a chain that locked a door in a tube in the middle of the room. Inside it was a ladder, and when we climbed it we found ourselves on the builidng’s rooftop - we won!
Good taste is not Mr.X’s strongest point.This, for example, is in the waiting room/bar:
and more research revealed that there used to be another room called “concentration camp”. If you don’t care too much about these things, I strongly advise you go. They are a chain and can be found in several other cities in China.
To celerate our victory, Phil took us to a speakeasy. The elevator drops you in a room that has nothing but stacked bookshelves and a telephone. Eva picked up the phone, talked to someone, and one of the shelves turned out to be a secret door. We went in, had a drink, departed from Eva who had to wake up early, and continued following Phil around.
First, he took us to the Bomb Shelter. A club that is designed as, well, a shelter from bombs. The space is very cool, but was also very empty. We continued to the Apartment, another bar where local girls come to hunt for ex-pat men. We had one drink and left.
Outside, some beggers were trying to get us to give them money. One of them continued to follow us as we walked away. In front of my very eyes, Julia transformed into an old, mean, Chinese woman. "Fan si le!“ (Chinese: annoying me to death) she yelled at the begger, who finally left us alone, and I swear, it took about five whole minutes until Julia’s hair turned back from grey to black.
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