Interned in Shanghai

I moved onto campus at SHSID yesterday, into a new “dormitory” apartment, and was met at the door by the Chinese building super, “George,” who smiled and watched as I trundled everything up to the third floor in the sweltering Shanghai heat, supervised by my lovely wife and assisted by our three year old, Dario. The school, founded in 1865, is as large as a university campus, and wears its fame proudly, counting 80 government leaders (including the just retired PRC Vice President) and 20 generals among its graduates. I discovered yesterday that this is the site of the 1943-45 Allied civilian internment camp where the Japanese held those foreigners who did not leave in time. It is where “Shanghai Jim,” the noted English science fiction writer J.G.Ballard watched American fighter bombers raid the nearby airfields and later drop precioujs food canisters, as recounted in his autobiography Empire of the Sun, and made flesh by the Hollywood film of the same name. He returned to the camp yesterday by way but of his signature, inscribed in my personal copy of Terminal Beach.

Alone, I slept with the Olympics on TV all night, half-expected to encounter ghosts of long-expired internees, but none came. Ghosts are usually spirits of people who die swiftly and unexpectingly, without realizing it, and who then try to contact the living because they do not know they are dead. Those inmates who expired before liberation slowly wasted away from scanty rations doled out by the Korean guards in Japanese uniform and from the disease caused by such malnutrition, so it was no surprise for them. Happily, most survived and left Shanghai before the second wave, this time Mao and his Red Army, swept in and took the city for good. Perhaps their grandchildren may have returned to the present day city to enjoy the shower of champagne and riches. Today I’ll check in at the office and inquire which buildings, if there are any left, pre-date the war and were witness to the shuffling queues and glinting bayonets.

Fifty? Fifty.

"Turned" fifty on Monday. Actually, in Asia, I'm 51 and my 50th was
last year. Lingling took me to an opulent Roman-style sauna and bath
that has you walking around in PJs, enjoying a dinner buffet and a
Vegas style floor show before you retire to a private room for a bit
of relaxation. You finish off in chaise lounge chairs with a foot massage.
Total for two, 60 dollars American.

Oh what a lovely war!

Used to be, in the old days, nations would
put down their spears, swords, and shields,
call a truce and go off to the Olympic
Games for a week or two of peaceful sport
before heading back to the battlefield.

This year Georgia, a country of swarthy
people in a region next to Turkey called
the Caucausus, waited until most of the
world's leaders were in Beijing and most
of the world was sitting down watching the
Olympic Opening Ceremony to open an offensive
on a Russian protectorate called South
Ossetia. Not a good idea, as they have learned
since last Friday.

To read an irreverent, politically incorrect yet
hilarious, incisive and spot-on account of this
little adventure, run, do not walk, to the lair
of the War Nerd, who continues to broadcast from
the Exile website, the home of a now-banned
English language newspaper in Moscow, Putinland.
Enjoy.

http://tinyurl.com/69cp3f

Back For Good

That was the inscription on a t-shirt in the Shanghai crowd this week and
it summed things up for me all at once. Back for good after ten years of
trying. New job starts on August 20 when I move into a dormitory (at age 50!)
with my fellow teachers. Very, very scary. Must learn to stay schtum. "Bob" will have to come later...much later.

The Olympics are of course using up what little oxygen there is here in the Chinese
atmosphere. At high noon yesterday, President Hu Jintao was televised live receiving
a line, a long line, of world leaders and their wives/female escorts for a photo op before
the welcome luncheon. President Bush and First Lady Laura had to wait their turn after
President Bongo of Gabon. Prime Minister Putin looked grumpy, only because I found out
later that the Republic of Georgia had decided to use the Olympics to start a war on Russia's
south border. The opening ceremony did not disappoint - high tech mass spectacle a la
Cirque de Soleil then the parade of world athletes. I had to explain to my geographically
challenged wife and in-laws where places like the Cayman Islands were and what their
claim to fame was (off-shore banking). Finally the Head Bureaucrat opened the games,
the flame was lit, and the pageant was over.

Shanghai gets a small share of Olympic soccer, but people are waiting for what happens
when the circus is over. Gas prices will go up, there is no doubt, and the Shanghai
stock market continues to tank. Food prices have leveled off after a spike this Spring,
but at least they finished the Carrefour in our neighborhood. Still haven't decided what
I am going to do for my 50th birthday on Aug 18th. An austerity budget managed by
my lovely wife reminds me that the fat days blowing yen in Japan are over forever.