The Park Tavern

A couple of weekends ago we were invited to go along with friends that Richard met through work (I had first met them at The Liquid Laundry back in February) to the Brits Abroad Quiz Night at the The Park Tavern in Xujiahui.  Whilst Richard spent the day with the company’s Head of Talent, who had flown in in the morning, I took myself off to Xu Guangxi’s Memorial Garden and the rest of the sites around Xujiahui, with us all meeting up in the evening at The Park Tavern on Hengshan Road in Xujiahui.  Our team of five, which included Jenny who did a valiant job of staying awake after her flight, joined the rather noisy Brits Abroad crowd upstairs of The Tavern for the quiz.   Everyone was very welcoming of us newcomers, to such an extent that I decided to join the organisation the next day, and we settled in for an evening of question answering, beer drinking, pie and lasagne-eating and fund-raising.  Our little team of Brits Adored did surprisingly well – we were actually in the lead at one point, and as usual when I’m ever with Richard for such quizzes we ended up casting our joker for the food round.  (This has back-fired for us in the past when the question-setter was a butcher and decided to ask us about obscure Australian cuts of meat).  Our downfall – but I was later to find out it was our saviour as it meant that we don’t have to compose next year’s quiz – was that we could answer absolutely none of the questions in the last round, which was all about Shanghai.  So here it is:

1. Which play did Noel Coward write while suffering a bout of influenza in Shanghai?  Private Lives
2. The oldest surviving statue of a foreigner in China is in Shanghai.  Who is it a statue of? Alexander Pushkin
3. How many floors does the Jinmao Tower have? 88
4. What is the city flower of Shanghai? The White Yulan or Magnolia Denudata
5. What is the biggest and oldest temple in Shanghai?  The Longhua Temple
6. What is the maximum cruising speed of the Maglev train serving Pudong airport? 436km/h
7. Who was the female star of the 1932 film Shanghai Express? Marlene Dietrich
8. What Shanghai tourist destination stands at 1388 Lujiazui Ring Road? Ocean Aquarium 
9. What Sporting facility is in the basement of the Mercedes Benz Arena? An Ice Rink
10. Yao Ming was born in Shanghai and started his basketball career playing for the Shanghai Sharks.  At the time of his final season, he was the tallest active player in the NBA, at 2.29m (7ft 6in).  What team was he playing for then? Houston Rockets

So there you go, now you know.

I’m not a great joiner of things.  In the past I could have joined clubs to do with my interests such as cycling or gardening clubs, but I haven’t.  I lasted for a year or so in the Grafton Underwood WI 25 years or so ago when it was the only thing you could possibly do to get to know people in the hamlet and we moved after a year, anyway and I’ve not joined any WI since.    I only joined the Oxford Union because my aunt, who thought I needed to learn how to do public speaking, paid for me to do so, little knowing that anybody who was going to stand up in the chamber would have been practising for years at school beforehand. And the exclusivity of the Bullingdon Club and my own college’s equivalent The Myrmidons made me wince (not that I qualified for membership). I like meeting friends in our home town in Kent, but if I had to join something to do it I’m not sure I’d be that comfortable with it.  I suppose it’s the idea that if you join a club it’s marking yourself

Would My Hat Do?

out as being exclusive in some way.  I much prefer to be in a non-exclusive arena when I can talk to people from all walks of life.  I’m much better getting involved in learning how to make silver jewellery, or a creative writing course, learning how to do floral design or running a charity ball or volunteering at the Town Hall and so it was with some trepidation that I joined Brits Abroad, the requirement being that one member of the family hold a British passport, which was OK, but I was not impressed by the Chinese Government’s stipulation that membership is available to foreign passport holders only.

Wedding Shop Opening

Anyway, yesterday it was Ascot Ladies’ Day which gave the ladies in Brits Abroad an excuse to meet up at Kathleen’s Waitan on the north bank of the Suzhou Creek and overlooking the Huangpu River to the skyscrapers of Pudong.  A posh frock and a posh hat were required, neither of which I had really bought out in my three suitcases, but I think I managed to pull something out of the bag on the day.

On my way to the metro I passed the new

The Old Rowing Club and the Union Church

wedding shop in Golden Street that was evidently having its grand opening later in the day.  There were film cameras and a big queue which all seemed rather excessive for just for a small shop in a suburb.

Getting there on the metro I did feel rather daft, so I had to pretend I was doing what many of the Chinese appear to think that the British do all the time :  dressing up and being elegant – Downton Abbey has got a lot to answer for.

Some fancy hats

Anyway I walked along the north shore of the creek, looking across at the Old Rowing Club and the Union Church.  I’d put shoes on rather than strappy sandals as Shanghai had had 200mm of rain in the last 24 hours and I had no idea whether I would be walking through flooded areas, and I’ve done my back in, from washing up of all things.  Our worktop here is really low, the bottom of the sink even lower.  I’ve just measured it.  It’s 62cm off the floor!

The Winning Feathered Fascinator

Arriving at Kathleen’s Waitan I now started to feel not over-dressed, but under-dressed. Ladies with fascinators and posh frocks were climbing out of their cars which their drivers (many ex-pats have drivers) had brought right up to the front of the restaurant building.  Oh well, my hat and floaty dress were bad enough on the metro – I certainly don’t think I could have pulled off some of the headgear that greeted me, on Line 10.  The lady who won the best hat competition wore a fascinator made completely of feathers, with tall tail feathers standing upright. Which I found amusing, as the fascinator has been banned from the Royal Enclosure at Royal Ascot since 2012……

School Founder

But it was all in a good cause raising money for a local Shanghai eco-learning centre for disadvantage children, Willfound, and the Spanish lady who founded it came to tell us all about it.  In the highly competitive Chinese education system children with special educational needs can easily fall behind and this small school was started because she had been fostering such a child and decided that she “had seen potentials in J.J. that not many can see, if left alone he will just become another ‘burden’, but under WILL’s wings, he will become and flourish into a man that matters.”

Seabass and Ratatouille

Given how many there were of us, the lunch was fine.  I had a gourmand salad which had a little too much lettuce and not enough of the citrusy bits and pieces that made it into a gourmand salad, but that didn’t matter and then I had a fillet of seabass on a bed of ratatouille, followed by a slice of chocolate mousse and ice cream.  But it wasn’t really about the food, nor the hats, or the fund-raising, or even the view which was spectacular, even if a little dark at times given the rainy season

Looking South down The Bund

we are in and the amount of water that is falling out of the sky at the moment.  It was all about the people, who were lovely and welcoming and the committee members came over several times to talk to us, to make sure that we were OK, and I being new, was singled out for special attention, which is just the way it should be, but often in these situations, is not.  And over lunch I got chatting to Linda, who sat next me and her two friends Fiona and Hilary who had all arrived in Shanghai at the same time last September, which is a good time to have joined Brits Abroad as it is when they do tours of the local markets.  A lovely bunch of people, kind and generous, who no doubt I shall see much more of over the coming months.

I hope I’m not giving the impression that I’m living the life of Riley everyday out here.  I like to get out and see all that is going on: ex-pat life, the Chinese daily grind, and the Chinese who have done very nicely thank you from Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening program and the sights, sounds and smells of all Shanghai.