Not long after we arrived, I wrote a blog post entitled Some Surprising Things.  The time has now come to revisit this theme, although as you’ve probably seen over the past months this is an everyday experience for me and the other non-Chinese that are over here.  I couldn’t possibly tell you about all of the oddities I have seen.  Too much depends on whether my camera is easily accessible and whether it would be appropriate to whisk out a camera/mobile phone and take a shot, as to whether I can remember it to retell it.

So a bit like Cyril Fletcher’s slot on Esther Rantzen’s That’s Life,  15 odd behaviours coming up:

Baby in The Driving Seat

In a land where many parents only have one child, so that that child must be particularly precious – indeed many of the only children are children of only-children The Little Emperors, you would have expected this father to take a little more care of his own baby rather than letting it stand on his lap and steer the car through the streets of the largest city on Earth.  That car was moving (the green pedestrian sign means nothing, remember).

We live in an area of the city on the Western outskirts of central Shanghai.  In London it  would be the equivalent of, say, Hammersmith.  Can you imagine someone owning a goat in Chiswick or Turnham Green and then taking out to feed on

Goat on Guyang Lu

Outside Shanghai Library

foliage that has been cut down from trees along one of the roads leading to the South Circular and tying it to a tree to do so? Thought not.  I was not the only passer-by  taking photos and the owner/minder of the goat was nowhere to be seen.

Fatsia Japonica infill

Meanwhile this turtle was on a leash on the pavement in front of The Shanghai Library just in front of the Metro station.  This is one of the major routes West out of the City – think the Fulham Road here.  I don’t know whether the turtle was a pet out for a constitutional, or whether it was up for sale for somebody’s lunch.  Either way, the man on the other end of the lead shouted at me for taking this picture.

Fatsia japonica plants are all over this city, often planted under trees where they do remarkably well in the shade.  But if the fatsias you had planted were not doing that well, so a patch of bare earth was showing against a wall, would you infill with plastic leaves of the same plant?

Road sweepers

Detritus from an Up-scale Florists

There are many street cleaners in Shanghai and they keep the streets beautifully clean of leaves on a daily basis.  Their broom-heads are made from small spindly twigs of bamboo and I often come across the sweepers sitting down on the kerb making their own broom-heads, as here.  Meanwhile the rest of the population thinks it is OK to just dump their rubbish on the pavements without any thought for anyone who might be using it, or how unsightly it looks.

Tired

If you are tired why not take a nap, no matter if you are the only one in the shop.

Mending cables

If electricity/phone cables at a major road junction need dealing with, you and your mates set to work straight away.  The traffic will weave around you, so there is need to worry about being in the way and you will get the job done in a jiffy.

Water pipes

Trike

While we are talking about services, where the water pipes run above ground they can be got at easily, making the job of any workman much easier.  Just make sure you keep your eyes peeled when you are crossing the pedestrian crossing——– after all the trike rider might not be able to see you.  There IS a rider inside that nest of polystyrene cooler boxes……..and it is moving along the street.

Scooter

Bricks

Got some bricks to move?  No problem.  I’ve got a scooter.

It gets hot in the summer.  Cotton clothes do just the trick.  Now where did I put my pyjamas?

Got some parcels that need delivering?  Never mind just leave them here.  Someone, sometime, someday will come along and sort it out.

Tinkers still take hand-pulled carts of bamboo furniture around

Bamboo & cane furniture for sale

the streets of Shanghai.  They are loaded to the gunnels. Here, just outside our compound, where Richard picks up a taxi every morning, two were unusually seen together.

Abandoned Deck Chairs

If people will move their parked cars of course our deck chairs are going to be left in the middle of the road, whilst we go off and have lunch………….