Realized this May 1st holiday was the first time I spent it in Shanghai. Made it a point to go out to look-see, and told myself, never again. Though I probably still will come next national holiday.

My macbook may be the one single possession in my life that saw through a month of research, scouting, and waiting. I’ve read up, compared prices, and waited for the best offer before bringing it home. Impulse buy, this is not.

I was hesitant at first, buying  a macbook in Shanghai. Forum users were skeptical too, most suggesting buying from Hong Kong or getting a friend to bring it over from the States.

I gave Shanghai a chance. There are parallel imports, stolen goods, and imitation goods for almost everything here. Parallel imports may suit our purposes better at times, like for phones, because wifi-enabled China phones do not exist. If you want a wifi-enabled phone, you have to either buy a parallel import (usually) from Hong Kong, or a stolen unlocked phone (that used to belong to some unlucky person). Or get yourself or someone to buy it from out of China. Nevertheless, there are genuine stuff in the storerooms in Shanghai, and my macbook was one of them.

China’s Apple site states the selling price of my unibody macbook to be 10,898RMB. Most electronic marts in Shanghai like Yolo obeys this price, while small shops in Xujiahui’s 太平洋数码场offer slightly lower prices, with the lowest being 9,500RMB for a Hong Kong set, with apparent proper paperwork. Best Buy was the best bet, displaying the macbook for 10,298RMB. But there’s more.

At Best Buy (Shanghai), you can buy a 10,000RMB gift card and get 3% rebate, in 3 working days. So they’ll give me, in 3 working days, an extra 300RMB, making a total of 10,300RMB, slightly more than enough for my macbook, when I only need to pay 10,000RMB. But wait, there’s more.

Labour Day holiday promotions (30 Apr - 4 May) throughout the store. Plenty of package deals, plenty of slashed prices, plenty of vouchers to be collected and lucky draw prizes to be won. And guess what? My macbook is going at a discounted rate of 9,999RMB. That’s almost 1,000RMB less than Apple website’s price! But I’m not done yet!

For every 1,000RMB spent during the Labour Day holiday, one will get a 100RMB voucher (Household appliances get 150RMB!) to use before 4 May, only applicable for regular priced items. But the store is crowded, staff are busy, and… customers  can feign ignorance. MissY and I tried our luck and received 900RMB vouchers to spend, thanks to their oversight. Best Buy Shanghai, your staff are not well-trained, and instead of getting pissed at their lacking in knowledge of the products, we decided to use it to our advantage, hope you don’t mind, though it’s too late. Call me cheapo if you wish/it helps.

If you followed me throughout all my calculations, I received extra 301RMB in my gift card, plus 900RMB in cash vouchers. We lugged home my macbook (9,999RMB), an epson printer + scanner (595RMB), a 320GB Hitachi external HDD (499RMB), and a case logic laptop sleeve (158RMB), paying only an extra 51RMB. That makes it a grand total of 10,050RMB in cost for all that we brought home!

I also have 49 coupons for the lucky draw, plus I’ll be receiving a 100RMB cash voucher for my points accumulation at Best Buy soon.

Now, this is my idea of shopping.

Jot this down in your date book!

13 JUNE 2009: Inaugural Gay Pride Day in Shanghai! First in the entire mainland!

(I’m aware that most of my readers are not from Shanghai, but flights are cheap these days, so.)

From Shanghaiist:

Yes, we do! The rumors are true. Shanghai will finally have its first, real Gay Pride day on June13, 2009. While Hong Kong held their inaugural pride parade last year, this summer marks the first time mainland China will have a large-scale Pride event.

Unfortunately, LGBTers and fag hags will not be taking to the streets to celebrate Shanghai’s fabulous gay community. However, there will be an outdoors party hosted at an, as of yet, undisclosed French Concession venue. Think street festival/block party-style Gay Pride - still outrageous, but on private property.

Although it’s a work in process, Shanghai Fag Hag has the inside scoop…Pride week will include a myriad of events like:

• Drag queens (some may even be flying in from the land down under)
• LGBT panel discussions
• Kung fu demonstrations
• BBQ (Meat, meat, and more meat…)
• Gay films
• Literary readings
• Health info
• Sports competitions (Swimming and volleyball)
• LGBT NGO info
• And, of course, copious amounts of alcohol and dancing.

Will fairies fly in from Beijing, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia - or even further off places - for Shanghai Pride? Is this the baby step Shanghai needs before it can come marching out of the closet with an actual parade? Only time will tell! And we’ll be here to drop the knowledge when it comes.

For those who want to help organize, sponsor, or volunteer during Shanghai Pride week, you can join Shanghai LGBT’s yahoo group or email shanghaifaghag (at) gmail.com

In other gay news:

• LC aka ‘the other gay nightclub’ has closed.
• Gay movies are shown every Sunday at Frangipani from 4-6pm.
• Shanghai Gay & Lesbian Singers is a group that has just started up. If you want to join, get in touch with Rainbow League.
• Sadly, we are down to one lesbian bar in a city of 18 million people. Er Ling Ling and 1st on the Bund have both shuttered their doors.

(Full-disclosure: Shanghai Fag Hag is one of the organizers for Shanghai Pride 2009)

Not sure if MissY would be interested though. hmm.

I start work come Monday, holding the title and responsibilities of a  “Junior Content Specialist Editor” at a technology firm.

What a mouthful, and possibly ambiguous, but for the first time in my life, I am going to be an EDITOR. A very different concept at an internet company it may be, but well, as long as it has to do with reading, writing, editing, publishing, I’m happy enough. Plus, it may very well be a stepping stone towards something bigger, I hope. Though I’m not entirely clear what my work tasks are for the moment.

So perhaps the content in this blog may get geekier, or come to a halt. I still have a kickass thesis I need to (start) work on, so wish me luck at time management.

I’m happy to finally get busy though. The past month’s schedule was: Wake up, eat, watch drama, eat, watch drama, eat, watch drama, sleep. With some entire days in bed.(!)

I think back of junior college days when every school day’s schedule was packed with lectures, tutorials, training, meetings, and more training during weekends and public holidays; I guess I’ve taken it really s l o w the past few years at university. V e r y  s l o w.

Paradoxically, productivity is probably going to increase with a more hectic schedule. I look forward to things ahead right now, and the new (geeky) people I will meet (I don’t know why I keep mentioning geeky haha).

For those who know of my earlier dilemma, I gave up the option of interning at Shanghai’s “leading English-language city magazine” for several reasons, but I do hope such an opportunity will arise again, preferably without it being an internship.

I’m so going to fit in in Generation Twit.

So I’ve stopped worrying about melamine in the milk, ice-cream, or chocolate nor the kidney stones that may be at the early stages of development already. Afterall, the problems are going to surface only ten years down the road, right?

I’ve also stopped being too analytical about the colours and textures of the meat I’m eating, just make sure it’s cooked. As for the source of the meat or what type of meat it is, I can’t care too much anymore.

Because my life is immediately in danger when I step out of the dormitory.

I’m putting all my anger for the dormitory administration aside because I’m now actually relieved to know that security is tight here (although this happened, and I think I know the alleged predator, but oh well).

Stories are spreading about how Koreans are being harrassed or attacked by the Uyghurs from Xinjiang, and these people are in the vicinity of Fudan University.  7 Koreans were stabbed and robbed just last week at the Citibank ATM at Wujiaochang (Pentagon Plaza). Another robbed (or/and stabbed) in WALMART (!!!!). A few attacks at Daxue Rd (Chuangzhifang area). A friend’s brother was pushed out of his bicycle and had his bicycle cycled away. Off campus, pigeons are drawn on your house door if only girls live in it, drawn by people who deliver waimai. One pigeon per girl. You can deduce why girls’ houses are selected. Basically walking anywhere around here, day or night, is no longer deemed safe (was it ever?). Don’t know if they are just targeting Koreans or foreigners or asians-mistaken-for-Chinese or just everyone in general.

So if you’re living here please be cautious and alert at all times. Forget about listening to your mp3s or hanging out late at night or trying to save on cab fare by walking.

It’s incidents like these that jolt you.

I guess it’s not an exaggeration when MissY suggested ordering these.

My hands haven’t caressed a paddle in a loooooooooooooong time.

Spent a day at 东方绿舟, with only 40 mins spent dragon boating. Spent the rest of the time playing around like kids, going through mazes, obstacle courses and rather interesting bridges.

The dragon boat race is on 18 October, wish me luck!

At Youyicheng, wujiaochang (or as a teacher said, Pentagon Square)

Putting Singapore’s Wild Wild Wet to shame, Shanghai’s Dino Beach is a water theme park that is actually fun! A bit pricey, a bit far (close to Xin Zhuang metro station), and lousy shower and changing room facilities, but worth the fun! American style theme park, but Chinese way of pricing. We’re actually expected to hang our money in a plastic tube around our neck (given free) in the park so that we can pay for the rent of the tubes for the slides. (@#$%!!!!)

Do you know that SIngapore’s Wild WIld Wet has a slogan “Safety First, Fun Last”? Just thought it’s a bit too uptight. Guards are already everywhere, and seeing such a slogan on a huge poster just makes it feel…so Singapore.

However, the fun ends, and I definitely can’t get used to the public shower facilities (most swimming pools, and a water theme park like this) here:

Shower: no partition/curtain/door whatsoever. Changing area: as above

Dino Beach is only open during summer months though, and we made it for the last day (2 Sep)!

So this blog has been stagnant with the few and far between posts of late, and I can’t promise that won’t change, but it looks like I’ll be having more ME time when I return to Singapore, which should be some time soon. Having more ME time should mean more blog time. As Connie once asked how come there’s no more blogging and to which I replied, “been busy”, her comment lets me know we can relive our bitching times when she visits Singapore: “You have a life?! No way!”. Bitch.

Despite the backdrop of looming exams and entangled relationships, I certainly had a good time with my pals when they visited Shanghai! Although they returned home with a sucky impression of China, I sure hope they learnt more about the environment I live in (wait a minute, these two clauses are linked and there shouldn’t be an “although” hahahaha).

What a stylish way to wait for a cab eh? hahahahaha

Reina and Celine had the opportunity to eat very good shaokao!

They are clearly from SMU. Though the pic turned out freaky haha.

Had to go multiple times to The Bund just for my pals.

And here’s the pictures I spoilt. I love them! hahahah

I look sooooooooo retarded.

Banana is a discotheque/bar in the vicinity of Fudan University, though it looks like most of its patrons are not part of the Fudan community.

When I walked in, I felt very comfortable being out of place, and I thought, “Hey! The Chinese really know how to have fun!”. It was packed with people grooving to the semi-techno music. Then there were firecrackers (!), dancers dressed in futuristic pvc costumes, dancers in qipaos, dancers in leopard bikinis, and a bottle-swirling-fire-eating bartender (whom we managed to get free drinks out of later).

Nice people there too, for they were patient with us two foreigners trying to say the drinks we want into their ears.

But the best part was still managing to get free drinks (I have charm lalalalala), and then crawling into the bar itself after lights on at 3am to fool around with the bartenders woot!

And here’s how I was like at 4:23AM, after several shots and beer and other drinks (Jason, as requested):

I think humans need their vices. It’s what we resort to and it’s what keeps various industries going and making money. These industries are surviving/profiting on our degeneration, but yeah, it’s a mutually dependent relationship.