The week in review

I've been so busy catching up from my Xinjiang trip and preparing for my two-week vacay (!!!), but here are a few interesting bits that happened between the work overload:

This week one of my co-workers was writing something and posed a question to the room: What was the name of the occupational Japanese government in Shanghai? I turned and ask my assistant (who is a Shanghai native and majored in history). She shook her head in disbelief. As if I'd just ask what the name of the occupational Martian government was, so I sent her a link to the wikipedia page. She was blown away, had never learned about in school.

We're babysitting my boss' rescue dog. This is a trial weekend (since I'm allergic to dogs). But it's gone well so far and we're thinking we'll keep her on while he returns to Australia for five weeks. I always see plenty of Chinese people out walking their dogs, although usually they're teeny little rat dogs or big fluffy white purebreds, not scrappy mutts. Nevertheless, I was surprised when I took her out for a walk the first time. Some people would bend over, coo, say something nice, and then roughly an equal number of people would grumble and/or recoil in fear, making a big deal about giving her a wide berth. She's very calm and sweet, and she's not very big, so it's odd.

On Friday night I went to a party on the Bund and this guy came up to me and told me I was the Russian lady in some exercise video. I said, "No, sorry, that's not me." And then he got really indignant and maybe a little angry, "Yes you are!"

And that's all the bizarre China shenanigans for this week...