American exposure

I guess the it started in 1990. I was almost three years old, and my dad was transferred to Shanghai because his company had secured their bid to build the No. 1 metro line. So my dad relocated his family and we left Hong Kong. We lived in a very nice, luxurious service apartment at NanJing Xi Road (that would be similar to say, living in an apartment flat in downtown Manhattan). This service apartment was part of the larger entity of the complex called Shanghai Center, which was literally full of prime lots and apartments for rent all rolled into one (today, it's possible that most cab drivers still refer to the place as 'Portman'). It was built by an American company and, upon its inception, became a center for foreign exports as well as the then small and tight-knit expatriate community. The shopping mall included various restaurants like Tony Roma's, it had stores like Watson's, Starbucks, Chanel, Salvatore Ferragamo, and office spaces for major airline companies. At the center was the Portman Shangri-La, where former President Clinton and President Bush have stayed during their visit to Shanghai. Today, it's replaced by the Ritz-Carlton. Shanghai Center formed a big part of my early childhood. It had an impressive lobby flanked by two gigantic arches (they served as entrance and exits) along a sloping square. There were various elevators leading up and down. It even housed a theatre which was known for bringing shows, back then, the Hong Kong Ballet Troupe, and a convention center. I haven't been to any other apartment which is as impressive as this. On the eighth floor was a wide garden terrace, and here I spent countless hours playing with my friends, roller blading, and attending various dinner functions held by the Management, as well as the annual Easter Egg Hunt.

We lived in Shanghai during the early 90's, when there were not yet as many expatriates living as now (of course - I say this because it's a known fact that Shanghai has transformed dramatically since 1996, the year we left, moving to yet another growing and developing city, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia). Most of the foreign residents stayed at the Shanghai Center, and most of their kids were my age, so it's no wonder that I loved living there. There were many friends. Most, if not all of us, attended Shanghai American School, (which was also one of the few international schools in Shanghai back then). I also grew up with my German childhood friends (family friends; both are dads worked for the same German company), and we both traveled around China together and had dinner together, often at the Hilton, and Tea Garden which, I vividly remembered, had the most delicious looking display table for the Christmas season with gigantic gingerbread houses, a little mini steam engine train and delightful pastries.

It's possible to say that we were living in a pretty much accessible Third World Country (I'm using this anarchic and politically incorrect term for metaphorical purposes) with all the perks and benefits of living an expatriate life, in a cocooned world.

Shanghai American School was my first real exposure to the American life. Most of the staff were Americans. We sang songs, played tag, eni-mini-miny-moe, and other playground games. I made my first paper-mâché. My first grade teacher creatively came up with the idea that we should go on a holiday to Hawaii, so we made passports and suitcases out of construction paper, turned up the heater so that it was warm enough to wear T-shirts indoors. Once, she invited the whole class for a cooking session at her place - we made 'Crocodile Soup'. I listened to the older and taller middle-high school kids sing 'We Will Rock You', stomping at the back and deliberately making it coincide with the famous hump that we had to cross just before we reached our stop home (most of us lived in the same apartment complex, so we all got off at the same place). The other distinctively American school feature was the yearly Scholastic Book Order. I would pore over the thin pages full of colorful prints and blurbs. My Dad helped me order many with audios, science experiment books, etc. I also ordered one or two 'Baby-Sitters Club' series (but one of my teacher told my Dad it was poor reading material, so I never got into it; my second grade teacher, on the other hand, was a 'Boxers Children' fan but I never got into that either).

Every summer and Christmas holidays we went back to Hong Kong. We would also bring back supplies to Shanghai (that's the extent to which its stark and early stages of China's new policy towards the outside world looked), like the 'Laughing Cow' cheese, milk powder (when Wellcome, a supermarket chain from Hong Kong decided to open at Shanghai Center, the entire expat community rejoiced), and toys - lots and lots of boardgames because I always went to Toys "R" Us every time I went back to Hong Kong.

That was pretty much my happy childhood in Shanghai. It's not hard to tell that it's made a deep impression on me. Nor is it hard to tell that I'm sort of raised up in the American system. America has also some of the best universities in the world. I'm finally living in the U.S which was one of my far-fetched experiences that I always wanted, and it's been an amazing journey. Of course, the American expatriate community experiences something, included in their lifestyle, much more different than the average, and provincial, or even metropolitan American in the States.