Feeling lazy, so here are some lists.

First, a list of five things I don’t like about Shanghai:

1) Having to wait three times the length of my actual shower for my shower water to get hot.

2) The fact that no one uses dryers and thus we must hang our clothes out to dry, meaning they get all wrinkled and are still damp after a few days.

3) How cars are allowed to turn into pedestrian walkways while pedestrians are supposed to be crossing.  Can’t get used to large buses charging at me while the light says I still have 10 secs.

4) All the designer stores in all the malls.  It’s really excessive when there’s a Dolce and Gabbana or a Ermenegildo Zegna or a Chanel in every mall on every plaza…sort of conspicuous gross excess my Midwestern self can’t handle.

5) The air quality.  The haze is always there.  Even if it is a sunny day, it settles in without fail by 3 PM and I cannot see the skyscrapers three blocks down from the office window anymore.

Now, a list of five things I might like if I lived in Shanghai:

1) The food.  The sheer abundance of good food is not the only thing; food is so reasonably priced here.  I usually don’t have to pay more than $5 for a decent amount of food, and I have yet to pay anything over $10.

2) Not having to take out $89790817283901782930271093 in loans if I want to go to a decent law school.  I think the most you pay in China is around 30K.

3) A developing legal market where jobs are still fairly abundant for top grads.  Hearing about T-14 grads without jobs makes my future look pretty bleak.

4) The relatively casual workplace dress code.  I work in a skyscraper with corporations and firms on every floor, yet every day in the elevator cute T-shirts and jeans are the predominant attire.

5) Having very affordable taxi prices.  Usually only costs us around 25 kuai (4 dollars or so) to go out to the other side of the river.

 

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