Texans Reunite Redux

15 January 2011

A Friendly reminder on the train

Oddly enough, over the past six years, I've seen more of my sister on foreign soil then at home. When we last parted it was a muggy August morning in the midst of the hubbub of New Delhi. Meredith was bound for the beaches of western India before flying back to Shanghai and Jean and I were making our way south to Mumbai and onward to Sri Lanka.

When my sister and I get together adventures tend to ensue. There was the impromptu waterfall abseiling in Azerbaijan, rambling through eastern Europe and onto Oktoberfest with our brother, Paul, and most recently the bus ride from hell, a bit of paragliding and hanging with the kids from Delhi in India.

Meredith met me at train terminal in Shanghai, Friday afternoon. The 24 hour train ride was restful. The only other occupant in my six bunk compartment was a genial, middle-aged Chinese man who offered me a steady supply of fresh fruit from his cache.

Meredith and I filled each other in on past four months of our lives as we zoomed underneath the streets of Shanghai on the ultra-modern metro system. We've been mostly incommunicado since our parting in India. At one point, a couple of months ago, I sent Meredith the following email:

Subject: Are you alive?

Just wondering...

Love,
Your brother, sister-in-law and parents

Turns out that she's been busy. Real busy. Meredith's day job is a 3^rd grade teacher at an International school in the Shanghai suburbs. This keeps her employed for 40+ hours a week and legally in the country. On the side, she's been exercising her under-utilized artistic and theatrical prowess which anyone familiar with Meredith knows she has in abundance. To this end she's become enmeshed in Shanghai's burgeoning arts scene.

Shanghai is a city of twenty million people and growing. Coming off hosting a World Expo where over 70 million people visited, Shanghai is experiencing an economic boom. With it's growing reputation as a place of opportunity, the city is comparable to New York or Paris of yesteryear. Young, under employed, Chinese from rural areas have been pouring in hoping to make their fortunes. Likewise, Shanghai has attracted foreign nationals from all walks of life. Historically cosmopolitan, an estimated 200,000 of the residential population are expatriates.

In addition to her day job works as a dancer at an early 20^th century themed cabaret called Chinatown. Between the two she's been putting in 80+ hour weeks. Fortunately, school is winding down for Chinese New Year giving her a little breathing room. Arriving at our stop, we alighted from the metro. As I dodged and weaved through the rush hour traffic struggling to keep up with Meredith's brisk gate, she rapidly pointed out landmarks, restaurants and places to find various sundry goods. All of these details I promptly forgot except for a western style bakery that quickly became my favorite place in Shanghai.

Picking up some foodstuffs along the way we cruised over a couple blocks to Meredith's apartment located on the 20^th floor of a high rise building. The balcony of which, had a commanding view of downtown Shanghai. We dropped off my bag and our groceries and picked up Rusty, Meredith's foster dog. Rusty is a blind, half deaf, furry little sausage shaped mutt with skin allergies, a massive under bite and a stubborn streak. He's a rescue dog taken from an abusive home and classified as “unadoptable” so Meredith took him in as his foster owner.

Rusty accompanied to a restaurant around the corner where he waited outside while we had an early dinner. Then it was back to the apartment where I manged to get in a shower before we were off again to Meredith's rehearsal at Chinatown around six. I watched Meredith and her colleagues go over some of their routines. Towards the end of the rehearsal a middle-aged couple wandered in to the empty theater. It was about 8:30 and Chinatown wasn't officially open but no one had been manning the door.

Meredith intercepted them and offered them a seat. “Dis is Russian bar, no?” I heard the bearded man intone. I'd completely forgotten that it was January 14^th , the old Russian new year's eve. The couple ordered drinks and sat down. Chinatown had booked some extra, Russian new years themed entertainment, in the form of a Russian pop singer and several emaciated looking blondes in fur-lined bikinis.

After rehearsal, it was into the dressing room for makeup. The dancers all have stage names. I was sitting back stage with Ginger Knight, Texas Blue, Vivi VaVavoom. I'll let you guess which one was Meredith. I was soon kicked out of the dressing room and made my way out to the front where the crowd had swelled. I noted that there were a lot of buzz cuts amongst the attendees and a lot of vodka.

Here's some video from one of Meredith's acts.