Coffeeshops and Art Galleries: Tianzifang

The area of Shanghai known as Tianzifang, off of Taikang Lu, is several of my friends' favorite place in Shanghai. It was described to me as a neighborhood containing unique art galleries, shops, and little cafes where you can sit for an entire afternoon doing work. Sounds like my kind of place, no? Therefore, I decided that it would be the first place in Shanghai I'd check out on my first day off of work since arriving here.

Two Saturdays ago, I set off for Tianzifang. It involved taking one bus and three metros and a little over an hour of time. In New York terms this is pretty ridiculous (how far can you go in an hour?) but this is pretty much the way things go in Shanghai. Fortunately I got out at the right metro stop and immediately saw this sign:

Success! Right across the street was an entrance:

Tianzifang turned out to be a tourist-happy collection of small little lanes tucked in between two larger and more modern streets. There are art galleries and souvenir shops and lots and lots of bars, cafes, and restaurants.

After wandering for a bit amongst the waiguoren with their fanny packs, white sneakers, and DSLRs slung around their necks (tourists do look the same anywhere in the world), I had lunch at a cafe that cost slightly more than I had wanted it to, which solidified my suspicions of Tianzifang as a tourist site catering to foreigners.

Not a big deal. There's bound to be places like that in all the cities in the world. But it did mean that I didn't stay as long as I had thought I would, nor did I buy anything, nor did I have any fun adventures. It's a pretty and quaint little place, but I think I will content myself with imagining it set in a small town full of friendly locals and friends. More to come as I go off in search of Steph-happy places in my new city!

Cover Lust (29)

The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg

(Dial / Jan. 17, 2012)

It's simple and on the chick-litty side, but I think that its simplicity makes it stand out from most other YA covers. It gives me a little sense of vertigo: the model's going down while the words are right side up. Wahhhhh whoaaaaaa!

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

(Knopf / Feb. 14, 2012)

Ohhh, that image. *swoons* The bokeh (sp?) effect in the background, the starkly backlit models... both contrast greatly with the graffiti-style title, a mixture of the stylish with the, well, stylish (in different ways). Plus it's by Cath Crowley, who's an incredible contemporary author, and I have the Aussie version of this book somewhere... so obviously I'm going to recommend the heck out of this book.

The Death Catchers by Jennifer Anne Kogler

(Walker Books / Aug. 16, 2011)

I appreciate an epic fantasy-esque cover with an intricate design focus and a complementarily intricate border. Not only do I think that this cover will probably catch the eyes of Rick Riordan lovers, but I also appreciate the balance in the cover's layerings, from the interesting symbol and title font in the foreground, to the silhouettes in the back.

When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Feb. 28, 2012)

Reminiscent of Lauren Henderson's Scarlet Wakefield series and Carrie Ryan's zombie books, this cover is deceptively simplistic. The muted colors and textures actually make what colors and textures there are in the image stand out all the more, like the flash of red in her hair, or the rocks in all that milky liquid (is it water? It certainly doesn't look like it!). Droooool.

Renegade Magic (The Unlikely Adventures of Kat Stephenson, Book 2) by Stephanie Burgis

(April 3, 2012)

Look at that cover!! Isn't it so fun?? I love the colors, the whimsicalness, the detail of the background. It just brings me back to the good old Disney days. Looking at this cover, and knowing how incredible a writer Steph is (I loved the first book in the series, Kat, Incorrigible), I know I can expect pure magical adventurous goodness.

Review: Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Tags: YA, small town, sisters

Summary

Chloe knows that her magnetic older sister Ruby would do anything to make sure Chloe is happy. So when Chloe returns to their small Hudson Valley town two years after the tragedy that initially drove her away, everything seems to be as it once was. But it is the very sameness of their lives that makes Chloe suspicious. Ruby also seems to be acting strangely, making unreasonable demands, disregarding everyone’s feelings except the two of theirs. What secrets are Ruby hiding, and how far will she let things go before everything falls apart?

Review

Beautiful prose, a mesmerizing setting, and a mysterious premise are, in the end, not quite enough to make up for the minimal character development and slow-moving plot in this ambitious and convoluted novel. IMAGINARY GIRLS is beautifully written, but the lack of attachment I felt for any of the characters meant that I actually had to struggle to finish this book.

The jacket copy for IMAGINARY GIRLS doesn’t tell you much, and it’s better if you go into the book knowing just the little you know. Nova Ren Suma writes in a languid style similar to Sarah Dessen when she is feeling particularly poignant, meaning that the small-town reservoir-side setting and the weirdness of the situation is well-evoked. IMAGINARY GIRLS is a very atmospheric novel—and even though it’s hard express the significance of the setting, it’s also probably impossible to imagine this story set elsewhere.

The fact that IMAGINARY GIRLS seems to focus more on beautiful prose than character development means that the characters—not the least of which is Chloe, the protagonist/narrator—come off as only vaguely intriguing, their interestingness born more out of the roles they are assigned in the story than they themselves. Chloe in particular is like a spluttering match next to Ruby’s Mag-lite glow—and yet Ruby’s magnetic persona, unfortunately, anchors its credibility in the telling of her magnetism rather than the showing of it. Chloe waxes eloquent for so long on Ruby this, Ruby that, that, “in the flesh,” Ruby is actually not as intriguing as Chloe makes her sound.

Chloe suffers from “everyone is more interesting than me”-itis. In short, Chloe has no personality. She has no defining characteristics besides being the narrator and Ruby’s younger sister, which I suppose is partially the point, but then she doesn’t grow a whit throughout the course of the novel. Why is it all too easy for protagonists in contemporarily set novels to be passive and bland? I really wish authors would catch themselves when they are writing bubbles as main characters: see-through substanceless creatures that threaten to disappear into nothing at the slightest touch.

IMAGINARY GIRLS didn’t work for me primarily because of these reasons, but I know that the majority of other readers have really loved this book, so don’t take my word for it. I wonder, though, if there are or will be other readers out there who had the same problems with this book as I did.

Similar Authors
Sarah Dessen
Jenny Han
Deb Caletti

Cover discussion: In-te-res-tinggg. It's quite a stunning image... but as far as I'm concerned, it wasn't the most representative of the story for me.

Dutton Juvenile / June 14, 2011 / Hardcover / 352pp. / $17.99

Requested for review from publisher/NetGalley.

Getting Around Shanghai--Or, Why You're Only Out of Mortal Danger If You Stay at Home

In a city of 20 million, there's bound to be a teeny tiny bit of traffic congestion on the streets. The roads are a conglomeration of different transportation vehicles: cars, of course; public buses with antenna-like side mirrors that reach down from the roof and thus remind me of antennae; waves of people on scooters (which are mini-motorcycles, or Vespas, I guess) with a silver container strapped on the back that I thought was either the gas tank or a super-sized lunchbox, but is actually just a general carry-all; countless people on rickety cheap bikes (if you have a nice bike, it WILL get stolen); and pedestrians and taxis weaving through them all. It makes a lot of sense to take public transportation or ride something smaller and more nimble in Asian cities, where a whole bunch of people live in the same space and are moving in all different directions.

The super-busy intersection outside my apartment!

But what amuses--and partially terrifies--me is how traffic laws in Shanghai are taken as kind of suggestions instead of, well, laws. It's common to have cars zooming through intersections 5, 7, or even 10 seconds after the light has turned red. Shocking if you're on foot and three steps out onto the road before you see that five cars are bearing down on you. Scooterists in particular are fond of driving the wrong direction in the unofficial two-wheeled vehicle lane.

All these various vehicles and people do an astonishing sort of dance around one another on the streets and even sidewalks. A bus will barrel down a street, taking the place on the road where taxis, bikers, and pedestrians seem to have been just milliseconds before. And then, a few seconds later, the bus will make a seemingly impossible dodge around three taxis and 5 two-wheeled vehicles approaching and weaving through the intersection from all different directions. I'd be impressed at the deft way in which the bus drivers handle their large vehicles and the almost total nonexistence of accidents if I weren't on the bus and being thrown back and forth by its jerky motion.

The intersection near my office (also busy, of course).

The Shanghainese also LOVE to honk. They honk at people before them at intersections who don't get moving approximately a quarter of a second after the light turns green. They honk at drivers in the lane next to them who they think are going to try and merge. They honk at pedestrians crossing the road 20 meters before them. They honk at you if they're trying to turn left and you're crossing the street and technically have the right of way. They honk when other people are honking, which leads to a whole gaggle of honks that go on and on for about 20 seconds.

(Incidentally, as I'm getting used to the metric system here, I'm quite grateful that at least the numeric and time measurement systems are universalized. Can you imagine if time is measured differently depending on which country you go to?)

The other thing about honking is that it can occur at any time of night or day. There is a bit of a lull between 2-5am (thank God), but all bets are off as soon as the sun rises at 5am, which in Shanghai means that the sky gets lighter but you don't typically actually see the sun, due to the perpetual smog. Whenever I'm awakened at 5:30 in the morning by the sound of people blaring their horns outside, I think about how in New York you get fined for honking, and whether or not it'd be possible to institute something similar here.

From what I can see, there is no such thing as "right of way" or "yield" in Shanghai. If you try to yield at every opportunity in which the Western world would consider it appropriate to yield, it'll take you three times as long to get to your destination. So no one yields, and the journey is a little more chaotic and life-threatening than it has to be, and everyone gets to their destinations in the relatively same amount of time.

The JC Mandarin, a high-end hotel, on Nanjing West Road, the street near my office.

Shanghai Centre on Nanjing West Road. Super high-end and classy hotel/shops. Some Hong Kong actor apparently arrived there when I was getting my lunch there the other day.