There are lots of foreigners who are very interested in working in China.  Fortunately, the country has opened its doors to outside help coming in, and it is much easier today for foreigners to find jobs than it was when I first got out of college and moved to this side of the world some XX years ago.

One resource that might help is the eChinaCities website.  The jobs classifieds there are broken down by city, so you can search the location you like and see what might be available.  There are always loads of listings for English teachers (of course), but you can find other things as well.  It’s worth having a look, if you are planning to live and work in China.

I’ve made it back to Shanghai, after an August busy with travels in the US.  It was good to be able to catch up with family and friends there, as well as to do some traveling in Alaska and Texas.  It’s good now to be back on this side of the world, catching up with friends in this home, and enjoying the bustling urban life that is Shanghai.

In the spring, I really enjoyed the To the End project that allowed me to see different aspects of the city here.  It seems like a lot of people who read this blog enjoyed that too, judging by the comments I’ve received here, at Facebook, and in person.  So, I am looking at doing a similar project this fall.  I might do a series of walking trips around the city or something like that.  It’s a good season for it, and long walks in Shanghai are always fun.

In the mean time, I’ve been drafting up some more solid notes on the To the End travels I did, with an eye toward compiling them into a short book.  Any input on the notes I made on that project here on this site would be welcome.

It’s good to be in Shanghai after a lengthy absence, and do look for more regular updates here now that I am back.

Lots of people have tried to beat the system at the World Expo, avoiding the long queues by pretending to be handicapped.  I came across some funny pictures of “miracles” — people getting right up out of their wheelchairs, apparently healed, suddenly and completely!

Travel to the end of each line in Shanghai’s Metro system has been fun and enlightening.

One thing the project has reminded me is that Shanghai is a huge city (and growing).  I actually completed the project within a month, making the first trip on March 22, and the last on April 22.  And now here it is getting into July, and I am finally wrapping up the series.  And, this time, it’s not just because I’m long-winded, but because the topic — the city — is that expansive.

This metro map (the same one you see in all the stations, minus the dates) shows the days that I made my trips.

I’ve tried, in each post about the stops I visited, to include a little window into that world.  You can find very little in words, with more pictures than written narrative in each post — something of a departure from my normal style, I guess.

I worked quite hard to find a different way to display the name of each station.  The picture of each station’s name was taken inside the station, or on the outside of its structure.  I’ve included the names from various signs posted in the stations, once using the machine where you buy tickets.  It was fun to try to find enough different ways to post the name, so that each method would be unique to that locale.  I think it does something to add to what I wanted to capture in this whole series — the diversity of this city.

At times, I began to feel the project was quite silly, and that it would never end.  But I am glad I did it, as I saw what I wanted to see — the different sides of Shanghai life.  It has definitely caused me to reflect, and for that alone, it was worth the time and effort.

It might seem a little strange to include a short post on Yishan Road in a series of posts about travel to the end of the various lines in Shanghai’s Metro system, because it is not at the end of any line.  It is right in the middle of the action, a place where three different lines in the Metro system meet.

It is not as busy an interchange as People’s Square, but it does give some feel for what I was contrasting each of the ends to.  And, it works better for giving a window onto my own daily experience of taking the train than some of the other downtown stations because it is not too far from my house, my starting point for most of my journeys to the end of the lines.

Here’s a little look at life right outside Yishan Road station, to give a feel of the contrast it provides for the other stations that have been featured over the past few months.

Travel to the end of Line 9 where it terminates in Songjiang marked the end of my travels along the Shanghai Metro system to explore the outer reaches of this big city.  It was a very fitting way to end the project.

Songjiang is one of the older parts of Shanghai, considerably older than the downtown regions, I think.  Today, it houses another of Shanghai’s many universities, the Shanghai International Studies University, which is actually located one stop before the final station on Line 9.

Across from the station where I stopped was a pretty little garden, which I took a short walk through.

The garden was actually set up to lead the way to the impressive complex that houses the city’s administrative bodies.

It was a very nice way to wrap up my travels to the end of each line on Shanghai’s Metro system.

Travel to the end of Line 7 towards the north takes you, for now, to Shanghai University.  It will eventually be extended, but this is the current terminal station.

The station is new, and the signs inside it are all pretty impressive.  Everything was clean, nice, and efficient.

Outside the station, I enjoyed the walk around Shanghai University.

The campus is quite pretty.  I enjoyed a pleasant little tour inside the grounds, though I didn’t get to wander as far in a I might have liked.

Overall, it was a very pleasant place.  And I really enjoyed seeing some of the other creatures who seemed to be enjoying the spot as much as I was…

Several weeks ago, I was walking on a street in my neighborhood in Shanghai that is neither especially busy nor especially quiet. In front of me were two girls in their late teens, and in front of them a 20-ish guy carrying his briefcase and listening to his mp3 player. A man in his early 40s or so squeezed past the two girls and started unzipping a pocket on the guy’s bag. I was a little more alert than the last time I saw a thief on the road, and shouted, “Hey!”

I hoped to get the attention of the guy about to be robbed, but ended up only attracting a glare from the pickpocket.  He apparently didn’t know who had shouted, and just glared over his shoulder in a general backward direction.

And then promptly turned back to his task.

This time, before I could say anything, one of the girls in front of me voiced a somewhat weaker protest than I had, but it still got the thief’s attention.  He turned back and raised his fist to her and shouted, “What are you ‘hey-hey-hey-ing’ about?!”

The girls stopped, obviously intimidated by his threat.  I stopped beside them, right at the shoulder of the girl nearest me, and just stared at the guy, saying nothing.  He seemed to back off when someone closer to his own age joined in — or perhaps he was just surprised to see a foreigner bother to get involved.  Either way, he lowered his fist and walked away.

I walked on a little further with the girls, telling them that even thought they did the right thing, they should be careful in such situations.

Several days later, I was walking on the same stretch of road and happened to see the would-be thief again.  He was crossing a road — I couldn’t tell if he was just getting started on his day’s “work” or just finishing.  He saw me out of the corner of his eye, then turned toward me, nodded a greeting, and crossed the road.

It seems I’ve made a new friend.

Travel to the end of Line 1 on its northern extreme was almost as interesting as it was long.

I was surprised to find just how far inland Shanghai’s port operates, though I know it is somewhat famous for being further inland than many comparable shipyards.

Other than that, though, the area was just another place where the residential parts of Shanghai are poised to take over.

My favorite part of the station was right outside, where there were numerous stalls selling my favorite roadside delicacy…

The quality of the pancakes wasn’t too impressive, but there was certainly plenty of variety.

Travel to the end of Line 10 on the west side was still only possible along one of its branches when I went there, which was the day the line opened.

The train was not at all crowded, with not even one person joining me along the row where I sat for the whole of 28 stops.  That is very, very rare on any train in Shanghai.  The lack of crowds on the opening day of the new line surprised me.  In Singapore, it would have been unheard of on the day a new train line opened, as everyone tends to flock to the opening of anything, even the most mundane of things, in Singapore.  But then, that probably says more about Singapore than it does anything else.

Even more surprising than the sparse crowds for the bulk of my long journey was the fact that I was the only passenger on the train when we reached Hangzhong Road.  It gave me a feeling of the uncanny to look both ways as the train wound its way into the station and see absolutely no one else.  And, when I arrived, a station attendant quickly went to open the gate at the exit for me.

When I reached the road, I liked the neighborhood that was being built up.  It is just a little beyond where some of my friends used to live, and it was nice to see the residential area coming up out here where I used to see nothing but empty land.

Even though, as you can see in the photos above, the residential buildings are not quite complete in the area, there is already a nice complex for food and entertainment.  It looks like the early birds who move in here won’t have any problem finding a nice spot to eat any time they want.

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