Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mothers day! (i'll skype you later when you're awake)

China seems to have skipped spring this year and gone straight to summer. It is brutally hot here, a little over 30 degrees celcius (about 90 degrees F), with humidity at about 35%. Also, the effects of the air pollution here are much worse when it is hot; the sky is brown with a hint of blue, and every breath you take seems heavier than the last. I'm doing whatever I can to avoid being outside, which right now includes doing research for a paper about the Jewish diaspora communities of Shanghai in the 1930's and 40's (as you can tell, I reallllly do not want to be oustide).

A few notes from the weekend:

This past week I discovered the pirated DVD stand outside of the back gate of my university. I was a little late on this discovery, which may actually be for the best, because almost every night of this week I have bought a movie or TV series to watch instead of doing homework....
As the intellectual property laws in China are not very stringent, street vendors can get away with selling burned copies of movies, computer programs (such as windows), and music. And it's not all old stuff either- they have all of the latest blockbusters months before they hit dvd in the US (I recently watched The Reader and Taken, and i'm thinking about buying Slum dog millionaire). I'm not sure about the legality of bringing the dvd's back into the U.S., but for the time being i'm really enjoying having them.

Dont think i've mentioned this yet - but over the past few weeks I have made a few trips to the Shanghai fabric market to have custom clothes made. It's an incredible and addicting place: A three story building filled with near a hundred shops, and tons of tourists. In each shop, the tailors have gigantic rolls of patterned fabrics, and examples of their work- everything from shirts to cashmere coats. Once you pick a fabric you like and tell the tailor what you want he begins to measure you, while being measured you viciously bargain over the price with one of the tailor's helpers (which are generally cute college aged Chinese girls who speak a little english). The whole experience was a little overwhelming at first, but once I picked up my perfectly customed clothes I was immediately hooked; every time that I have gone back to pick up something, I have ended up buying something else.

To all of my friends who asked me to buy you something there, i'm sorry but it would be near impossible for me to do. There's generally enough confusion between me and the tailors even when i'm having clothes made for myself, sorry!