Welcome to Shanghai (上海欢迎您 )

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of an eye-opener for me. A new colleague arrived in my office, and it’s made me cast my mind back to the first few weeks of my time here in China.

前几个星期算是让我小开眼界了。一个新同事来了。很多情景让我回想起我刚到中国的那几个星期。

I was super-excited when I arrived in Shanghai 20 months ago – so excited that I totally ignored nearly all of the faults which, to newcomers, are often obvious.

20个月前到上海的时候我超兴奋-由于太激动了以至于忽视了很多对于一个新来的来说很明显的不足。

The air-quality was atrocious (it’s ok, just hold your breath!), the weather was uncomfortable (that’s what aircon’s for!) and the hygiene of some places, like restaurants, leave a lot to be desired (but McDonald’s in Shanghai is so cheap!).

空气质量恶劣（只要屏住呼吸就没问题了！）天气不舒服（那就是为什么要有空调！）还有有些地方的卫生，比如餐厅，还有很大的提高空间（可是麦当劳在上海非常便宜！）

The one thing that was undeniable, however, was the friendliness and welcome of the people. Everywhere I went, I met people who were more than happy to show me around, give me info and generally help me out – which is why I’m so suprised whenever I see people who are clearly NOT friendly – like this girl:

不可否认的一点是人们很友好。我去的所有的地方，我见过的所有的人都很乐意带我转转，给我信息并且帮助我-这也是为什么当我看到那么明显的不友好的人会如此惊讶-比如这个女孩：

What sort of welcome is that for a lonely fresh-off-the-plane expat? I was considering having a word with her and trying to let her know that it’s not polite to be so abrupt with people…until I saw the front…

对于一个孤身来此的外国人这是哪门子的友好？我正想告诉她这样对人不礼貌而且非常鲁莽…直到我看到前面…

…now that’s more like it! Welcome to Shanghai!

…现在才像话！欢迎来上海！

Cool t-shirt YO! (酷体恤！)

When my sister and I used to go on holiday in France, we’d sometimes pass the time by finding funny ‘Frenglish’ t-shirts. They’re the ones which, although they might make some sort of grammatical sense, they just sound weird or funny. Our everlasting favourite was:

以前我跟我姐姐一起去法国度假的时候，我们有时会靠找有趣的‘法式英语体恤’来消磨时光。他们就是会有一定的语法的意义，可是就是听起来很滑稽好玩。我们曾经百笑不厌的最喜欢的一个是：

“If it breaks, I will ride it”

‘如有破浪，我即乘风而去。’

I believe it was a surfing t-shirt (waves breaking, etc), but it conjured so many more images than simply hitting the beach. My latest WTF moment was in the subway the other day:

我想那一定是一件冲浪体恤上的（乘风破浪，等），但是它让你联想到的不仅仅是简单地浪打沙滩。我最近一次被雷到是有天在地铁上：

This one’s for you Sis, any interpretation?

这个是给你的姐姐，有什么释义吗？