Author Archives: Josephine

The search to find the best of Asia in London

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“You’re cold because your body’s weak” a woman from northern China with heavily pencilled in eyebrows told me as I lay on her massage table.

It was the kind of abuse I’ve missed. It was of course nothing to do with the fact that it was a cold afternoon and for some reason in England Chinese masseuses insist you undress completely rather than wearing a little pair of pyjamas as you do in China.

I quizzed Jianhua Tang, the Shanghainese manager of Dr China at 415 North End Road, Fulham, about this and she responded by saying “human resources cost more in the UK”.

No kidding. It’s why the massages we ex-expats grew accustomed to having regularly in China cost five times more here. And it’s why I am in pursuit of the best quality, best value massage in London, mentioned here.

Lucky for me, Chinese health shops seem to be springing up all over the place tapping into the vanity of the British X Factor generation.

As I sat drinking tea and chatting about Shanghai after my massage, two guys with hoods and baseball caps who looked like they were going to hold up the shop, enquired about a hair growth serum being sold over the counter, which according to the word on the street “really works”.

I sat mystified as they were informed of the regenerative powers of ginger.

What “really worked” about Dr China for me was the authentic verbal abuse, the mushy Mando-pop being played in the massage room and the plastic cup of tea leaves and hot water afterwards.

An hour’s massage is £45. They also offer acupuncture from £28 a session and cupping for £15.

Meanwhile, if you want to feel like you are getting a massage on holiday in Thailand (think Koh Tao rather than Koh Samui) head to Singhra Thai at 391 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich.

I went there on the recommendation of reader EQ. A one-hour massage also costs £45 and similarly no pyjamas are provided.

The mood created by the authentic-smelling oil and the piped in music was only interrupted by the fire alarm outside which beeped intermittently to remind someone to change the batteries.

You get a good kneeing and elbowing for your money and the fake flowers add a thrifty Asian charm.

So the next challenge is to find decent Chinese food in London. Jianhua Tang says there is none and I’m tempted to agree with her.

Any recommendations for where a girl can get a decent mapo dofu?

 

 

 

Battersea toasts ‘eccentric’ Britain for Jubilee party

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Ladies offer the chance to make a toast wearing silly hats; what else?

Bennie Banares, from Vancouver, Canada, writes a Christmas card to the Queen every year.

So, with Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee approaching, she naturally sent the monarch a letter to find out how she could be involved.

Five months later the 63-year-old and a group of 43 friends from Canada found themselves on the banks of the Thames in Battersea Park where the Diamond Jubilee Festival was held.

She said: “Even in my dreams I couldn’t imagine being here for the 60th Diamond [Jubilee].”

The Queen’s secretary had replied to her with information on where to buy tickets.

“I knew everything before the tour operators,” she said.

“It is such a privilege to be here. I always read about fairy tales but this is real.”

Bling queens

The festival was dubbed a chance to celebrate “eccentric British culture”, bringing together artists, designers, chefs and bakers.

There was high demand for tickets and up to 90,000 people attended.

Those who could drag themselves away from the riverside where spaces were saved and camps set up found the chance to dress up as a queen.

They could also watch an attempt to build the tallest cake in Britain, enjoy buns baked by the Women’s Institute, dance to live music, make their own crown or escape to a tranquil tent for some storytelling.

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Latest BBC Feature: Riot-hit Haven Green lives up to its name once more

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Adrian Mills has received a letter of apology from one of the youths who looted his restaurant

On 8 August last year a crowd of about 200 people rampaged through Haven Green, an affluent part of Ealing in west London, vandalising and looting shops and setting cars on fire.

One of the people involved was sentenced on Thursday.

He targeted a Thai restaurant and admitted entering with intent to steal.

Nine months on is Haven Green living up to its name once more?

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My Beijing Olympics working for the Chinese media: Eye exercises, lip-synching and squatter loos

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On top of the world: Josephine at Beijing's 'Bird's Nest' stadium in 2008

I remember thinking on my first day at the newspaper office where I was going to be for the Beijing Olympics, that I never imagined I would encounter the risk of peeing on myself at work.

For there in the new China Daily website office with its break-out zones, potted plants and brightly coloured ergonomic furniture, traditional squatter loos had been installed in the Ladies.

We may have been forging ahead with web pages, text alerts, and online broadcasting at our desks, but in the loos we were only a few porcelain steps up the evolutionary ladder from hitching up our skirts and going by the side of the road, or so it felt.

For the Beijing Games in 2008 I was called up from the Shanghai bureau to live and work at the main office of China’s state-run English national newspaper. I was to help edit stories for the China Daily website. It was a dream gig. Every expat living in China was trying to get themselves to the capital for the big event.

In the tradition of Communist work units, my accommodation was in a block of workers’ flats within the office compound. It took a bit of getting used to bumping into my boss in the lift when I was hungover on a Sunday morning. Three subsidised meals a day were served in the canteen.

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Shanghai state of mind: The battle for total recall

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Shanghai street names are starting to evade my memory

“I can’t remember our address!”, I told my friend in a panic the other day.

 

I had completed a familiar roll call of the Shanghai knowledge in my mind.

 

Everything was present and correct except the address details we used to give taxi drivers for the last apartment block we shared.

 

Like someone with Alzheimer’s in the family I find myself testing my Shanghai memory to check nothing is escaping my recall.

 

My fear is that the day I can’t remember the pin number of my Chinese bank card or my Chinese mobile number, my reality living abroad will have died.

 

If you can’t remember the road junctions of the places you lived, you’ve probably moved onto another juncture in your life, but I’m not ready to forget.

 

Six months after leaving I find myself struggling to remember the names of all my Chinese colleagues and chatting to one in Mandarin last week, the words I used to have at my disposal have been disposed of, mothballed.

 

When my friends tell me of places they’ve been recently I rack my brains. Is Changle Lu near Changde Lu? Did I ever know that at the time?

 

Of course, it worked the other way too. I remember freaking out when I was living  in Shanghai talking about London and couldn’t remember what changes I would need to make to get to Marble Arch on the underground. Bus numbers were familiar friends whose names I had temporarily forgotten.

 

I also felt like a geriatric once when confronted with my first ticket turnstile at the Heathrow underground. Did you take the ticket out before you walked? The difference was I knew I would reclaim my London knowledge one day. My Shanghai knowledge could remain in Lost Property.

 

But just for the record, Zhenning Lu, Dongzhuanbang Lu. Phew.

Latest BBC feature: The Olympics missile base with sun deck, pool and bar

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It has underground parking, 24-hour security, a gym, swimming pool, residents-only bar, water features and a sun deck overlooking the Olympic Park.

And soon it could be home to a Ministry of Defence surface-to-air missile post.

“I wish the media would stop calling it a block of flats,” a suited man says to another as he stands in the sun beside a koi carp-filled pond, surrounded by a growing melee of Army personnel and reporters.

“We don’t pay extortionate service charges and mortgages for it to be called a block of flats. It’s a gated community,” insurance worker Richard Piatt replies when asked what people should be calling it.

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Latest BBC feature: London mayoral candidates battle for branding supremacy

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Boris Johnson’s image has formed a key part of the London race for mayor – from the blue, floppy-haired profile on Back Boris 2012 merchandise to the hairy cartoon character depicted as a thief in Ken Livingstone’s campaign literature.

But is it wise to reduce the election to caricatures, what are the messages behind some of the most distinctive designs and how well are the parties reaching their audience?

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What’s Chinese for Colposcopy?

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When you take a job in China, you don’t think about the day you’ll find your feet in Chinese stirrups. Guest expat blogger, Violet Tame, shares her trip to the gynaecologist in China. 

 

This week I had to go for a follow-up appointment at the OBGYN. I had a couple of pap smears come back irregular so it was time to go under the scope. I arrived a little nervous with the word biopsy ringing in my head. I checked in and sat down next to a middle-aged man coming from work. I wished in a way that I was sitting next to him to chew the fat to at least take my mind off the looming exam. I did not make a move as figured I would definitely put my foot in my mouth and rather than discussing the up and coming US election, I would discuss blood clots and the risk we women take with every birth control pill we take.

I waited and waited and finally was called by the nurse after waiting over 40 minutes. She took my blood pressure and then asked me to sit in another waiting room where I could gaze for 20 minutes at a wall of baby photographs. I sometimes think that the OBGYN offices should have pictures of females with their great accomplishments and inspirational quotes including the strange species of the single independent woman, or just any random person from the non-procreating race. Is it not enough that I do not have anyone besides my OBGYN doing anything down there, I have to be reminded every six months “No, you do not have kids, and you are doing maintenance on an organ that only bleeds”.

 

As I am sitting there staring at the baby pictures with happy couples, thinking about my inactive vagina and fallopian tubes that are still in training I remind myself of past OBGYN appointments where one gynaecologist told me that I had a beautiful womb. This in a strange way is comforting. Then a line swoops in like a stork from the play For Whom the Southern Bell Tolls, “I have a womb, a womb for went, as Elmer Fudd would say”. What do I do with this beautiful womb? Will I ever be able to rent it out for nine months, or will I continue to carry the vacancy sign on my forehead to each dinner, Christmas or OBGYN appointment?

 

A dear friend rang me to check in and I immediately lost it making a puddle of tears on my baby yellow skirt. The nurse called me into the office before the conversation even started. Walking into the appointment I messaged two friends saying that I was having a meltdown and would like someone there when I was done.

 

The doctor had diagrams of women with see through legs so I could see where the microscope would be put. I was warned that it might hurt and given a packet that outlined what I needed to be aware of and activities that I needed to stay away from for the next 24 hours…. A girl could be so lucky to have the option to stay away from one of the three letter words.

 

Through the whole process massive drops were catapulting from my eyes. I was taken through an office to a room with a massive chair with stir-ups. I put on a backless blue gown that brought out my swollen eyes and lay on the table. The doctor was Chinese and so was her assistant. There were four lights above me, which meant I could see the reflection of the different tools she was putting into me. After that the doctor said “I tell you about this later, I have to clean off your cervix first”. Seriously, there has to be a technical term for that, though now I know why they name cars after women: a tune-up is just a different dipstick away from a colposcopy.

 

The exam continued and I was still unsure if I was passing or failing. The doctor and the assistant were speaking to each other in Chinese and all I could pick up was “Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, biopsy. Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, biopsy”…. Now for China claiming to be one of the oldest cultures and Mandarin being a difficult language with an extensive vocabulary, they honestly could not come up with their own word for biopsy? That was the one word that I could have waited to hear until the tune-up was finished and I was sitting respectably in a chair fully clothed on all sides.

 

After who knows how many swabs, metal dipsticks and hearing “Chinese, Chinese Chinese, biopsy. Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, biopsy,” they left me to change and closed a steel sliding door, which I later would not be able to open, and resorted to banging on like a captive mental patient. The doctor explained everything shortly after telling me that she was retiring… Upon leaving the office I found my friends that responded to my distress signal to enjoy a cold four-letter word that thankfully was not on the list of things I could not enjoy post tune-up.