Snoop by Sam Gosling

Gosling's 'Snoop' proposes to give an insight into what our personal spaces and possessions say about our personalities. It claims to turn every reader into a "super snooper," someone who is able to grasp the snoopee's nature by simply examining her bedroom. I too, was excited about becoming one and tried to fully master the art of "snooping." Unfortunately, the book only gives you a very limited snip-it of interpreting human psychology. It will take a lot of study and practice to become an expert "snooper."

Basically, Gosling's message is this: no matter how hard you try to camouflage and portray yourself as you wish to be portrayed, our identities are so strong that they will shine through no matter what. It is for this reason that Gosling teaches us not only how to interpret the most obvious signs such as organization but also clues of contrived display; for example, signs of hasty organization does not suggest that the person is conscientious by nature but he is merely trying to appear to be.

It is true that snooping only gives a relatively provincial knowledge of a person's characteristics. Nevertheless, it is still quite entertaining putting it into action and trying to determine the snoopee's openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness based purely on observation.

Shanghai Day 3 (Sunday, August 1)

We set out to explore about the city on our last full day of the trip. After breakfast at the hotel, we took a taxi to Longhua Temple. It is one of the most renowned Buddhist temples in China and the size and magnificence of its Buddhist sculptures clearly spoke for its reputation. I was dazzled by the size and colors of glittering golden sculptures: I don't think I ever saw that much gold assembled in one place. It was also interesting to see so many devout Buddhists visit the temple on the weekend and bow in front of the sculptures for many minutes.

Our next destination was an area know as the former French Concession, an area that was formerly occupied by the French. We arrived at our destination, expecting to see a street full of exotic Western stores and architecture. Surprisingly, there was one police office that used to be used by the French that was now being used by the Chinese police. When we asked one passerby, she told us that the building itself is often referred to as the 'French Concession.' Whilst wondering why French Concession was one of the top things to see in Shanghai, I also felt that I should have done more research on tourists attractions in Shanghai.

While walking down the street of the renowned "French Concession," we ran into a police officer and asked him if there was any famous tourist attraction nearby. He pointed us to the former residences of Zhou Enlai and Sun Yatsen. The former residence of Zhou also served as a meeting place for the CPC and a lookout for KMT spies. Sun's residence served as a memorial for Sun's political contributions to Chinese communism. The memorial was filled with the highest words of acclamation by China's former and present political leaders including Mao. Both sites were not exactly museums containing historical record but rather memorials dedicated to the respective historical figures, with subtle propaganda messages. What really surprised me was the security at both places. Every corner of the exhibitions was guarded by a police officer, scrutinizing each visitor's demeanor and making sure that we were not desecrating anything displayed there.

After some revision of Chinese history at French Concession, we headed over to Yuyuan and Old Shanghai streets. It was an old street filled with small stalls and stores, selling miscellaneous handicrafts ranging from paintings to teapots. We stumbled upon one unique shop selling matchboxes and fabric patches with Chinese propaganda posters painted on them. They were all so fascinating! (although I relied on Amanda's dad's translation) I even found a package of ten matchboxes with North Korean propaganda posters painted on them. I couldn't resist - I just had to buy them! After zooming through the shops on one side of the street, we went to Mao-jia-fandian (Mao family's restaurant) for lunch. I wasn't very convinced by the whole Mao family's marketing, but nevertheless, the restaurant had pictures of Mao on the walls. Over the course of the trip, I was constantly fascinated by the Chinese people's adoration of Mao. He does not only serve as a political leader figure, but his almost god-like presence transcends all areas. He appears on every single Chinese paper note, used as a friendly marketing figure and is still spoken very high of by modern Chinese people as the great "Chairman Mao."

When we walked across Yuyuan (aka Yu Garden), we reached the Bund. The Bund is a street of European-style buildings along the river. The buildings are now occupied by foreign banks and companies, but it wasn't hard to imagine what the Bund would have been like in the old days when the street was less busy with people and civilization. The Bund quickly became my favorite spot in Shanghai because you can also look out to the river and see the other side where the financial center is located. The sight was amazing: the co-existence of the old and the new had a very curious charm that I was not able to get anywhere else.

After enjoying the view of the river for a while, we decided to take a underwater cable car to the other side of the river. Although the cable car was kind of pathetic, the sight laid in front of me on the other side of me made me forget all about the horrible ride. The Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower was absolutely beautiful and the high-rises spoke directly of Shanghai's renown as Asia's emerging financial hub. When we got back to the other side of the river we decided to take a quick look at Nanjinglu (aka Nanjing Road), which was a shopping alley with lots of modern shops built inside old architecture. It was an extremely crowded street with both native and international tourists jumbled together; not to mention that everything sold there was ridiculously over-priced!

When it started getting darker at around 8 pm, we realized that everyone was exiting Nanjinglu to get to the Bund. It was almost like a mass exodus! There was more violent and disorganized pushing and shoving involved, of course. However, when we got to the Bund and the riverside, we realized that the trouble was definitely worth it. The skyline was absolutely mind-blowing and we spent a good half an hour admiring the stunning view.

I was really glad that the finale of this short trip turned out also to be the highlight. Despite the scorching summer heat and slightly coarse manner of the native tourists, Shanghai is a beautiful city without doubt. I would not hesitate to visit Shanghai again if I had a chance. It is a cultural, financial and technological hub of China, and there is so much to learn about the local culture. The food is great - but then again, I wasn't very adventurous with my choice of local cuisine, which is one thing that I wish I had done while traveling in Shanghai!

Shanghai Day 2 (Saturday, July 31)

We got up at 7:30 am and headed over to the Expo site at around 8:00 am. Confident that we allowed ourselves plenty of time to purchase the ticket, we planned to get in as soon as the gate opened at 9. However we started to see crowds of tourists from the entrance and people bunching at the ticket booth, pushing in to purchase tickets. Although we were taken aback by the unexpectedly large number of people at the entrance, we were still confident that we could make it to the front of the queue into the Expo. However, the sight we saw spoke otherwise....

After two hours of standing in line, being pushed and shoved by angry, impatient tourists, we finally made it through the gate, into the Expo. Our first destination this morning was the Taiwan Pavilion, because in order to get into this exhibition, you had to first wait in line to get a fast pass, and then wait again to enter the Pavilion. However, despite the fact that we headed over straight to the Taiwanese Pavilion, the passes were all taken and so we had to give up.

After the disappointment at the Taiwanese Pavilion, Amanda headed over to New Zealand again to take some photographs, whereas I decided to check out Singapore. It took me an hour of waiting to finally make my way into the Pavilion. Fortunately, the exhibition did not disappoint me and I was able to see a wide range of cultural, technological and social aspects of living in Singapore. Because I have always taken some interest in Singapore as one of the biggest financial hubs in Asia, I was fascinated by both the cultural displays as well as the dazzling presentation of Singapore's high-tech, modern life style.

Amanda and I met up at noon and headed over to the Africa Joint Pavilion for lunch, for what turned out to be the highlight of my day. Except for a few bigger African nations such as Egypt and South Africa, the majority of the African Nations were grouped together in the Joint Pavilion. Instantly I headed over to Kenya and saw their exhibition, which was rather lacking in contents. Nevertheless, the large building contained not only cultural and historical displays but also an African bazaar. I managed to bargain with a Kenyan man and purchased a traditional woodcraft sculpture for Y 70, which is equivalent to about US$10. Amanda and I also purchased matching bracelets at the Guinean store, and Amanda managed to bring the price down from Y 40 to Y 20 by conversing with the natives in French!

We then took the ferry across Huangpu River to the other side of the Expo site, where theme Pavilions and Entertainment Hall was located. We first watched the Shaolin Warriors' performance and then walked for about 15 minutes in the scorching sun (the temperature was 39 degrees celsius) to get to the Future Pavilion (which turned out to be a rather sad attempt at amassing a whole bunch of futuristic technological stuff, while at the same time, trying to throw in a few eco-friendly phrases here and there just to keep up with the whole global green boom).

To catch the ferry back to the main part of the Expo park, we had to - yet again - wait in line for about about hour. By then, we had grown more accustomed to waiting and high population density and even managed to find a source of laughter amongst the crowd of people shoving us forward in a stationary and endless queue.

After a light dinner, we took a long walk across Sections A, B and C to zoom through all the interesting architecture and finally reached Egypt and South African Pavilions, the two pavilions with relatively shorter queues. Egypt had a lot of the same old mundane stuff: the Pyramind, Sphinx etc., whereas South Africa showed a various aspects about the country, starting with the World Cup at the entrance to South African art, wine and finally its modern technology. Lastly, we walked over to the Spanish Pavilion to see the famous "Big Baby," but by the time we got there, it was already 8:30pm and they were not letting anymore people. Sadly we had to call it a day and conclude our exploration of Shanghai World Expo.

Shanghai Day 1 (Friday, July 30)

Expo Day 1

I left home to catch an 11:00 am flight at the Gimpo Airport. Having given myself plenty of time to get lost on the way, I actually got there almost two hours earlier than I had planned. I killed some time in the airport lounge and then got on the plane, half excited and half nervous about traveling to China for the first time.

It was a very short 100 minute flight. When I arrived at the airport, I was slightly disappointed because the airport was very shabby and I was unable to find a telecom company where I could rent a cellphone during my stay in China. I was supposed to contact my friend, Amanda, upon arrival but having no means to contact her, I decided to just grab a taxi and get myself to the hotel.

Because I had told the taxi driver my destination in Chinese, he first thought I was Chinese. The taxi driver was a very friendly man who, even after discovering that I wasn't fluent at all in Chinese, wanted to strike a conversation with me over the next hour: the distance from the airport to the hotel is about a 20 minute ride but it took us an hour in the awful Shanghai traffic that day. His questions ranged from "where did you learn Chinese?" to "What is the population of Seoul?" He also wanted to know how much the plane ticket from Seoul to Shanghai cost, as well as my dad's occupation! Whilst this was going on, I was trying to absorb the scenes in urban Shanghai, with its long-stretched bridges and high-rise buildings that clearly indicate that the city had gone through a lot of modernization. After an hour of intense listening and multiple "tingbudong(I don't understand)s," we finally arrived at the hotel at around 2:15pm, when I was scheduled to meet Amanda in front of the South Korean Pavilion at 2:30pm.

Pressed for time, I hurriedly entered the hotel to check-in. After 10 minutes of explaining in English and subsequent repetition of the whole lot of what I had said already, the ladies at the front desk finally comprehended what I had to say and gave me the key to my room. After dropping off my belongings in the room, I darted outside the hotel to quickly grab a cab to the Expo. After some delay, I managed to find the ticket booths, lined up to purchase a ticket. I stood behind a group of Chinese people, who seemed like a family. However as time passed, the family group seemed to be growing. It was about another 10 minutes of standing and patiently waiting in line that I realized that those people were not traveling together. They were just piling on top of/pushing in between each other, fighting to get to the ticket booth first. It dawned on me that this was an important survival skill in China, so I quickly picked up the same behavior from the natives. The next moment, I was pushing and shoving in a great jumble of people, yelling out to the person inside the booth, "CAN I PLEASE GET A SINGLE DAY PASS TO THE EXPO??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I purchased the ticket and walked away from the ticket booth triumphantly.

Because I didn't have a watch or a cellphone, there was no way for me to figure out time. All I knew was that it was already way past 2:30pm by then, so I ran toward where I thought the S.Korean Pavilion might be. The Pavilion was nowhere to be found, and I was duly frustrated with my lack of orientation skill. I then spotted an Expo volunteer and asked him in English, "Excuse me, where is the S.Korean Pavilion?" He gave me a blank look, an indication that he does not understand English. I asked him the same question in Chinese, only to receive a very complicated direction in Chinese. Confused and frustrated, I went into an information center, asked another volunteer who could speak English and managed to find my way to the Pavilion.

Amanda and I were to meet in front of the Pavilion. When I arrived at the Pavilion, I almost broke out in tears because there was a very very long line of people trying to enter the Pavilion, surrounding the Pavilion structure, and there was no 'front' to it as such. So I walked around the gigantic structure for the next few minutes. Half moaning and half weeping, and at the same time, trying to plan my next move, if I were to never find Amanda.



It was exactly at 3:30pm, an hour later, that Amanda and I were finally united. Both of us were exhausted and dehydrated after wandering around the Expo ground frantically for almost an hour. Once we each got a bottle of water and energized ourselves, we realized that we didn't have much time to explore the Expo because they start closing the Pavilions at 9:00 pm. We quickly headed over to the Vietnam, Mongolia, Iran and North Korea Pavilions and checked out the wealth of cultural displays, as well as some ridiculous Chinglish signs: there was one that read "Polite Language and No Noising." In the North Korean pavilion, we were more focused on pointing out the propaganda on display and marveling at the North Korean presenters on site. We saw real, live North Koreans!!!!! How cool is that.

We then followed a crowd of people into the China Pavilion. The pavilion was divided into the Chinese provinces and each section had different culture and atmosphere. We took a quick zoom through the pavilion, slightly unimpressed to be honest, until we later found out that we were supposed to first wait in line to receive a fast pass to the pavilion, and then wait in line again, with the pass, to enter the pavilion. It turned out that China Pavilion was one of the most popular exhibitions at the Expo and that other people had waited for hours and hours to get in!

After grabbing dinner at the Chinese food court, where they offered a wide range of Chinese cuisine from various regions, we headed over to the New Zealand Pavilion, and then Cambodia. I thought New Zealand put on a great display of the daily life of the Kiwis and the technology used in the exhibition was impressive. However, when we entered the Australia Pavilion and saw the huge rising, rotating screens and the exaggerated caricature displays, I was absolutely blown away by it. I would hate to admit, but Australia did definitely beat New Zealand big time in Shanghai....

We walked over to the C section (FYI: A = Asia, B = Asia/Pacific, C = Europe) to see Denmark and France. Both Pavilions had neat, modern architecture and displays. However, there was nothing characteristically Danish or French in both pavilions - other than the Little Mermaid at the entrance of the Denmark Pavilion and a wall painted with Louis Vuitton logos in France Pavilion.

By the time we finished the tour of France, our feet were in great pain. All we wanted to do was to quickly get back to the hotel and have a nice shower, after having been exposed to sweltering Shanghai heat for seven hours.