Yesterday I saw a Chinese albino on the bus. The hair was dyed black, but the eyebrows were completely white and the skin was very white and a little bit pink. Normally Chinese people have more yellow or light brown skin, so the white skin immediately caught my attention. But Chinese women dream of white skin and therefore use skin whitening cream (also very popular in Japan). Just today I saw a TV advertisement for such a cream. It claimed that the skin is whitened in just 15 minutes. Well, then I ask myself what kind of heavy chemicals are used for this. They showed the women before and after using the cream. Freaky. Honestly I do not want to have the skin color of Michael Jackson or Suzuki Sonoko. When you want to make a Chinese woman a compliment, you say “Your skin is so white.” In former times you would have said: “You gained weight.” (=i.e. “You look healthy and happy”), but this is not longer regarded as very charming. And as a matter of fact, a lot of Chinese women are skinny. Everyday I see many young girls that I would call anorexic.

But talking about the bus. Going by bus is my favorite transportation. There are around 800 bus lines in Shanghai (a rough guess). My best companion is now a little green book that contains information of most of the bus lines and bus stops. If you can read Chinese, going by bus is the cheapest and most interesting way to get around. For instance, if I go from my place to Tongji I pay 20 RMB by cab and only 2 RMB by bus. For going downtown I maybe would be pay 40 RMB by cab, but still 2 RMB by bus. For going to Ikea I would pay around 85 RMB by cab, but 6 RMB by bus plus metro. I always try to find a direct bus line to my destination or only change once. Sitting in the bus for a while I always have enough time to watch the streets and people and taking notes. Only during rush hour, when the buses are packed, it is not so comfortable. Sometimes it is also difficult to find the bus stop. The bus stops close to my home, where I get on and off, if I want to use the lines 59 and 874 are currently not marked as bus stops. I just found out, by watching the people standing at the street.
Normally the fee for the buses is 1 RMB for a bus without air conditioning and 2 RMB for buses with air conditioning. The fee does mostly not depend on for how many stops you take the bus. Only in rare cases you have to pay 3 RMB on the regular bus (airport buses are a different matter).