When in Shanghai

Current location: An amazing apartment in the PuDong area of Shanghai, China.

PuDong is a very different place from where we were for the fencing tournament. This place I am staying in is a newer area that was developed about fifteen years ago. Apparently it was a bunch of ranches with oranges before it changed into a very upscale part of town-think the upper east side of Manhattan. On one side of the river the streets are narrow, crowded, and dirty. On the PuDong side the roads are bigger, everyone is dressed much differently, and everything is so clean and new. Many Chinese and other foreign nationals have moved into the area including my Aunt Cecilia.

The amazing thing is my Aunt Cecilia is Chinese but she isn’t related to my mother. She is the reason why my mother and my father ended up together. Aunt Cecilia and my mother worked together as nurses in a Berlin hospital in the sixties. My Aunt was dating my uncle and then she introduced my Mother to my Uncle’s brother-my father, and the rest is history. It’s a pretty amazing family tree.

The apartment that she has in PuDong is short of amazing. Actually, it isn’t short of amazing, it’s pretty lush for sure. She designed every inch of the apartment including the “Japanese room” complete with a table that winds up out of the floor for Mah Jong.You have to see it to believe it.

The best part of staying in this apartment is my Aunt. This woman is a tour de force. She is nearly seventy and there are no signs of slowing down. In fact, there are no signs of her being seventy, a lot of the team thought she was in her fifties.

My Aunt has impressed the entire fencing team by taking us to various markets here and bargaining her way to $10 designer jean knock-offs. At the beginning of the shopping day she said, “you choose what you want and I will do the rest” and that she did. I can’t believe it but she was such a good bargainer that it took four people at the store just to bargain with her and not only that she has a reputation at the market for being a “clever bargainer”. I couldn’t believe it. I think she brought some of these store owners to tears. One guy didn’t even try to bargain with her because he saw what she did in the store next door to him.

My aunt commands an audience and people stop and listen to her everywhere we go. She said she has always been really good with groups and for some reason people listen to her. I think there is definitely a charismatic way about her or perhaps it’s the face she gives when she tells you to do something-the face is something like a cross between a motherly concern and a I’m-going-to-make-you-do-this-no-matter-what face.

So, what does this have to do with fencing and why am I putting this on the blog? I think it is truly significant that she has dropped into my life at this time. I haven’t seen her in many many years and I think I can count on one hand the number of times we have seen each other in my life.

I need to inject some of her take no prisoners, take charge and go for it attitude when I fence. Last weekend in Shanghai I did really well the first day and during the second day of competition things didn’t go as well. For some reason I was nervous. I knew I could beat the French girl I was paired up with but I was still nervous and lost the bout by one touch.

I can’t see my Aunt Cecilia ever getting nervous in the face of competition. She faces things head on. She said to me in a cab ride home once that in her life she always decides what she wants and never asks questions. I think that’s an amazing attitude to have. She never goes with the flow and always goes her own way and it works because she trusts herself. I think that is the bottom line lesson I am supposed to learn from her this week-no matter what you have to trust yourself. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks or does, she does what she wants and never asks whether it’s the “right thing to do”. She absolutely has unwavering faith in herself.

I am certainly glad that I am catching up with her in Shanghai and that I have the opportunity to stay at her amazing place in PuDong, before heading off to Japan on Thursday. I wish all of you had an Aunt Cecilia in your life.