My trip to Shanghai went swimmingly. It kicked off with W3C Tech, which was a thoroughly lovely event.
I gave my talk—The Design Of HTML5—with the help of an excellent interpreter performing consecutive interpretation. It was my first time experiencing that—I had previously experienced simultaneous interpretation in Spain and Japan—and it was quite a good exercise in helping me speak in complete, well-formed sentences (the translation usually occurred at the end of a sentence).
Once my talk was done, I took some questions from the audience and was then showered with good wishes and tea-related gifts. They really made me feel like a rockstar there; I’ve never had so many people want to have their picture taken with me or have me sign their copies of my books—the publishers of the Chinese translations of DOM Scripting and Bulletproof Ajax were also at the conference.
W3C Tech was held on the east side of the river so I spent the first few days in the futuristic surroundings of Pudong. Once the event wrapped up, myself and Jessica moved across to a more central location just off Nanjing road. I quite liked the hustle and bustle, especially once I remembered the cheat code of “bu yao!” to ward off the overly-enthusiastic street merchants. I wish there were something similar for the chuggers here in the UK, but I have the feeling that the literal translation—“do not want!”—will just make me sound like a lolcat.
Anyway, I had a great time in Shanghai, doing touristy things and taking lots of pictures. I particularly enjoyed getting stuck in at street-level exploring the markets, whether it was electronics or food. The fried dumplings—sheng xian bao—were particularly wonderful. I plan to deliver a full report over at Principia Gastronomica.
So long, Shanghai. ‘Till the next time.
