I arrived in Shanghai nearly six years ago during the Chinese New Year holiday. Since my husband's new office was closed during the holidays, we spent the better part of two weeks exploring the city - the very cold, deserted city. (Folks spend Chinese New Year at home indoors. Rightly so, since the "Spring Festival", as Chinese New Year is locally called, falls in the coldest part of the year.) But when we did see locals, out and about at local wet markets buying fresh fish, stocking up on beer at the local Lianhua Supermarket or standing in line for fireworks on the corner, we were impressed with their attire.

Many wore a set of very thick, quilted pajamas. They were usually quite stylish, printed with teddy bears or stripes. They looked warm and comfortable and we could see a sweater or turtleneck poking out of the open collar. The outfit was accompanied by warm weather-proof boots. It was strange - to be sure - but somehow endearing. These folks were strolling about the neighborhood in their jammies, as casual and comfortable as anything.

The longer we lived in Shanghai, the more accustomed to outdoor pajamas we became. My husband even joined, going on a few errands in his flannel jammies and T-shirt (he didn't have a matching set - a real faux pas) in the early morning when we had our first child to the Alldays 24-hour convenience store to pick up yogurt or other odds and ends that were required in those wee hours. As the seasons changed, so did the jammies: lightweight long sleeves for warmer spring days, cooler short sleeve cottons for the summer. We stopped noticing after a few years.

But now recently and sadly, a public campaign to modernize Shanghai in advance of the upcoming World Expo in Shanghai (May-October 2010) has citizen special forces roaming neighborhoods, reminding people that their quaint habit won't serve Shanghai well when all the foreign guests arrive. While not technically against the law, the public campaign is aimed to stop the "embarrassing habit".

What a shame, I say. One of the wonderful things about visiting a foreign country is seeing what locals do and how locals live. Wearing PJs outside is a typical Shanghai custom - one that every foreigner I've ever spoken with about it finds interesting and quaint. Yes, somewhat laughable; but not in a bad way. It's cute. I hate to see Shanghai become just one other city that looks just like any other - McDonald's, 7-Eleven, Starbucks, Gucci, Prada, Pizza Hut. Stand on that street corner and you could be anywhere in the world. Then watch the locals get off the bus and spot the lao ye ye (grandpa) in his fancy jammies off to do an errand. Yes. You are in Shanghai.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture.

The renrou ("ren row", 人肉) or human flesh search engine has been at it again. Today the Shanghai Daily reported that after angry netizens (wangmin or 网民) viewed a video posted of a girl beating up another girl at school, 300 of them descended on the school demanding the girl be punished.

After the video was posted online, angry viewers figured out who the perpetrator was and then posted her personal information including her home address and her father's cell phone number. The crowd dispersed from the school after speaking to the principal. School authorities are looking into the beating "before deciding on punishment".

It's frightening to think what an angry mob could do if a video were doctored or folks target the wrong person in their search for justice. But this cyber posse phenomenon, dubbed in Chinese "the human flesh search engine", can also be used for good purposes. Interested netizens help people find lost relatives and kidnapped children. I posted a story in August about an adopted boy in the US whose adoptive mother used the internet and the help of Chinese netizens to find her son's birth family.

The Chinese saying is 一分钱一分货, "yi fen qian, yi fen huo" (pronounced ee fen chee-ahn, ee fen hoo-oh). This translates literally to one cent gives you one cent's worth of merchandise. Makes sense, right?

There's a whole industry of fake goods in China that lots of visitors to China go wild for when they arrive but there's a healthy local market for them as well. It goes beyond pirated DVDs and fake Gucci bags (those are the ones the tourists buy). Very few locals will spend money on legal copies of software when copies of everything from Microsoft Windows and Adobe Photoshop are available for install at every cybermarket. There are smart phones on the market that look like iPhones, operate like iPhones and smell like iPhones for a fraction of the cost (just don't drop it, it will likely shatter and don't expect and after-sale warranties on fake goods).

As a travel writer, I get asked frequently where to buy the fake goods. The answer is easy to give: every large market in China sells fake products - be it eyeglasses, watches, bags, shoes, clothing or electronics. But I remind visitors that you get what you pay for. People are often surprised when they get home and their watch doesn't work anymore or their sunglasses don't actually offer any UV protection whatsoever. The best example comes from my poor husband who bought a "leather" briefcase at the old Xiangyang Market (Shanghai's famous fake market that's now been closed and moved). To his credit, he needed a new bag for an upcoming business trip. We lived close by the market so it seemed like a quick and easy option. After an important meeting in Frankfurt, he closed the meeting, grabbed his bag and left the room - with just the handle in hand.

You get what you pay for. If you come to China and do some shopping, it will be tempting to sample some of these fake goods. But don't pay too much money for them and don't forget, yi fen qian, yi fen huo.

Perhaps, dear reader, you can help us understand the Chinese fascination with the cow / ox / bull, all of which translate into 牛 (niu). We had the huang niu from a few days ago and today I learned a slang word for "cool". Apparently, if you're cool, especially if you're writing on the web, you use the word niubi for something that is super cool. Niu bi is literally a cow's (female) nether-region. We decided "ox" or "bull" is actually cooler in English, but a bull can't have a bi, so there you have it.

If you're really stupid, you're a shabi - a stupid cow nether-region. If something is just average stupid, it's erbi - a number 2 cow nether-region. If you want to be cool and you're not, in English you're a poser. In Chinese you're a zhuangbi - a pretend cow nether-region.
As with the huang niu, we couldn't come up with an answer as to why the niu has such interesting connotations. The ox is generally thought of as strong, but being born in the year of the ox does not necessarily make you a niuren, an ultra-cool person.

The slang word niubi comes from Beijinghua - the dialect spoken in Beijing. China, as you may know, has thousands of dialects. To a student of Putonghua (mandarin), Shanghaihua is completely unintelligible to me, even after six years of living here. But the pronunciation and meaning of "bi", my teacher pointed out, is universal in most dialects. Therefore the cool?

Moo.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture.