For a time, I was the most prestigious plum critic in the entire world. Hordes of plum-crazed internet users followed my every plumblr dispatch as gospel. A few strokes of my pen would rain untold wealth on any plum monger outstanding enough to receive my praise. But the hard-hitting journalistic world of plum criticism wasn’t always so sunny, for my first and foremost loyalty was always to the practice of ethical, honest plumalism (or plumacism, as etymologists remain divided over the official portmanteau). Oh, how I agonized over negative reviews, fully aware of the devastation I would inflict on unsuspecting Shanghainese plum merchants and their lovely families. It was a heavy weight to bear.
Anyway. The point is I wrote some plum reviews and then after a while I stopped writing plum reviews, because of the immense ethical burden. Here are three dispatches from Jim’s Plums, the world’s first and only plumblr.
Why? Because Plums.
I was drinking a coffee and eating a plum earlier this week, looking out over the vaulting skyline of Lujiazui, and it occurred to me: Plums are divine. They’re tart, tangy and full of character — just like every exceptional woman. (And plum.)
So what is this, you’re wondering aloud beneath the eaves of the magnificent Ningbo train station? This is my plum blog. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a place for me to catalog my descent into crippling despair.
Just kidding! It’s a blog about plums. (And despair.)
So that’s it, folks, just a guy named Jim and his plums. I’ll post my first plum review tomorrow, after I buy and eat my regular Sunday plum. I’ll let you know how it goes.
This Plum Was Like a 40-Degree Day
Today’s plum was a not-bad plum. I’m not going to sugar coat it — who puts sugar on a plum? — but it was a not-bad plum!
This was plum number two of four that I purchased yesterday at the Avocado Lady, a wonderful Shanghai establishment on Wulumumuqi Road that’s always full of white people in yoga outfits. This being the same Avocado Lady who — as though you need reminding, dear avid plum critics of Shanghai! — served me an abysmal, embarrassment of a plum yesterday.
Today I had one of those days that, if you were legally required to compare bad days to a dermatological issue, would best be described as a nagging, irascible rash that no over-the-counter cream could counter. And you know what you need on those days? You need a gosh darn A-grade plum to rain sunshine on your grumpy tush.
So I figured that I was in for it when I went in for plum number two of four from the Avocado Lady’s Sunday plums. I figured it was going to be a lousy, disappointing plum. But you know what? It was not bad!
“This plum?” I asked myself, rhetorically.
“This plum is not bad!” I said in response.
“I have definitely had worse plums,” I went on to say, out loud, much to the befuddlement of my Ayi.*
Now, normally I don’t get that excited about not bad plums, but hey — a not-bad plum on a bad day is a pretty decent plum!
“This plum?” I asked. “I bet this plum was the kind of plum that got B’s in high school mathematics,” I told my Ayi as she shoveled plum pits into a dustpan.
While I told her this, a typhoon continued its approach towards Shanghai. No joke.
“I bet, if I hadn’t eaten it, this plum would have had a nice plum job as a mid-level insurance salesman somewhere, or been some sort of mom-and-pop small business owner with a plump wife named Marge,” I told her.
While I ate my plum I looked up the definition of typhoon, and it turns out it’s just a hurricane!
“Like, maybe this plum would have lived in Ningbo or Des Moines. That kind of place,” I said out loud, while I ate my not-bad plum and sealed its fate as a plum that would never marry, feel love or live in a two bedroom condo in Ningbo.
Come to think of it, it’s not just a hurricane, those being pretty serious and all.
But this plum was not bad, I say!
I’m hoping the typhoon is mild, as far as typhoons go.
This was not a bad plum!
*Ayi - literally auntie - is what people in China call their housekeeper. My Ayi is named Gong and she’s a real sweetheart.
This Plum Was Not As Disappointing As Typhoon Fung-Wong
Plum three of four that I bought on Sunday at the Avocado Lady was the best yet. But you know what? It would have been better if Typhoon Fung-Wong hadn’t turned out to be such a letdown. It barely even rained!
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
“Jim, what do heavy rains late in the growing season mean for the plum harvest?"
Well, the obvious answer is that it’s great for the plum harvest. But that’s not the point I’d like to make.
Classifying a mild typhoon as disappointing - like Fung-Wong, which landed in Shanghai late Monday night and was limping along so pitifully by Tuesday morning that I wanted to take it by the hand and reassure it that it happens to everyone - is a controversial thing to do.
So I just want to clarify my position.
On a personal level, I am disappointed that I didn’t get to eat yesterday’s plum the way plums were meant to be consumed: standing atop a swaying building in nothing but a ripped, translucent poncho as sheets of rain splashed across my exposed, naked buns, hair wild and matted like a savage, plum juice and rainwater running down my chin like some divine cocktail, screaming, crazed like a newborn:
"THIS PLUM IS PRETTY GOOD, FUNG-WONG, PRETTY DARN GOOD,” I would have said triumphantly, laughing maniacally as the storm raged around me. “YOU AIN’T GONNA COME BETWEEN ME AND MY PLUMS, FUNG-WONG. NO FUNG-WONG WAY.”
On a more human level, though, I’m glad no one died during Typhoon Fung-Wong.*
*From the typhoon. Realistically, many people in Shanghai died last night. People are always dying.