talk 647

Shanghai, Shanghai

jtkoo@hotmail.com

Recently, I start to work and live in Shanghai. May Chan writes like a professional. I cannot, and will never be able to. But among the Lighters, I can write as a native “Shanghainese.” I speak fluent Shanghainese like a native but with “old fashioned vocabulary” so I am told. Because I love Shanghai, I can see her blemishes while appreciate her beauties.

Shanghai is very, very crowded. It has 14 million “registered” residents plus 4-6 million or so migrant (like me). In many places, it is more crowed than HK. The daughter of a friend of mine, a U.S. lawyer, is an avid advocator of human rights and was very critical about 1 child policy of China that violated the basic human rights of reproduction. She was in Shanghai last summer for several days. Now pollution is her number one concern. An American friend of mine, after visiting Shanghai, proclaimed that democracy would not work in China at least for the next 10 years. How are you ever going to build a free way in the center of the city when every mile you would need to get millions to consent?

If you have limited personal space in HK, you have none in Shanghai. People in China are very chummy. Often you see young men and women walk in streets hook their arms on others neck. This translates to zero personal space in buses and subways. While broken ribs are no longer common, you can understand the possibility. To avoid getting compressed thinner, I have found a scheme that works reasonably well in HK subways; get on cars with many women passengers; they will leave a space between you. That does not work in Shanghai. If the woman next to you should accuse you of sexual harassment, they will find your DNA on her and vise versa. I read pretty young Shanghainese woman would often swear silently at the man next to her in the subways, except if he were tall, dark and handsome.

Chaos possibly is the best adjectives describe the first impression of the city. The streets are full of cars, bikes, and motorcycles in additional pedestrians. Since everybody tries to get there faster, cuts into each other, gridlock is common, and it can easily take 30 minutes to travel 3 miles. I walked out of a taxi once as I can walk faster than the cab is driving.

Chaos is also at every bus, subway, and train stations. There are no queues. With no personal space, everybody will swarm to through the doors. People will also rush to any available seat as if their life is depending on it. A pregnant woman is the best sedative and will cause an energetic young man sitting to fall in sleep instantly.

Pollution is a problem. In addition to air pollution, second hand smoking, spitting, littering, noise pollution is a something you would need to get used to. People talk loudly to each other or on the cell phones in restaurants and other public places.

I found the most “exciting” part of Shanghai is that everybody is playing Russian roulette challenging you to hit him or vise versa. Traffic laws are for reference only, and do not apply to the bicycles. People often ride bicycles or even motorcycles on the sidewalk. Those battery-operated scooters are the most lethal. They are fast, silent, bigger and heavier than a bicycle. Consequently there were 100,000 traffic deaths last year in China, twice of that of U.S., and Shanghai probably would have a fair portion of this number.

OK, let me talk about positive side of “Paris of the East,” my hometown. Like my mother (or my wife), it does not matter how dose she look, she is the most beautiful.

Shanghai probably is the fastest growing city in the world. Skyscrapers are blossoming like mushrooms or bamboo shoots after a rainstorm. Before the central government decided to cool off the economy, 25% of all the cranes in the world (for building high rises) were in Shanghai. Looking out of hotel window then, you will see more cranes than trees. The New Pudon airport was opened only a few years ago, it is way too small already. You will see the cranes building the airport expansion.

Shanghai has the first and only commercial MagLev (magnetic levitation) train in the world. It “floats,” above the rails without physical contact, and runs from the Pudon Airport to middle of nowhere (still about 20 kilometer from downtown) at the peak speed of 430 km/hour. It is the fastest train in the world, much faster than most propeller airplanes. It is noisier than I thought as it sounds like a regular train with rubber tires. You should try that at least once. It stops running at 5PM (the UA flight from SF lands in Shanghai 7PM).

You will find many magnificent buildings, and houses bear the legacy of colonial days. You can see the old Shanghai Hong Kong Bank (yes, it was called Shanghai Hong Kong Bank then instead of Hong Kong Shanghai Bank now) building, the old Custom office building and etc. lining up on the Bund. You can still see many mansions with beautiful gardens of the “rich and famous” of the past on tree-lined boulevards in British and French concessions. Some of them have been restored as a restaurant, office, or even museums; a lot of them still have 5 or 10 families living in them.

Shanghainese re-embraces the western culture quickly. In the mornings or evenings in the park or even in the streets, you will see people doing social dances with a boombox blaring out waltz or tango music. Higher percentage women wear makeup than HK or Taipei. In addition to supermarkets, shopping malls of Gucci, LV and Armani’s, there are also McDonalds, KFC’s, Starbucks and sidewalk cafes full of people. However due to duties, most imports are still more expensive than that in HK—a declining advantage HK still enjoys before the full implement of WTO.

There are many newsstands and bookstores in Shanghai at street corners and at subway stations. While HK claims most newspapers in a city, Shanghai probably can claim that for the magazines. While you will only find those gossip magazines in HK, you will find many literally ones in addition to many special interest ones for photography, interior decorating, and etc. I enjoy reading the literally ones as they allow me to understand the thinking of people that have separated from me for half a century.

Shanghainese girls are beautiful. I need to say that, as my wife is a Shanghainese. They are not as masculine as the northern girls, is taller, paler, with fuller body than the southern girls. I understand this has created serious social problems both in HK and Taiwan. A young HK woman told me these Shanghainese women are the worst nightmare of HK. This may have contributed to the lowest birthrate in the world (0.94) for HK woman. You would need 2.1 to have zero population growth.

Shanghainese women are also known to be very smart. Nowadays, it is the brain instead of brawn that wins the control. Therefore most of Shanghainese men cook and do the domestic work in home. While these domesticated Shanghainese men often argues loudly in the streets, when fists start to fly, they all will run away. To a Shanghainese man in China, “you are not like a Shanghainese” is a compliment to his manhood.

The cost of living in Shanghai can be very cheap if you can live like a local, and that suited me well. Taxi starts at RMB$10 for the first 3 km, and then charges $2 for every additional km. A bowl of noodles, or wonton soup cost only $3-4 RMNB in a local store. And the all-important beer is only about RMB$3 a can in the supermarkets. A dinner at a quite nice restaurant is about RMB$100-150 or so. This is a city where a typical new college grad makes about RMB$2000 a month. By the way, US$1 is about RMB$8.11.

If you live like a foreigner, or an “expat,” things are still better than in HK. The wonton soup will cost you about RMB$25 in a decent restaurant, and $50 or more in a hotel. At RMB$15, you can go to Starbucks or sidewalk cafes with your notebook to have a cup of American coffee to be seen with the trendy ones, or to watch the girls go by. You can also go to a fancy restaurant where the price of a set dinner starts at RMB$300 or so. The rent is about half or third or even less compared with HK, and the hotel rate is about half, but with larger rooms. Now the phone bill is much more expensive than that of HK. Hotel still charges “service charge” in addition to about US$1 per minute calling U.S. and many hotel block the use of phone cards.

The average GDP per person is about US$5,000 in Shanghai, the possible highest in China; it is low compared with about US$24,000 of HK or US$30,000 of U.S. However, since the economy has been growing at about 15% or so per year for the past several years, people feel rich, are very optimistic and all believe the life will be better next year—far more optimistic than those living in HK or in Silicon Valley.

Female Lighters may be embarrassed to ask, yes, privacy or lack of it is a thing to get use to. While it is much better in Shanghai, many public toilets still have no doors or with doors wide open. It is no longer necessary to carry an umbrella in Shanghai, but I understand sometimes toilets are often just a hole in the ground, and there are no partitions between the stalls. Then often you can see the back of men doing their things when you passing by a men’s room. To think of it, the schools I went to in Shanghai did not have the doors for the men’s room, and probably nobody grow up with any known negative effects because of that.

There is one thing I have not found a solution. To protect those from their weakness in their intellect or judgment, China blocks certain publications and access of websites. Unfortunately that included the Lighters website. I cannot access Lighters website in Shanghai. Then like everything in Shanghai; wait for a few months, it will change. Am I becoming too optimistic?