A breath of Shanghai

The best way I can describe my past weekend in Shanghai is not with an actual description but with the proclamation that I just can't bloody wait to live there.

Rewind to last Thursday, when Caili and I were braving the 100+degree heat to make the trek alongside half a mile of road, construction, and rubble to the local train ticketing office. Blinking away sweat, and thanking higher powers to still have my head on straight after a 15-foot-long pole toted on a worker's shoulder unexpectedly swung my way, I silently cursed China for their lack of an answer to amtrak.com. Hey, at least I was getting exercise. And purging all the toxins out of my body (read: sweating, a lot). The ticket office was an exposed store-front lined with indecipherable train schedules and a service window. The young Chinese woman behind it met me with scorn when she realized she'd have to put down her cell phone and have to do her job. 2 tickets to Shanghai, please. 30RMB each, including 5RMB service charge; great.

Spencer, a new pal here at CET, and I got on the train and realized simultaneously that Chapter 3's vocabulary about public transport in China was going to be really useful. We hassled, pushed, and elbowed people to get to our reserved seats, from which we obviously had to vacate other hopeful occupants, and all hell did NOT break lose. This is the Chinese way, and feeling rather proud of our Sinification (another vocab word from Chapter 3), we eased ourself into our hard seats (i.e. "second class," as opposed to the "soft seat" class, which is about 10RMB more) in what can only be described as a human cattle-car. Poor Spencer had some standing man's unmentionables grazing his shoulder for the entirety of the ride.

So I laugh and I joke and I poke fun at Hangzhou a lot. I notice here the things about China that will "never change": the bad teeth, the omnipresent smell of sulfur, and the true belief that flesh-colored, ankle-length-stockings are, especially when worn with sandles, invisible and thus OK to wear. Shanghai transcends these stereotypes. As my taxi driver drove away from the very modern Shanghai South Station, the city that Shanghai has become took my breath away. The lights, the buildings, the highways, most of which were constructed in the past five years, and the energy were a comforting reminder of Hong Kong. I screamed in delight when I got to Christina's - my great friend and former boss from last summer's internship at mcgarrybowen - and saw that I'd be able to shower in a real shower.

My weekend in Shanghai was everything I expected it to be and more - sadly I opted to not participate in too much cultural exposure and rather spent time catching up with old friends and meeting a plethora of new ones. I feel no guilt as my belief, however, is that Shanghai in fact offers little in terms of real Chinese history, culture, etc, and rather more broadly offers a fascinating tangibility to the pace of China's development and the social, cultural, and economic compromises the country is making to keep the grindstone grinding. Shanghai is one of the most fascinating cities in this respect. Fascinating, but sobering if you are thoughtful enough to absorb the dichotomy of lives that exists there. Seeing a mother wrapped around her child and sleeping on the street and having many beggar children follow me and my friend Julian as we bar-hopped along the Bund - one of the most affluent areas in Shanghai - was... well.. I think you can figure it out.

Food for thought, eh?