Saturday Morning Ship

A cargo vessel makes its way past a hazy Pudong shoreline.  It seems odd that the tug boat is being pulled by a freighter, but an ancient mariner tells me otherwise: if the ship were to lose power, the tug can quickly run up alongside and nudge or pull it out of harm's way.

Coke on the Bund

Found this rather cute Coke van on the Bund this past weekend. The van operator was more interested in his lunch than he was in peddling sugared water to the masses.

OLD AND NEW

A recurring theme in Shanghai is the juxtaposition of old and new. Nowhere is this more self-evident than in the city's endless development, with the old stock of housing relentlessly torn down to be replaced by new office buildings or apartment towers.  In some cases it seems justifiable, especially where cooking facilities and/or washing/toilet areas are close to medieval.  The city government is making efforts to reclaim some of the more historically significant buildings - sometimes in response to public outcry.  Anyway, the image below is one that you see repeated time and again as you travel across the city.

THE FENCE - CLOSER UP

BAMBOO

Bamboo's ubiquity in China - and its many uses - are well noted. In Hong Kong, for example, skyscrapers are constructed using bamboo as the surrounding scaffolding. Not until I came to Shanghai, however, have I seen it used so intricately as it in fences.  This picture was also taken in the former French Concession.

THE SAME BUILDING - JUST CLOSER UP

I think this building gets more interesting with every viewing, so I have posted a slightly closer view of its facade.

ART DECO

After a couple of weeks of respite, it's time to start posting again.  I recently picked up our new camera and headed into the area now known as the former French Concession. I'll write more about it later, but it's worth noting now that the area is home to a large number of relatively well-preserved examples of 1930s Art Deco architecture.  Above is just one example.

Local Talent

This job advert (see below) appeared recently on the Shanghai Expat website.

Experienced English Nanny and Teacher.

 We are looking to recruit an experienced English lady to help us take care and educate our young twins on a long-term basis.

 The twins, a boy and a girl, are now six months old. They are both extremely gifted and curious about the world around them.  They have a British father, and a Chinese mother, both of whom are highly successful and lead extremely busy lives.

 The ideal candidate will be 35 years of age or older, kind-hearted, intelligent and open-minded. She will also have previous experience as a teacher of young children.

 The working hours are flexible, mainly during regular working hours i.e. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The salary is negotiable based on experience, but the right candidate can expect a very generous compensation package that can include luxury private accommodation and annual flights back to the UK.

I am still trying to work out how the parents ascertained their offspring's intellectual abilities. Or what might happen if the nanny discovers that the children aren't "extremely gifted"? A one-way flight back to England?

How Long Have You Been Here?

One of the more amusing aspects of being an expat in China is the question: “How long have you been here?”

Taken at face value, it can seem like an innocent inquiry, a gentle introduction or an icebreaker to a wider conversation. A more cynical interpretation, however, is that the question is asked in order to establish your – or rather someone else’s - position in the “How long have you been here?” league table.

When asked the question it’s difficult not to reply with an answer that quickly establishes one’s bona fides as a true and tested Sinophile. “Well, I first came to China in XYZ year, and after that I have lived here in ZYX year..."

Providing you answer the question with a year that places your arrival here either alongside your interlocutor’s or, better yet, way ahead of them, you are free to go.  Or you’re plunged into a discussion about how bloody hard it was to find western food in Beijing in the year YXZ.   

If, however, your arrived here in the past few years (or, heaven forbid, the past few months), the next words you here are likely to be: “It’s changed so much since I got here!”

To which, if one wanted to be impolitic, you might reply: “No shit!”

Much of the above reminds me of a wonderful scene in Jonathan Raban’s novel Foreign Land.

A young girl is hiding out of view at a gathering at her parents’ home.  All of the guests are onetime expats, now all returned to England.  Eavesdropping on the evening conversation, she hears one phrase repeated over and over again: 

“When I was in.'

A Chinese Joke

The American president and the Chinese premier are driving toward a road junction. The road to the left is marked Communism and the road to the right is marked Capitalism.  The American president turns to his Chinese counterpart and says, "I'm turning right, what do you want to to do?"

The Chinese premier says, "I'll turn right too, but let's indicate that we are going left."

Revolutionary Spirit

Although the picture below was not taken there, a real Shanghai treasure is the Propaganda Poster Museum. Founded by one man, Yang Peiming, and housed in the basement of an apartment block on Huashan Lu, it's an unlikely trove of propaganda posters from the era in which Mao dominated the CCP.

Whether nationalistic, patriotic, xenophobic, or all three, the posters provide both an eye-catching entree into the various political movements of the Maoist era as well as a timeline of these upheavals that post-civil war China endured.

Imagine harnessing all of this enthusiasm!

A Street

This small street on the western perimeter of Shanghai is home to a row of furniture sellers who source their wares from city homes and the nearby provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The furniture is purportedly old, but its provenance hard to establish. The street has about ten shops on either side, each about ten feet wide and thirty feet deep.  The shops are all alike, with furniture piled either side of a narrow passageway that leads to the back of the store. There are tables, foot stools, chairs, old screens and smaller items such as wooden foot baths and washing tubs.

In the recesses of each store are the owners' four-poster beds, each more distinguished than any of the furniture on sale. Besides every bed are drinking vessels, one of which is usually a hot water flask. There are no toilets and the cooking facilities primitive.

Bottle Opener

If tall buildings are a good gauge of a country's economic prowess (or impending financial doom), then look no further than the Pudong skyline. Despite the shroud of pollution, you can see the Shanghai World Financial Center (known to foreigners as the bottle opener).

Shanghai World Financial Center

A Bend in the River

This picture is taken from the top of the Lupu bridge.  You can't see Pudong's central business district (see above), but it gives an idea of Shanghai's considerable girth. The solitary ship almost seems out of place, but just a few miles further west and the Huangpu River swarms and churns with a miscellany of nautical activity. 

Where Concrete Meets Bucolic

On the outskirts of western Shanghai is a land where China's growth story is rudely juxtaposed with its less burnished past. Gleaming new factories, empty highways, and half-finished residential tower blocks sit shoulder to shoulder with dilapidated housing, human squalor and fetid canals. Both worlds are joined by air thick with dust.

Yet alongside these two worlds are pockets of bucolic life where rice grows in muddied paddies, where the housing is rural yet well-kept, and where bicycles are used as often as vehicles. If you ignore the dust and don't look up at the towering electricity pylons that crowd the horizon, you might imagine living here.

Signage

Foreigners, especially those whose mother tongue is English, have always delighted in the English language signage that is produced by local scribes.  Malapropisms are just the beginning of the strangulation and permutation of the English language that takes place here. Much of it provides amusement for expatriates, many of whom are eager for some lightheartedness in the face of crowds, pollution, a new language, and local habits that can be beguiling, frustrating and enervating all at once.

Occasionally, however, appears a sign that produces mirth, wonder and joy.  A sign to be celebrated. Like the one below. Or the one below the one below.

Hotel Thing Confluence

Shanghai Somnolence

A Character: Cha (Tea)

Underground Entrepreneurship

On a torrid summer’s day in Shanghai, the subway offers respite from both the humidity and pollution draped over the city. The subway is modern, efficient, clean, and a cheering contrast from New York’s system.

I noticed a young man sitting on a subway station floor, back to a structural support. In front of him was a large, clear plastic bag into which passing passengers sporadically dropped their empty water bottles. I watched for a while. He made no gestures of thanks, nor did he cajole anyone for contributions.

Several stations away, I witnessed a similar scene, albeit with marked differences. This time the bottle collector was older, 60 perhaps. His palpable optimism reminded me of a knife salesman, and he wheedled passengers into giving him their bottles. And unlike the young man, he took each bottle and crushed it, leaving room in his bag for even more.

Not Shopping Here

Careless Driving

 A week ago a foreign correspondent acquaintance asked if I would be taking my driving test in Shanghai.  My first response was to wonder why any relatively sane individual would subject themselves to the terrors and vicissitudes of driving in the city.  Anyway, I asked what the road test involved. “There wasn’t one,” she replied. Based on a sampling of about 130 taxi journeys, it appears no one else has taken one either.

A few of the joys:

1)   Taxis have seat belts in the back. Just nothing to buckle them into.  

2)   There are functioning seat belts in the front of taxis. But drivers get all quizzical when you try to put them on. 

3)   There is a centre lane marker. It performs no obvious function other than marking the middle (approximately) of the road.

4)   The opposing traffic lane is great for overtaking (or for just driving along).

5)   Pedestrians exist. They are also targets.  

6)   Accidents soon become festive public gatherings, even when the motorcyclist is on the ground and motionless.   

7)   Rain allows for faster, frictionless driving.

Room with a View

A Man in his Pyjamas

I ride the subway almost every day, and normally there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Most of the passengers are young or middle-aged, travel with their heads in books, play on mobile devices, or stare anonymously into space like underground riders the world over. But the other day I saw a man in his pyjamas.

In China, there’s nothing extraordinary about someone in his pyjamas. Men stand on the street, walk to the market, and banter in public in their nightclothes.  I have seen them do so in Beijing, in Hong Kong, and in several other cities. But this was my first sighting of sleepwear on a subway. The man was stood on the escalator, carrying a plastic bag filled with vegetables, and unaffectedly nonchalant as he rode the escalator upward and away from line number 6. 

Sebastian Flyte had nothing on him.