Shanghaied

Well, I just got back from my weekend in Shanghai and therefore thought it only appropriate to jump straight to Reflection Point #8: Shanghaied!

Not since visiting my sister on the East Coast and going to New York City have I felt so much like I was a hick from the sticks coming in to see the big city as I did last weekend in Shanghai. Even after much reflection (I don’t call them reflection points for nothing :o) ) I’m not exactly sure why going to Shanghai was such a shock, though I do have my ideas. First, even though I was told that Shanghai was a truly cosmopolitan city I don’t think I really believed it until this weekend.

Since I have already been to Shanghai before, I already had in my mind what to expect from Shanghai. The thing is that it was the first city I ever saw in China so I originally had nothing else to compare it to. Also, it meant that we didn’t really explore it much since we were still young, innocent, sheltered, non-Chinese speaking tourists being shuttled around town by our Chinese teacher. Also, and this might be obvious, but the things we saw last time greatly influenced my idea of what Shanghai was—we went to the Shanghai Museum (which is full of very interesting Chinese artifacts), had our meals in Chinese restaurants, and saw the Bund (the main river that runs through town) and the Oriental Pearl (the communist TV tower which has effectively become the Eiffel Tower of Shanghai check out my photo album for a picture of it). Those experiences combined to make me think of Shanghai as a very typical Chinese city.

Even the things that I associated with the West that I knew existed in Shanghai, like Pizza Hut (a fancy upscale version mind you) I can now find in downtown Kunming, and this I think was the real problem—I was tricked into thinking that Kunming was a cosmopolitan city now because, unlike when I was here before, it now has things like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and most importantly Carrefour, things that I had associated with Shanghai before. Of course, what I had failed to consider was that Shanghai was probably continuing to develop over the two years since I’ve been there too!

In any case, my version of what Shanghai is was completely shattered this weekend. First, I couldn’t believe how big it really is. I know I only had a chance to explore small parts of it last time, but I didn’t even begin to understand how much I was missing. The first night we eventually managed to get to the Cotton Club where a live band (that was half made up of ex-pats) was performing Bob Marley and whatnot. The music and atmosphere were great, and I even was able to find a real honest-to-goodness frozen margarita (which I had been craving for ages. Kunming doesn’t understand what frozen means). Also, I think in that bar I saw more foreigners than I had in the entire last month here in Kunming, and I live in the foreigners compound here! Finally, I must admit that I spent the weekend getting my fix of non-Chinese foods. We went to a great Indian restaurant, a Brazilian restaurant (that had salad!), a Turkish restaurant, a Korean restaurant (although we’ve got our share of decent Korean food here in Kunming), and even a Mexican restaurant. It was spectacular.

Also, I think it was the little differences that struck me most. In Kunming we only have hot water from about 7PM to 12PM. In Shanghai we could take showers whenever we wanted because there was hot (and by hot I mean really really hot, hotter than we get in Kunming) water 24/7. And like other big cities, the people were actually quite rude. The first night, we had a streak of only interacting with really rude Chinese people. The guy who checked us into our rooms for example was a complete jerk—so much so that one of my friends, Aaliyah, wanted to just leave. I think the real problem was that we made him put away his calligraphy and actually have to do work…this guy was actually so lazy that when we paid him he essentially told us to give him round numbers of money so that he wouldn’t have to make change, and that we could get the change upon checking out (when he wouldn’t be dealing with it!). Getting taxi drivers to stop was even a problem for us. They just didn’t want to have to deal with foreigners, and we got several drivers who waved us away as we were approaching their empty cabs! This was so surprising because in Kunming, and most other cities in China, if a taxi driver sees a laowai walking down the street they slow down and sometimes stop for you even if you don’t want them.

Now that I’ve rambled on for some 800 words, I suppose I should actually tell you what I was doing in Shanghai. Whitman sponsored all of the Whitman in China teachers to go to a conference held by the China Teachers Consortium about teaching English in China. Our other Kunming friends here that are teachers from Oberlin also went. It was interesting meeting lots of other teachers from around China and hearing some about others experiences, but overall I was disappointed with the conference. Only about a quarter of the presentations we had were actually good, which also was a surprise. I guess I expected professional conferences to be worth my time. I guess you learn a lot during your first year as a professional. My general feeling was “why should I take advice from people that can’t even teach themselves?” So, oh well. At least I got to see Shanghai.

As for the one really touristy thing that I did there, it was to go to the Shanghai Art Museum. Generally speaking it’s an okay art museum—mostly has modern art. I certainly preferred the Tate Modern in London, but there was one exhibit that made it very worthwhile. Basically, there was a field of belts hanging from what looked like small fans on the ceiling. They were hanging at about waist height, and were in a loop parallel to the floor, so it looked like there was just a bunch of invisible people there. The really cool part though was that they were all attached to some sort of sensors and all turned so that the belt buckle was facing you. It was SOOOO creepy to move and have a field of belts all turn and face you! Take a look at the picture so that this kind of makes sense.

And finally, I know that this was a good long entry, but I’ll leave you with some Meaningful Morsels for Monday about the grand Shanghai:

1.5 million- The number of people that Shanghai plans to move out of its downtown area by the year 2010.
600,000- The number of foreigners that currently live in Shanghai.
0- The number of times somebody dazedly looked at me and said “Look, laowai!”
1- The number of times I went karaokeing in Shanghai
10,000- The number of Jews that took the Chinese government up on the offer of immigration without official travel documents during WWII and moved to Shanghai.
45 yuan- The cost of my most precious frozen margarita. That’s about $5.60, or a little bit less than what I make an hour.