When I take the time to actually see when I look around me (it’s amazing how many people never do), I am continually awed by the many contrasts that I am able to observe, sometimes in the most unusual places. These observations are what get me excited; they fuel my writing by waltzing with my imagination. Stories are people and people are everywhere. Luckily, it seems that I have unwittingly moved to the right city: the more time I spend here, the more I am growing to really love it.
Shanghai is a city of extreme contrasts. The futuristic skyline is impressive, slightly surreal and displays a captivating array of bright lights that scream consumerism and debauchery. Bring the eye level lower however, and you will see glimpses of the 'real' china. Old houses, stacked on and around each other, lines of laundry flirting with brief, teasing bursts of breeze; make shift hole in the wall restaurants and shops; bbqs displaying an array of meat, fish and vegetables and a small portable stand where they cook it up with incredible speed and rather too much oil; plastic chairs set up at the side of the road where whole families gather in the evening. Real China is dirty, smells pretty terrible (Lisa: ‘It smells like poo. Holy shit, is that HUMAN poo?) and the culture is very far from what I am used to in Europe. This means that not only will a man not hold the door open for you, but he will in fact close it on you. Waiting for people to exit the train before you barge on is also a thing of the past, as is being able to put your bag on the floor without it getting covered in phlegm. However, there is an energy in Shanghai that is hard to capture in words or on film. It is perhaps the product of these extreme contrasts. It is the after math of an implosion-explosion caused by the collision of traditional Chinese customs, the Western elegance of once colonised districts such as the French Concession and the bustle of a city populated by 23 million. It is life lived under the ever changing colours that dance down the sides and across the roofs of almost every modern building; life looking at a sky line that is always changing. It is enigmatic, electric and exciting. Some days my means of transportation are a train and…a rickshaw. From my balcony you can see the dilapidated, busy neighbourhoods that look like Lego in contrast to Pu Dong- the pearl tower, the bottle opener building, Shanghai’s twin towers.
Next to my apartment, which is incredibly swanky pants and even has an oven (!!), there is a farmer’s market where you can find moving bags packed full of bull frogs, ducks that are kept half dead and therefore docile, cages rammed with chickens, buckets with eels which are escaping onto the street. One minute I am in the tranquil marble veneered sanctuary that is our apartment building, or I am looking at the lily pads in the ponds in the gardens that separate the two towers of our complex. The next minute I step out and BOOM…CHINA!! It’s quite incredible and I feel very lucky that I have the privilege to go from seeing Pražský hrad every day, to this. It may not be aesthetically beautiful, but it has a beautiful spirit and its spirit is everywhere. I’ve heard that Shanghai isn’t ‘real China’, it the whore of the East, the pearl of the orient and has apparently lost a lot of its culture, a lot of its China-isms. I feel that parts of Shanghai, where I live for example, are ‘real China.’ None the less, I am really excited about travelling to the other parts of China, to experience ever more contrasts. The next exciting adventure to come is a trip to Outer Mongolia with my flat mates!
I will leave you with a particularly hamusing encounter. Earlier today Laura and I decided to go to a noodle bar to try and rid ourselves of a hangover caused by lady’s night at I love Shanghai. Note to self: free gin and tonic is not anywhere near as good an idea as it may seem at the time. Eurgh! As we were leaving the place an old man came up to us and asked us if we speak French. We said we speak a bit and he asked us what the French for umbrella is. We didn’t know so he told us. Apparently it’s la parapluie. Interesting stuff, right? He then went on to explain, using an unnecessary level of gesticulation, that la parapluie translates into Chinese as ‘penis inserts in vagina.’ The whole time Laura and I were standing there, nodding politely at this little old Chinese man with no teeth, ‘o how very interesting.’ It was only as we walked away that we looked at each other with a thudding realisation, ‘what the HELL just happened there?’ As Matt would say, I am a magnet for ridiculous situations.
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