shanghai: city of cranes
By Heather Shayne Blakeslee
There are images and ideas of China that I have only from visiting Shanghai, and then there are those things that seemed immediately familiar to me when I arrived because I had already read them in Dan’s diaries. What I wasn’t prepared for was how completely those dispatches of everyday life epitomize larger themes about Shanghai: the city’s mad flirtation with capitalism, the back alleys of Chinese tradition that seem to have survived ruthless development, the almost unseemly mix of Eastern and Western culture. If that sounds violent and maybe a little seedy, you’re getting an idea of the character of the city, of its pace and its density. Even after living in New York for many years, I was still unprepared for the cultural and economic extremes I witnessed in the very short time I was there. I was surprised daily by the sheer volume of people that Shanghai holds in its sprawling arms. It is the only city I have ever been in, at home or abroad, that rivals New York in its “city-ness” Shanghai moves with a kind of severe flow, a churning that will either pull you under or throw you into unexpected splendor.
Knowing my time was limited, Dan tossed me in the waters immediately: within two hours of my arrival, I had sped through the city in a taxi and had Dan’s now famous “meat on a stick” handed to me for dinner. Though these rough cuts of pork with cumin and pepper might seem pedestrian, consider that Shanghai’s economics and culture are turned over on the same spit. Depending on your means and your tastes, you can eat traditional Chinese food in the alley for a dollar a day, or have an eight-dollar scoop of Haagen-Dazs as dessert. But unlike an international corporation equipped with an army of accountants and marketing squads, Dan’s “meat guy” competes with a bicycle outfitted with a small coal-fired stove on the rack. It’s brilliantly engineered for a quick get-away in the event the police come to roust him and the other vendors from their precarious position as culinary squatters. They are citizens of a tight encampment just outside the gates of Shanghai University. You would expect that in a communist dictatorship, fewer people would be willing to flout the local laws, but it seems de rigueur for the natives to make a little cash however they can (and a little more from you if you don’t know how to haggle). Their entrepreneurship is almost like guerilla warfare, and full-fledged economic freedom will no doubt level the city once again, pulling it back into the rubble of its most recent boom.
The once demure Shanghai is now a regular bedfellow of the cultural change and rapid commerce that accompany contemporary foreign influence. After its humble beginnings as a fishing village, just a simple country girl, it rebuffed trade with European countries for centuries — while battling Japanese and Portuguese pirates — finally succumbing to a British invasion in 1842. The English and their colonial spirit weren’t interested this time in a wholesale land-grab, but in a no less disruptive commercial coupling: the incursion led to the Treaty of Nanking, and on December 14, 1843, Shanghai officially — reluctantly — opened for business with the West. The Opium Wars further Westernized the city, the Cultural Revolution “reclaimed” it and now Shanghai is again actively cultivating its reputation as a worldly participant in the international community.
While I was there, it was announced that the next World Expo would be held in Shanghai, the appropriately monikered City of Cranes. Blue cranes flying into the sky on delicate Chinese porcelain represent a rise in status, and Shanghai’s ubiquitous construction cranes are no less symbolic. It is not an exaggeration to say that everywhere — everywhere — there is bamboo scaffolding costuming the city in the clothes of Western architecture and contemporary influence. Newspaper coverage of the imminent Expo was complete with pictures of crying government officials, crying with joy that Shanghai had been cast to appear in the world’s spotlight. Exit the blue cranes and enter the blueprints: shortly after wiping away their tears, those same officials were finalizing plans that will demolish old neighborhoods and old buildings in order to accommodate the temporary influx of the international community, and to ensure that when visitors arrive in Shanghai, there are, for instance, at least 100 different museums to greet them. That many Starbucks might be in business right now, assuring us that the world’s next brief affair with the Pearl of the Orient will be properly caffeinated. Light up a Double Happiness cigarette, and the transaction will be complete.
I visited several existing museums while I was there, including the Chinese Sex Museum, where even amid the ancient stone dildos you could hear the hammers and saws of construction. In the beautiful and much more traditional Shanghai Art Museum in People’s Square, a display of precious calligraphy manuscripts was attracting visitors from around the globe. In the New Shanghai Art Museum, only blocks away but devoid of a single Japanese tour group, Chinese students had mounted a contemporary art exhibit that was thematically arranged around the city’s unstoppable development. All of the pieces addressed this latest incarnation of Shanghai, and many of them suggested, in a less-than-subtle manner, that not everyone is pleased with it. Not least of which those people who will be displaced from the neighborhoods they now live in to accommodate the Expo, yet another point of contention among the locals.
According to Dan’s friend Johnson, even native Shanghainese find themselves getting lost because their own city is sometimes unrecognizable to them. It reminded me very much of the futuristic noir film Dark City, in which a race of aliens uses their combined mental power each night to completely change the landscape of an experimental dystopia — and to significantly alter the lives and memories of each person who lives there. In an attempt to save themselves from dying out as their own natural environment withers, they vainly seek to realize how it is we can survive such radical change. Shanghai, and the people who live there, seem to be undergoing the same sort of experiment as they struggle to retain their character and culture in the face of this latest round of considerable foreign influence.
But despite the radical changes going on, Shanghai is still, of course, a Chinese city. Jellyfish is supposed to taste good, everyone rides a bike, and big brother is watching. Even Dan’s neighborhood, gentrifying as you read this, is still under significantly less Western influence than Shanghai’s downtown. After a few hours of sleep the first night I came in, I woke up early and made my way down to the farmer’s market, one of the highlights of my trip — a place that you would never find among the sterile streets of Pudong and its Jetsons-esque skyline. It’s full of health practices that would make most Westerners squirm, but it was crammed with locals who were eager to buy everything from simple fruits and vegetables to a stunning array of turtles, crayfish, eels and recently slaughtered ducks — or live ducks, if they preferred. I was greeted here with many an enthusiastic “Hello!” and just as many surprised looks when I answered with a Chinese greeting of “Ni Hao!” Some people shied away from my cameras (I carried two the entire time I was there, like some reporter without an assignment) others laughed and smiled and tried to get me to take pictures of their co-workers or their children. One 2-year old boy, after realizing that his mother had sold him out — she diverted him by getting his attention while I snapped several photos — threw his arms in front of his face when he saw the camera, as if I were a sun that was burning his eyes. I also endured many quizzical looks from people who were obviously baffled by why I needed to take close-ups of vegetables. Tourists they understand, but not fetishists of produce. I suppose I don’t blame them. It is pretty strange to be psyched about a particularly good-looking bunch of carrots. I guess that’s my own character exerting itself.
Even closer to Dan’s dorm, every morning there were many older people out walking and exercising. Some walk backwards as they pat themselves. Others stand with bent knees and briskly bob several inches up and down. Still others do Tai Chi on their own. The most novel exercise group consisted of some chatty women circled around a tree. One had thrown her leg up in the low crook, another held her hands high to hold the trunk above, and two women on either side were patting down separate branches. It’s an exercise regime that I don’t believe will be offered soon in American gyms, even in trendier establishments alongside spinning classes and Pilates. There were many times I wish that I spoke just a little Chinese so that I could have asked a question, but never more so than the morning with the tree huggers. They seemed like they were my people.
Still further away from the steamroller of Westernization was the beautiful island of Putuoshan. Here the only churning was the quiet pull of the slow boat’s engine along the ocean — a twelve-hour overnight ferry ride, which was a three-hour ride on the “fast boat” home. Like Taipei, this island virtually escaped the Cultural Revolution and its main attraction is its many working Buddhist temples. (And unlike Hangzhou, where we also visited a temple, Putuoshan doesn’t feel as though it was pre-packaged for tourists — no Pizza Hut here.) Putuoshan is, as the guidebooks tell you, the romanticized version of China that you hope for: pagodas, chanting, incense and an atmosphere that cultivates inner peace. Here, instead of taking taxis to get to our next destination, we walked for miles along beautiful roads, hiked up trails lined with trees and ocean vistas and descended stone staircases that led to temples perched on the East China Sea. The monks may occasionally use cell phones, but most of their calls are to Buddha, for peace and clarity of mind. Though the incense eventually burned my lungs and made my first night’s musical performance back in Shanghai an adventure in itself (thanks again to Geding for being my roadie and to Bliss for her beautiful violin accompaniment), it was worth it to have been in such an amazing place.
Not that Shanghai is any less stunning in its own way. I know that it’s unique among Chinese cities, and spending just two weeks there has made me extremely interested in seeing other cultures and regions within China. But just as the sheltered island of Putuoshan seemed timeless, somehow serving to illustrate the Buddhist principal that everything is one, Shanghai bares out the principle given to us by Heraclitus: you never step into the same river twice. It won’t be the same place it was when I was there if I’m able to see it again when I return — if it continues to churn and flow out into the sea along with the Huangpu, my next trip to China might be my first trip to China.
Heather Shayne Blakeslee is a Pennsylvania-based (currently, at least) alt-folk singer/songwriter whose debut album Bones was released in 2002. She attended Bloomsburg (Pa.) High School, where she grew to hate Dan Washburn with a passion. Blakeslee, currently working on her follow-up CD, visited Shanghai for two weeks in December 2002. Visit her online at www.heathershayneblakeslee.com.
Click here to see photos of Heather’s Shanghai gigs at the Blue Frog Lounge, O’Malley’s Irish Pub and Dan’s classes at Shanghai University
Click here to hear Heather perform “I’m All Right” in Dan’s class
Click here to visit Heather’s website
02.18.2003, 10:17 PM · Guest Diaries