Shanghai
From the eighth floor I look out onto a canal well kept but never used except for the occasional small boat collecting floating rubbish. On the far side there is an electricity sub-station – lots of small pylons and grey boxes behind a wire fence. On this side, under the window, there is construction work – apparently a depot for the overground metro line nearby. It’s now the 12th day in a row over 36C (97F degrees) . Last year the record was set at 13 consecutive days: tomorrow’s all set for the equalizer. Actually it’s hotter, but the thermometer is put somewhere in deep shadow, to be on the safe side. The men on the construction site work from 6am I think, definitely before 7am. They wake me up, but gently, the drop of metal and scraping of shovels slowly gathering weight around dreams and then tugging and pulling and then – you’re awake. They work in the sun but drink tea in the shadows. They work until late. It’s hard to tell when, they’re gradually absorbed into the background. Then the flare of an arc welder reminds you. Last night they were laying concrete at 2am. Nobody opened the window and shouted… I suppose they all lay there, tired, hot, that’s just the way it is.
As weekend was arriving, I stumbled upon a six day travelogue of Shanghai at City of Sound. This weekend, from a quiet deck in Centerville, I explored Shanghai through the writing of Dr. Justin O’Connor.
He does an excellent job of not attempting to explain everything but still giving a sense of place which, in China, is a sense of scale as well.
Guangzhou (Canton as was) is 2000 kms from Beijing. That’s like London as capital of a country whose southern port is Naples (and whose far reaches take in Moscow!). The temporal scale is just as great… China is as if the Roman Empire did not collapse but continued as a more or less continuous political entity until the present. China is a world; you feel its nationalism is not ‘petty nationalism’ but the defense of the planet. All nations and cultures faced with the pressing crisis of modernization have attempted to find ‘their own way’, and somehow attempt to preserve some local heritage and meaning in the face of the homogenization – or westernization – seemingly demanded by doing of what it takes to become modern. But something about the size of China, its power and its history, make this something unique, and maybe world shaking.
He offers a glimpse of life on the ground without squirming about food.
My big moment was when I realized that the huge Tiger Prawns 'cooked' in the ice bucket - to be picked out, heads ripped off and dipped in washabi sauce - were in fact moving. They were cold, and moving slowly, but for the first time in my life I felt like a predator, bite into that living flesh. It was the eyes though. But generally the big problem is that Chinese like meat that is closest to the bone, so all the gnarled and twisted bits we throw to the side of the plate - they're the best bits. I used to think that Chinese restaurants were saving the best bits elsewhere - little did I know that I was in fact eating them. So eating is not about cutting, selecting, paring, separating, chewing, swallowing - putting food into the mouth is just the first bit of a long complex process before you get to the swallowing bit.
O’Connor also delves into some of the psyche behind explosive cities like Shanghai, not only in terms of growth but optimism.
…Nobody is going anywhere; no justice is going to be delivered; the energy is corrupt and circular; the future utterly absent. In fact, just like London. Shanghai in the end is more New York, those huddled masses smell opportunity somewhere, have a sense of liberation. The country bumpkins, arriving here to gawk, are now more materially behind the urban living average than ever (a recent survey put this at more than African cities). And income differentials withiin the city are growing at alarming rates. But at the moment everybody thinks they can make it... They feel proud of the big buildings. One Chinese translator had never been able to afford to go to the top of one of the buildings that she frequently evoked as one of the symbols of the city. But to live in the Emerald City, Pudong's bright lights a backdrop to the illuminated cruise ships going up and down the river, is to be part of its promise. If the past is being left behind, all well and good.
What is the future of cities? Is our future in any place looking like tempered growth that is sustainable? The sense I get of Shanghai is that it is a shock city, a massive boom, but for who? I read an editorial in the LA Times Op-Ed (by Steve Lopez) about an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles who lives in a one bedroom apartment with her 4 kids but considers it a better life than the one she would have had in Mexico. I wonder if this is true; if the city puts a spell on those who live in it and keeps them caught in a cycle of life that is too complex and needlessly difficult.
I pasted the Shanghai Diary in proper order (because on the blog it’s in reverse chronological order – newest first) and printed it for off-screen reading. I would recommend this if you want to read it (20 pages or so). If you just want to look at pictures, there is an online photo album to mix with the entries. Some time ago I saved a different album with pictures of Shanghai. It accompanies the writing as well.
10:08:38 PM 
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