{"id":160,"date":"2019-12-01T00:49:34","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T00:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/?p=160"},"modified":"2023-01-07T02:51:14","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T02:51:14","slug":"shanghai-a-partial-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/?p=160","title":{"rendered":"Shanghai: A (partial) apology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Still the best skyline in the world<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Back in May 2014, in the second most recent entry to this\never-prolific blog, I published an article<\/a> that may have been a tiny bit\nnegative about Shanghai and its residents. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suggested that the city populace lacked even the most basic social graces; that walking down the street required the dodging a near-constant tsunami of saliva; that even if you avoided the spit then you would almost certainly be mown down by a reckless motorist (or at least deafened by the ever-present fanfare of car horns); that to be white in Shanghai is to be gawked at like a Victorian circus freak and, finally that the Shanghaiese had bulldozed much of the city’s rich history in a relentless stampede towards modernity and money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I revisited the city last month and so it’s time to revisit those opinions.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We hear much about the breakneck rate of development of China but it’s something else to witness the change firsthand.\u00a0 The cashless society has well and truly arrived – during our stay, we were the only people I saw pay for anything with paper money.\u00a0 Everyone else uses Wei Chat (an all-purpose social media app, communications hub and payments platform) or Alipay (the Chinese version of PayPal) via their phones.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incredibly this even included an elderly lady – to all intents a destitute – who appeared at our restaurant table one night, desperately pleading with us to buy one of her flowers to try and raise a few cents.\u00a0 No chance of getting away with the old pat-of-the-pockets-shrug-of-the shoulders-sorry-I-haven’t-got-any-change routine as she accepted payment by Ali Pay.\u00a0 So we told her to fuck off instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But more impressive than the technical advances are the changes in behaviour: spitting, for example, has both metaphorically and literally dried up.\u00a0 The traditional soundtrack to Shanghaiese life – hawking Chinese on the vocals with accompanying horn section courtesy of gridlocked traffic has fallen silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ban on horns within the city centre is largely respected but that”s not to say that there has been an accompanying improvement in driving standards.\u00a0 Just that the regular traffic atrocities are now carried out in silence.\u00a0 Traffic lights are still considered at best advisory and there are regular near misses involving the constant flow of electric scooters but, overall, the feel is of an organised, efficient chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patriotism is a concept that manifests itself in a variety of ways.\u00a0 At best it can be a joyous and inclusive celebration of national identity, at worst a poisonous bigotry.\u00a0 A sliding scale from St Patrick’s Day to Donald Trump.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Saluting the flag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And the Chinese are nothing if not patriotic, something that is\ningrained into them from a young age as we were able to witness\nfirst-hand.  Presumably with an eye on the\npaedophile market, our hotel room had been positioned overlooking the\nplayground of the local junior school. \nFrom memory, my mornings before school were spent milling around the\nplayground or hurriedly finishing homework that had to be in that day.  For the Chinese student, the school day\nstarts at 7.30 with exercises followed by marching around the playground, the forming\nof perfectly straight lines and saluting the Chinese flag whilst singing the\nnational anthem.  Whether you think this\nis a positive reinforcement of national identity or the creepy brainwashing of impressionable\nyoung children almost certainly depends on whether you are Chinese or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be difficult to understand the Chinese mindset from a western perspective.\u00a0 We fret (rightly) about the treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang and the protestors in Hong Kong and, more broadly, about the suppression of personal freedoms but for most Chinese these issues just doesn’t cut through.\u00a0 Partly this is down to the Communist Party’s massive censorship operation but, for many, the struggle for survival is too recent a memory for anything else to matter.\u00a0 To put it another way, when your living standard has increased so greatly and so rapidly, it’s difficult to worry about the darker side of the government that created it.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This rapid development has left parts of central Shanghai homogenised\nand looking like any other city.  Costa\nCoffee shops – established in London in 1971, their sign proudly proclaims – appear\non every corner.  There is definitely a\nsense that traditions and history are dying but for many those traditions were\ncontiguous with a shorter life expectancy, lower income and a lack of indoor\nplumbing.  I think that we can all agree\nthat an increase in ubiquitous western coffee chains is a price worth paying\nfor not having to defecate in a bucket.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An oak-lined street in the French Concession<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A booming city tends to bring with it a booming property market and Shanghai is no exception with sky-high prices commonplace.\u00a0 We saw an ancient 60m2<\/sup> in the city’s desirable French Concession area selling for $1.3M.\u00a0 Housing affordability is hardly an issue unique to Shanghai and the government has introduced rules to try and address this.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One example is limiting the number of properties that a married\ncouple can own but we heard of one long-married couple who circumvented this in\nthe most obvious way: they split up (on paper only) and proceeded with building\ntheir property portfolio.  A divorce of\nconvenience if you like.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another rule states that only married holders of a Shanghai employment permit card can buy property in the city.\u00a0 Shanghai operates a quasi-immigration system that limits the rights – and therefore flow – of citizens from other parts of the country.\u00a0 We heard a story of a cosmetic surgeon who was granted this permit and moved to Shanghai.\u00a0 However the surgeon’s brother and his fianc\u00e9 were not able to secure a permit but wished to buy an apartment in the city.\u00a0 In a bizarre turn of events, the surgeon ended up marrying the brother’s fianc\u00e9 and the newlyweds bought a flat together which the brother now lives in with his sibling’s “wife”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sanctity of marriage is alive and well in Shanghai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Times have changed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So where does this ramble leave us?  Was my first impression of Shanghai\nwrong?  Maybe although I should add in\nthe caveat that we more or less stayed in the French Concession for the entire\ntrip which is a bit like judging London without leaving Mayfair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, the streets are definitely cleaner (they are almost constantly attended to by an army of hose-wielding cleaners), standards of behaviour have improved and the city is as vibrant as ever.\u00a0 Shanghai was always worth visiting but now it’s actually worth sticking around. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in May 2014, in the second most recent entry to this ever-prolific blog, I published an article that may have been a tiny bit negative about Shanghai and its residents.  I suggested that the city populace lacked even the most basic social graces; that walking down the street required the dodging a near-constant tsunami … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Shanghai: A (partial) apology”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-uncategorized","tag-shanghai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rashdecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}