Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
Shanghai like a teenager tottering on high-heeled shoes
By Fernando Bensuaski |
August 1, 2011, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
I love Shanghai.
It reminds me, in many instances, of the city of my birth, which now has 18 million people and which, in the days of my childhood, was messy, confusing, fast-growing, and suffering from such unbridled growth; its 500-year history buried by high-rises and wide boulevards. It suffered from the same nightmarish traffic and pollution, and a clash of cultures, but it was also exciting, energetic and full of hope.
Great cities are loved for different reasons. Some, like Paris and San Francisco, take over our entire being with the euphoria of love-at-first-sight. Others slide into us slowly and we do not notice it until a special moment: I fell in love with Rome by gazing at sunset, for the third time, at the countless copulas, domes and towers that reign over the city; and I realized I loved Zurich by listening to the tolling of the bells at vespers. Shakespeare was not right when he wrote, "Who has ever loved that has not loved at first sight?"
Some of my beloved cities require something else to enter our hearts.
London requires a sense of history and an admiration of the glory that was the British Empire and is the British World and Shanghai requires an appreciation of contrasts and contradictions and evolution.
My Shanghai starts at the Huangpu River. In almost all great cities, a river runs through it: the Seine, the Limat, the Tiber, or the Thames. Rivers bring life, energy, and, perhaps, romance. The Huangpu is not a great river. However, it plays an important role in the definition of my Shanghai: nothing east of it counts.
Whatever is there should be annexed to someplace else; Zhejiang Province perhaps. East of the river is cold and soulless; an overgrown version of Paris' La Defense and London's Canary Wharf; Dallas on overdrive.
So, for me, Shanghai is Puxi. I even like to shrink it further, to the districts along the Huangpu River, from Yangpu to Xuhui and their neighbors Jing'an and Changning. I am particularly fond of Luwan. I know, it merged with Huangpu, but I decided to not recognize the merger. To me, Luwan is like Paris' 8th Arrondissement; like London's Chelsea: livable.
My Shanghai is a huge collection of narrow streets where phoenix trees, a legacy from the days of French occupancy, cast a cooling shade and house the sounds of summer as the cicadas sing.
Napoleon called England "a nation of shopkeepers" but the art of running a shop has been perfected in Shanghai: thousands and thousands of places, some so miniscule that I can walk countless times along the block of either Zhaozhou or Shungang that is north of Lujiabang and never notice them.
My Shanghai is the pajama men and women who walk around the streets and alleys within shouting distance of People's Square, totally oblivious to the city mayor's pleas. It is the 1001 legitimate massage shops where girls from Anhui, Henan or Hunan deliver the world's best relaxation. It is the wicker furniture sellers who roam the streets with incredibly overladen carts with ease and grace.
It is the city of women famous for their ruthlessness and ability to control their men; it is the city where government works overtime to become a great city. It is a city of gleaming buses and clean, on-time subways.
I love the migrants. It is they who give the city a true vibrancy. A great city needs social graces, and Shanghai is learning them.
Imaginary toilet
Still, one can find the people who spit on the sidewalks, often close to our feet.
Still, one can find parents holding their toddlers over an imaginary toilet, allowing the little prince or princess to answer the call of nature right in front of the massive Louis Vuitton shop on Huaihai.
Still, one can find girls so impatient or unconcerned with those around them (it is usually women, in my experience) that they run into the elevator ahead of me and press the "close" button even before the floor number.
Still, one can find hundreds who truly believe that two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time and rush into an elevator or the metro train before giving current occupants a chance to exit.
When I was a kid, I walked to school but took the city bus to piano lessons. I knew the rule: give your seat to the elderly (anyone over age 30 in my mother's opinion), the disabled and the expecting women.
At times, I would forget. I would ignore the woman who was probably on the way to the maternity ward to give birth. It never failed: a middle-aged woman would grab my left ear with the strength of a vise, squeeze, twist, pull and use this small organ as a handle to lift me out of my seat; at the same time, pointing to the source of my embarrassment, loudly raising a terrifying question, "Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"
I would sheepishly move to the other end of the bus and get off at the next possible stop, whether or not it was my destination, and pray that my ear would return to its normal state by the time I got home; or my mother would repeat the process to the other ear, to even it out.
Yes, Shanghai is lacking in social graces, as it is lacking in parks, museums, temples, monuments to China's heroes and a system to protect the pedestrian against the two- and four-wheeled demons.
But it is getting there.
Great cities are like a woman who has found peace and contentment and knows how to tease, how to charm, how to entice, and how to love. Shanghai is still the 15-year-old girl whose body is nearly mature and who slowly tries to leave the house on high-heeled shoes she does not quite know how to control.
(Fernando Bensuaski is managing director of Goshawk Trading Strategies Ltd, Shanghai.)
It reminds me, in many instances, of the city of my birth, which now has 18 million people and which, in the days of my childhood, was messy, confusing, fast-growing, and suffering from such unbridled growth; its 500-year history buried by high-rises and wide boulevards. It suffered from the same nightmarish traffic and pollution, and a clash of cultures, but it was also exciting, energetic and full of hope.
Great cities are loved for different reasons. Some, like Paris and San Francisco, take over our entire being with the euphoria of love-at-first-sight. Others slide into us slowly and we do not notice it until a special moment: I fell in love with Rome by gazing at sunset, for the third time, at the countless copulas, domes and towers that reign over the city; and I realized I loved Zurich by listening to the tolling of the bells at vespers. Shakespeare was not right when he wrote, "Who has ever loved that has not loved at first sight?"
Some of my beloved cities require something else to enter our hearts.
London requires a sense of history and an admiration of the glory that was the British Empire and is the British World and Shanghai requires an appreciation of contrasts and contradictions and evolution.
My Shanghai starts at the Huangpu River. In almost all great cities, a river runs through it: the Seine, the Limat, the Tiber, or the Thames. Rivers bring life, energy, and, perhaps, romance. The Huangpu is not a great river. However, it plays an important role in the definition of my Shanghai: nothing east of it counts.
Whatever is there should be annexed to someplace else; Zhejiang Province perhaps. East of the river is cold and soulless; an overgrown version of Paris' La Defense and London's Canary Wharf; Dallas on overdrive.
So, for me, Shanghai is Puxi. I even like to shrink it further, to the districts along the Huangpu River, from Yangpu to Xuhui and their neighbors Jing'an and Changning. I am particularly fond of Luwan. I know, it merged with Huangpu, but I decided to not recognize the merger. To me, Luwan is like Paris' 8th Arrondissement; like London's Chelsea: livable.
My Shanghai is a huge collection of narrow streets where phoenix trees, a legacy from the days of French occupancy, cast a cooling shade and house the sounds of summer as the cicadas sing.
Napoleon called England "a nation of shopkeepers" but the art of running a shop has been perfected in Shanghai: thousands and thousands of places, some so miniscule that I can walk countless times along the block of either Zhaozhou or Shungang that is north of Lujiabang and never notice them.
My Shanghai is the pajama men and women who walk around the streets and alleys within shouting distance of People's Square, totally oblivious to the city mayor's pleas. It is the 1001 legitimate massage shops where girls from Anhui, Henan or Hunan deliver the world's best relaxation. It is the wicker furniture sellers who roam the streets with incredibly overladen carts with ease and grace.
It is the city of women famous for their ruthlessness and ability to control their men; it is the city where government works overtime to become a great city. It is a city of gleaming buses and clean, on-time subways.
I love the migrants. It is they who give the city a true vibrancy. A great city needs social graces, and Shanghai is learning them.
Imaginary toilet
Still, one can find the people who spit on the sidewalks, often close to our feet.
Still, one can find parents holding their toddlers over an imaginary toilet, allowing the little prince or princess to answer the call of nature right in front of the massive Louis Vuitton shop on Huaihai.
Still, one can find girls so impatient or unconcerned with those around them (it is usually women, in my experience) that they run into the elevator ahead of me and press the "close" button even before the floor number.
Still, one can find hundreds who truly believe that two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time and rush into an elevator or the metro train before giving current occupants a chance to exit.
When I was a kid, I walked to school but took the city bus to piano lessons. I knew the rule: give your seat to the elderly (anyone over age 30 in my mother's opinion), the disabled and the expecting women.
At times, I would forget. I would ignore the woman who was probably on the way to the maternity ward to give birth. It never failed: a middle-aged woman would grab my left ear with the strength of a vise, squeeze, twist, pull and use this small organ as a handle to lift me out of my seat; at the same time, pointing to the source of my embarrassment, loudly raising a terrifying question, "Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"
I would sheepishly move to the other end of the bus and get off at the next possible stop, whether or not it was my destination, and pray that my ear would return to its normal state by the time I got home; or my mother would repeat the process to the other ear, to even it out.
Yes, Shanghai is lacking in social graces, as it is lacking in parks, museums, temples, monuments to China's heroes and a system to protect the pedestrian against the two- and four-wheeled demons.
But it is getting there.
Great cities are like a woman who has found peace and contentment and knows how to tease, how to charm, how to entice, and how to love. Shanghai is still the 15-year-old girl whose body is nearly mature and who slowly tries to leave the house on high-heeled shoes she does not quite know how to control.
(Fernando Bensuaski is managing director of Goshawk Trading Strategies Ltd, Shanghai.)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
