Skein Home
Author's Works
View without comments
 

Summer, and the Shanghaiese stroll the streets in their pajamas.
 

On first encounter I thought it a peculiarity of the geezer haunting the noodle joint by my building. ^[1] My colleague, soon-to-be friend and local Shanghai resident offered up the explanation that many people wear pajamas or other comfortable clothing around the house in the evenings, and if the guy was just stepping out for a bite to eat it was easier not to change. As the days passed though I became aware that this was not an isolated incident; couples my age ambling hand-in-hand, stocky housewives touting bags of vegetables from the market, skinny men on bicycles, all clad in unmistakable cotton print. Scan a street's worth of people at any given time and you are likely to find at least one.
 

Though more common in my entirely Chinese residential area than in the cosmopolitan downtown, this phenomenon is well-enough known to be the subject of expatriates' jokes; a couple of clubs have hosted pajama parties this summer, partaking in the sport. I've also browsed through open-air shops where the gear is sold, displayed right alongside casual tops and skirts. It's a fad, and one that I've encountered only in this city.
 

Shanghai is developing. Rapidly. They say it, and they're right. The ratio of high-rises under construction (office towers, apartment complexes) to… well, pick anything for comparison, is greater here than any other place I've encountered, even Beijing. ^[2] There's one sprouting up, layer by layer, that I look out on when resting my eyes from the computer screen at work. Explosions regularly shake the air, and I no longer spend minutes craning my neck out the bedroom window trying to find the fireworks. The construction craze provides an interesting architectural conflation of shiny, new, polished, sleek and grimy cramped teeming, completely different from the solid, serviceable yet slightly tired feel I get from the Midwest mid-Atlantic environment in which I grew up.
 

Shanghai is happening, but it's not the rush of glitzy madness and action for which the Shanghai of the 30s might have had the reputation. 'More or less under control', a phrase I deliberately choose to leave open to interpretation. And the people like it that way. No 'Tiananmen II' brewing beneath the surface in the back streets or the universities here; there's money to be made, washing machines to be purchased, your children's future to consider, and the government is doing a damn good job of keeping things moving in the right direction. I won't meddle in their affairs, they won't meddle in mine, and we'll all be happy citizens.
 

The above can be said of Beijing as well, but the Shanghaiese are particularly pleased with the tide they're riding. My Beijing friends warned me that the Shanghaiese have a superiority complex, and again they were not mistaken. Perhaps because Shanghai is, by general consent and by all objective measures I can think of, the most developed spot on the continental PRC, there's little reason for its residents to rethink such an attitude. Much stronger than any inter-city rivalry, however, is the sharp distinction between city folk and 'wai di ren'. Short, dark, lean peasants from the countryside fuel the economy of every major Chinese urban center, squatting by the roadside in dirty, worn clothing, catching a bit of shade to rest from fruit-selling or street sweeping, balancing bundles bound in cloth or plastic sacks on their shoulders as a group babbles harshly in their dialect, trying to figure out how to use the card-swipe machines at the railway station metro stop. A friend once described the emotion she feels on encountering these compatriots as a mixture of pity for their poverty, disgust at their crude behavior and admiration for their spirit. They are cute, in their own way, endearing even, and if you don't get too close you won't notice the smell. ^{[3] [4]} They are very much a part of China, a part which the Shanghaiese are almost proud, as they embody most starkly the Chinese ideal of rising from poverty through hard work, sacrificing this lifetime that your children might have a better one. ^[5]
 

Sentimentality doesn't prevent the Shanghaiese from ensuring that the distinction is maintained, however. The 'whiteness complex' is alive and well here, as women (and some men) carry parasols to ward off the sun's rays and stores do a brisk business in facial care products designed to lighten the skin. Sunbathing is an unheard of concept, and some Chinese simply do not believe me when I tell them that many Americans go out of their way to deliberately get a tan. Chinese mothers are also frantically feeding their children milk and white bread, believing this will make them grow up bigger and stronger, though the mothers don't deign to consume such unappetizing 'foreign flavors' themselves. ^{[6] [7]} A Beijing man once told me that the reason westerners tend to be larger of stature than Chinese is that westerners eat a lot of beef and drink milk, and cows are much bigger than pigs (pork being the preferred protein source of the Chinese). Pigs, on the other hand, are the smarter animal…. ^[8]
 

Then there is the other type of outsider, the 'wai guo ren'. i.e. me. I could live in this country for 50 years, speak perfect Chinese, gain Chinese citizenship even, and I will still be stared at every time I walk down the street. The locals perched among their random goods or lounging in rickety chairs by their curbside shops call out 'halloo!' and then chortle with their buddies, those crossing my path in the opposite direction simply pause to get a good look before continuing on their way. My Chinese friends get a kick out of strolling about with me; they've never commanded this much attention before. My 'hui tou lu' (head-turning rate) is particularly high today one friend told me, as I caused a minor traffic collision when an old woman peddling a three-wheeled cart, looking back at me astride my bicycle rather than at where she was going, crashed into another vehicle. Being the only non-Chinese I've ever seen in my part of town, well north of the main city center, my daily activities seem to make excellent conversation topics as the locals emerge for an evening of sitting by the roadside chewing the fat. I was rather surprised when the girl trimming my hair, who I certainly didn't recognize, repeated to me the items she's seen me buying at a store two days prior. Sometimes it's amusing, most of the time I just tolerate it, and every once in a while I really have to work to prevent myself from screaming at people to get out of my face. Ah the joys of anonymity; a privilege I never valued until it was gone.
 

Being the only white girl in my neighborhood, however, does not mean I'm the only non-Chinese in Shanghai. Far from it. There's a sizable expat population here, and much as I hate to acknowledge such generalizations they seem to be responsible for much of what's hap'nin round the city. Nightlife, certainly, is chiefly expat driven, though the numerous karaoke clubs are exclusively Chinese territory. ^{[9] [10] [11]} Several English-language magazines distributed free at major hotels serve as excellent city guides, detailing events of each month, providing reviews and listings for the city's major galleries, theatres, concert halls, restaurants, bars and nightclubs. Oh and personal ads too, where one can find manymany middle aged businessmen looking for 'tall, thin, open-minded' Chinese playthings to amuse them during their stint abroad. Only replies with pictures will be answered. There are nearly as many ads from Chinese women, seeking 'big strong Western boyfriend good job maybe marriage', and there is definitely a type of woman drawn to seek out such companions. I had the pleasure of befriending one in Beijing, and she spoke to me of the prestige of being seen with such a figure, the financial benefits of being under his provision, the excitement of living the 'wild life' and the hope that he might forget his wife and children and present her with a ticket back to his country.
 

Yes there are people who would jump at the chance to emigrate to the First World, but not as many, and without as much desperation, as I've encountered elsewhere. China as a whole is doing rather well for itself, with Shanghai leading the way. For me as well, it's exciting to live in a city where infrastructure is improving visibly month by month, where everything from performance venues and events to fruits and vegetables in the market are growing more numerous and varied, and where I can interact with a mix of individuals from all over the world. I'm not sure that I call Shanghai home, but it's a stimulating place where I am quite pleased to be spending my days.
 

xanthi: I would love to be able to illustrate this piece with photos I've taken here (the pajamas, etc.), through links perhaps? Is this possible? (The photos would not necessarily be art themselves, rather subfeatures of the prose). j_moody: if you have an address on the web where the photos are located, you can add that address inside the <img src="[address]"> tag anywhere inside your piece and it should show the img there. Also, I really love the piece when you begin to talk about how everyone follows your every action and gossips about it. That paragraph began to take on the pace of a good fiction piece, whereas some of the other, more travelogue-ish paragraphs went a little slower. alecia: Mmm. I like. This piece shows some great snapshots of Shanghai, and it catches interest all the way through. The last few paragraphs, though, are especially nice. You really bring it back to the anecdotes of the very beginning of the piece, and those are my favorite parts. sprice: To add to j_moody's nice explanation, you can also get the pictures incorporated really smoothly by setting them as a margin. In other words, if you include a big picture in the way that j_moody describes, it will literally sit in the middle of the line like a gigantic character, no matter where on the page that character would be. If, instead, you start the paragraph off with your image, and make it look like this, your paragraph will wrap around the image with the image forming the left margin of the paragraph: <img src=imageaddress.jpg align=left> However, as j_moody also points out, you need to have the image on the web somewhere, and setting that up might best be done through an off-list discussion with one of the skein admins-- you could host it on skein, perhaps, or on sccs, or somewhere else. j_moody: For any interested in the media's scoop on the pajama wearers, check this link out: http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020816-10494030.htm and then there's another personal anecdote at http://fifi73.blogspot.com/2002_09_08_fifi73_archive.html Add comment