Yellow New Yorkers

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that Shanghainese people are the New Yorkers of Asia. The city is really happening, stealing thunder away from the country's capital, Beijing, and really unparalleled in terms of modernity. It's a place rich in history, that has been architecturally scarred by numerous others, and there's a certain aristocratic hierarchy associated with being originally from here.

In the past 3 days, I've walked for 20 minutes before being able to hail down a cab, had to deal with unfriendly clerks and cashiers, and have walked in some innocuous substance which I couldn't identify either by sight or by smell. Hell, I even pushed a lady aside, telling her to fuck off and wait for another taxi because i had been waiting for 15 minutes on the same corner. She muttered something in return but didn't make a big deal about it. I guess life goes on, people here know that.



Things change at the speed of light; that Shanghai Internet Club I had so fondly adopted 4 years ago as my cyberspace haven has now become obsolete (I'm guessing compared to the broadband and wireless bunch) and made way for a hat shop (hats, on the other hand, are of an eternal breed, unlike computers). My mother's old house is now covered by the corner store, and my father's building was obliterated in the name of a highway. I once heard the story of a man who hadn't left his house for 10 years due to illness; he probably would have died had he ever made it to the door and looked outside.

I went to a house party; I was served red wine, of the Great Wall variety, in a wet mug, while boxes of Pokey stick cookies were passed around like dope. We played card games, including a sedated and civilized but more communist version of truth or dare; the most risque task was suck and blow, and even that was almost scratched off the list because it wasn't very clean to suck on a pack of cards bought around the corner for a buck and a half. The night ended with a round of ghost stories in the dark; half were scared to death, the rest of us just fell asleep.

So I guess in some ways, they're not that different here, halfway around the world, obvious cultural discrepancies aside. Perhaps the one thing that makes people here stand out is that yes, they still ride their bikes and no, they couldn't give less of a shit what you think about that.