April 3, 2007

• Shanghai

     

  I arrived in smoky, dusty Shanghai, by myself, at night.

  The thing about traveling on business is that you never really feel that you're by yourself. Business cities like Tokyo or Shanghai have a well-placed network of English-speaking people ready to guide you to the well-traveled attractions. From the airport to the hotel, the hotel to the meeting, the meeting to the fancy dinner, and the fancy dinner back to the hotel, taxis spirit the business traveler from well kempt place to well kempt place, without troubling them at all with the local language, culture, or customs. A $100/night business hotel looks much the same in Shanghai as it does in San Francisco, as it does in Fukuoka; a nice restaurant takes the same credit cards, and if you stay in the nice districts, you can always find someone who speaks English if you need help. This well constructed network, the pretty face put on for international clients, is something I always try to avoid in Tokyo, where I have the ability to. However, since the only Mandarin I know is "Shie Shie", and I can't even pronounce that right, I was ready and willing to slide right in to the well worn paths and right back out again.
  

  
  

  The Show

  

  I was in town for Semicon China, a tradeshow for companies in the Semiconductor Industry. Since I work for a distribution company, and not a manufacturer, I spent a lot of time just hanging out or walking around. There were a lot of different reps at the booth of the company who hosted me, and there formed the sort of weird summer camp friendships characteristic of people forced to hang out all day in an unfamiliar environment. Adult friendships always puzzle me, and business friendships even more so. As someone clearly too young to expect much from, I just tried to be as pleasant as I could and to pay attention to what was going on.

  My favorite part of the show was meeting all the young, female salespeople at the different booths. Last summer I did kind of a tour of three major Japanese companies in the industry, and out of all that time I met one girl who wasn't pouring me something. In Japan, beyond the overt sexism that blatantly just happens, there is a lot of business - especially sales- that is done in ways girls cannot comfortably take part in: staying out late drinking, going to sketchy clubs, playing golf (debatable), or even going to onsen. But in Shanghai, a saleswoman doesn't just seem to be acceptable, it seems to be the standard. At every booth I went to I saw hoards of young women in nice suits and heavy makeup rushing around, chatting, and in general running the show. The girls at the company hosting me were particularly tenacious, very smart, and very hardworking. It was very refreshing to see.

  The Huangpu River

  My first business dinner in Shanghai actually turned out to be German food at a chain restaurant in an upscale neighborhood downtown. It was the kind of place Id've like to go to if I lived there- it was lively with an international crowd of disparate ages, and after dinner a band started playing. After their second set a few people got up and started dancing between the tables, including an older Chinese guy who must have been at least seventy. He was dancing with a different girl every song, young pretty girls with wild perms who seemed to be having a great time. By the time the third set got going the place was jumping; people were milling around outside waiting to get in and the hostesses had to fight their way through clumps of dancers in order to seat people.

  As much fun as that was, I was glad to learn that dinner the next night was going to be Chinese food. Not only that, but Chinese food in a boat on the Huangpu river, which has this on one side,

   
  
  and this on the other
  
  
  
  
  Out the window:

  
  

  What can I say? The food was great, the view was amazing, and since it was the end of the show, everyone relaxed and let their hair down a bit. That was Friday night and I had Saturday free. Some of the other people from the booth invited me to go purse shopping with them, but I was sort of anxious to get out and actually see the city, not barter over fake coach wallets. But I wasn't brave/stupid enough to go wandering around alone. That's where Susan comes in.

  Susan

  

  I met Susan at Semicon, at one of our vendor's Taiwanese distributor's booth (complicated, right?).  We figured out pretty quickly that it was way easier to communicate in Japanese than English, and off we went. When we realized that we were born in the same year, she offered to show me around town "if I had time".

  I don't know if she really expected me to take her up on it, but at about 10am Saturday I called her (and woke her up!), and within an hour we met in front of Peace Hotel by the river.

  For a first tour of the city I think it was pretty excellent. She took me to Nanjing road, which was blessedly less crowded thanks to the absolutely dreary weather (see top picture). We went to a restaurant famous for their buns, which were filled with "soup and the digestive glands of a crab". Although, when Susan described it in Japanese she made it sound more like crab eggs. I was a little apprehensive at first, but then I remembered how many weird things I've eaten and enjoyed in Japan, and if it was their specialty dish it was probably worth getting.

  The buns looked like fake breast implants; since they were filled with soup they sloshed around at the slightest prodding. In case you're wondering, the proper way to eat them is to poke a hole in the top with a toothpick, suck the soup out, and then eat the bun. Susan demonstrates for me above

  After Nanjing road she took me to an old district with traditional buildings. it was kind of touristy, but of pretty nonetheless.

  

  

  It didn't take us long to get away from the stuff thats been prettied up for guests, to the backstreets where the cement buildings are so old they look like moldy sponges. We walked down "Old Shanghai Street" and got some watermelon and good street food.

  

  Susan invited me over to her house, so we took the barge across the river. This has to be the cheapest way across the river besides swimming across. I think it was 1 RMB for the two of us. We waited behind a gate for the boat to come along with other pedestrians and motorcyclists, and then once the boat had docked we all herded ourselves on. We snagged a good position by the edge so that we could see the far bank of the river blanketed in smog and mist, while the old lady next to us kept spitting in the water, her phlegm joining the wood chips, garbage, and shoes already bobbing along in the current. Gross.

  

  We disembarked on the other side of the river, and no sooner had the moped riders, having never abandoned their transport, zoomed past us than we were in Skyscraper country. There was nothing whatsoever on street level besides a few well manicured but pathetic attempts at lawns, but gigantic buildings already a recognizable part of the skyline were all around us. Some were already in use, and had that "lived in" look; others were clearly brand spanking new and totally empty, and still others were still under construction. Shanghai, by the way, is a city under construction- and coming from a  Tokyoite, that means something. Hoards of workers from the surrounding countryside are imported at rock bottom wages to tear up roads and repave them, to create buildings and destroy old ones- with jackhammers, not wrecking balls, so that they can reuse the brick. In every corner of the city, something is changing and reforming itself.
  
  Anyway, once clear of the small thicket of skyscrapers, we were transported decades back in time. The buildings were suddenly low and very old. Laundry was hanging outside windows, children's toys littered the sidewalk, and vendors were selling things out of wheelbarrows on the street. Susan lead me through an iron gate into a housing complex and up a flight of cement stairs to her apartment. The kitchen and bathroom were clearly ancient, but her room itself was very clean and surprisingly cozy. I looked out the window at the neighborhood in complete disbelief that it existed within walking distance of the tallest tower in Asia. Within 10 years I'm sure the whole area will be razed and replaced with business parks or condos, but for now I enjoyed the juxtaposition.
  

  The highlight of the evening? Susan cooked me dinner! She and her friend chopped meat and veggies in their kitchen while I sat on my lazy ass and watched some Chinese period drama starring a man in monkey makeup. Susan said that it was the most popular program in China because monkeys were "clever". That made absolutely no sense to me.
  

  Dinner was great though; much better than restaurant food. It tasted less greasy for one, and she used more vegetables.
  

  

  After dinner we walked back to the skyscraper district and then to the river. We stopped at pearl tower, but decided not to go up because the night was so foggy.
  

  
  

  

  To say thanks to the two of them I dragged them to the lobby of the Shangri-la hotel to have cocktails in the lounge. Prices were high, but the chairs were comfortable and there was live music; two Chinese girls and a white guy accompanying them on the keyboard. I almost died laughing towards the end of the set when he sang "What a Wonderful World" in a fairly accurate Louis Armstrong impression. Susan didn't get it.
  

  I was really overwhelmed by Susan's kindness in offering to show me the city and to even take me to her home and cook for me. It feels like such a waste to go to a new city on business and not get to see anything that hasn't been specifically designed for foreigners. Of course, I still feel like I barely, barely saw a fraction of what Shanghai has to offer, but I certainly feel like I saw a lot more than I would have had I not befriended someone who lives there. More than just seeing a new city though, I got to be reminded of how nice people can be to each other- sometimes for no reason at all.

  We took a cab home at nearly midnight and watched the city lights scroll gently my window. In the distance a welder's flame burned on a top floor of a new skyscraper, the lightning flash of a new economy being forged. I imagined the welder sitting in the windowless floor of a great tower, chilled by the ocean wind, a small part of a big idea.
  

  If you ever read this, Susan, thanks

  

  
  
   

  • 7:32 pm
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