What strikes me most each time I am in Shanghai is the amount of people, but more importantly, the amount of westerners. Every time I go, I see more non-Chinese, and they speak better Mandarin than I do. What's REALLY weird is that, in a crowded market, I would pick them out, and feel a strange and irrational comfort with the westerners because this is the version of people which has surrounded me most of my life, and probably contributed to some of the subconscious distortion of how I 'see' myself, but also I too, find a crowd of billions of Chinese faces daunting and unfamiliar. But then, as most people who are travelling in a country where they tend to stand out, the western tourists would look straight through me as a part of the mass crowd BECAUSE of how I look, and that look of indifference and distance usually sobers up whatever disillusion I might have about myself, as an Asian American.
I find these observations fascinating, because the western influences contribute an incomparable color of the multi faceted growth in Shanghai: the foreign investment, the foreign tourism, the foreign studies. All aspects of the 'new west', when mixed in with a city which is advancing so quickly, but at the same time, holding on to its own strong and rich history and culture, create a distinct, illusive and unidentifiable flavor. One smells it in the air, and it's in the mirage of skyscrapers and the temples hidden between them.
Everywhere you turn, there is a sense of mixture. An innocent cab ride at a stop light, you see from the midst of a grey Gothem city, an old bicycle carrying an entire dead pig on the back. In fact, I seriously contemplated doing a portrait book on what people carry on their bicycles in China. It would be my futile attempt to snap a shot of a momentary glance, to slow down the whirling traffic of the exploding 'progress', and the same quickness with which it disappears. The snapshot could also be an old lady crouched down on the side of the curbs, selling jasmine flowers outside of Starbucks. Or it could be one of those heartbreaking stories about the countless young women losing all their senses of the self to the rush of money making, or a foreign business man's family break up because of a love affair with a young Chinese woman who might not even speak a word of English. It is literally there, everywhere you turn, you hear or read about a transient story of an unimaginable emotional magnitude, but quickly forgotten by the world the very next day. There are simply too many people, too many stories, and too much money to be made to linger on one thing, and one thing only.
And that, that is how I always feel when I'm in Shanghai, washed along by the incredible pace of life, overwhelmed by the racing steps of the pedestrians, drowning in the undecipherable Shanghainese dialect. Like all big cosmopolitan cities, even the 'trends' go in and out at an incomprehensible speed, every year I go to visit my mother, she has the 'newest' and the best restaurants to show me, what happened to the best ones from last year? "oh...that one went out of business...". Everything is included: fashion, food, real estate, even the medical trends, traditional and/or western. There is just so little time to stop and look, to think, to live. It's as if the city is on a new mission to go somewhere, a pre-fixed destination that someone has appointed, but nobody knows where. It is terribly exciting, one cannot help but join in the race, the lights, the luxuries, the possibilities.
In a place like this, nobody's story matters except the successful ones.
Michele, Mom and Me
I am attaching a list of books on China for those of you who might be interested in going and visit someday...(the following was taken from an email to my college roommate), or just to keep track of a nation which is going under such rapid changes that before you know it, will become completely unidentifiable.
Here is a list of books which might interest you to read about China...I
hope you can find some, and enjoy reading them
BOOK LIST:
Stuff to read to 'get in the mood':
I read a disturbing but intriguing book by a young Chinese author called
Shanghai Baby, it's a bit like Henry Miller meets Anais Nin...but in a younger Shanghainese version. Entertaining, very good writing at times, and one can get a good taste of how the city 'culture' is in the coming generations. The author's name is Wei Hui.
Another interesting book I read not too long ago was an autobiogrphical book by Ken Cuthbertson, titled Nobody Said Not to Go about the life of Emily Hahn, a woman journalist for the New Yorker in the turn of last century. Her life story is absolutely amazing, she was a strong young woman, who, at one time, became a Chinese poet's concubine in Shanghai. I like this book because it takes place during the 'golden times' in Shanghai, in between the end of imperialism and the opium times.
Now for some excellent writings, very updated and insightful writing and reading, these are more jornalistic books, but my favorite and very, very informative about China in general:
The Good Women in China by Xinran, heart breaking real stories about the unknown women and unknown parts of China, written by a prolific and soulful writer, I know my 'review' sounds cheesy, but I truly truly believe in this author and found the book powerful and disturbing.
The River at the Center of the World by Simon Winchester, I read this a while ago, and remember loving it, can't remember much else about it now.
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian, I'm guessing the last name in this case, is Gao. Excellent meditative writing incorporating observations about China. NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE...!!
China Wakes by Nicholas D. Kristof, and Sheryl Wudunn, a couple who are reporters for the New York Times, this book won them the NOBEL PRIZE FOR JORNALISM...!!! I read this even LONGER time ago, and re-read it again a few years ago, still love it.
No comments:
Post a Comment