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Shanghai

Friday September 1, 2006

Posted In: China | Comments: 12 | Written By: Kai Conragan

Dining hall car.

The dining car we’re seated in feels like a set out of an old movie: The windows from which I look out are framed by curtains that were once white but now are tinged yellow from years of smoke-filled nights just such as this one. Even now, several Chinese men—presumably employees on the train from their matching shirts—sit smoking their cigarettes in solitude at various tables throughout the car, each preferring the comfort of their own thoughts to conversation. The tables have white linen cloths, which never seem to quite sit flat on the table surface and the extra fabric gets bunched up under your elbows when you lean forward. Each table is adorned with a red carnation carefully placed in a white vase near the window. Used condiment containers surround each vase—soy sauce, chili sauce, salt and pepper, tooth-pick holders.

A man sitting in a booth across from us is telling us about his autistic daughter and his wife who has gone crazy because of it. It’s a sad story, but he’s bought me a round of beers so I’m happy to listen. Conversation is comfort on a long train ride, and he seems like he could use someone to talk to anyhow. He lived in Canada for a spell—in the cold, flat region above Michigan—where he worked at a 7-11 and was married to a women in what, to him, seems a lifetime ago. He wants to know why we decided to take a train from Hong Kong to Shanghai when a flight is only two hours and a train ride is twenty three. We don’t really have a good answer for this so we give him some long-winded explanation about wanting to see the country. We’ve given up telling people this sort of travel is cheaper. Our simple presence in their country means to them that we are rich, and no amount of explaining will convince them otherwise. He also wants to know if, back in America, we still use phrases like awesome and get hammered. He’s a nice man, but there’s an underlying tragedy to him that’s hard to escape, helped in no small part by the fact that he no longer calls his wife “my wife” but, rather, “the child’s mother”. You get the sense that he asks himself where things went wrong. He prefers to keep conversation topical, so we focus on American TV shows. Apparently he spent his time in North America during the Three’s Company era, and is sad to hear John Ridder has passed away.

The narrow hallways that connect the train cars are smattered with passengers seeking retreat from the cramped confines of the rooms. The halls are no better really—I have to walk at a three-quarter angle to prevent my shoulders from brushing the walls. Pull-out seats attached to the the walls offer a place to sit and watch the countryside go by. I empathize with the in-transit souls who make the halls their confines, determined as they are to not spend the entirety of the train ride cooped in a small bed. There’s an unspoken camaraderie here.

The sleeping cars are surprisingly comfortable. Our room has two bunk beds with surprisingly soft mattresses and two pillows each, all dressed in soft white sheets. The lower bunks have a table between them and a thermos full of hot water below it for tea. Again, a red carnation resting in a white vase. We had hoped for a private room, but as we showed up at the train station to buy our tickets the same day we were leaving, only soft sleeper tickets were available. We have been blessed with an old Chinese couple as bunkmates who are less than happy to be sharing their car with some young westerners. Upon entering the cabin for the first time, they both started yelling at us in broken english. We still had our bags on the floor at their arrival as I was attempting to hoist Julie’s heavy pack to the upper bunk. They were assigned to the lower bunks and our bags still being on the floor represented a breach of territory. The man wears a NY Yankees hat—I tell him I’m a Giants fan—and has a nose that in no small way resembles a meatball. He waves his cane at us and sits down heavily the bottom bunk. The woman, we learn, wears dentures, as we find them soaking in our drinking cup as we reach for a sip of water later in the night. We’ve affectionately taken to calling them Grouchie and Slouchie, although which one is which, we really can’t say. As grumpy as they are, there is something endearing to them, and Julie and I promise each other never to end up like them.

We spend most of the train ride drinking tea in the dining car and talking, or listening to A Short History of Nearly Everything on our iPod. There’s a certain tranquility when traveling by train that has been lost to air travel. With nowhere to go and not much to do, you allow yourself to sit back and surrender to the moment.

Shanghai

Stepping out of the train station—and setting foot in mainland China for the first time—we are greeted with a heat I didn’t know was possible. The air is thick and has a weight that reminds me of a wet, wool blanket. The square in front of the train station is alive with people walking in all directions, and I’m unable to discern any pattern to it. A group of people stand to our left, creating a lot of energy. From the confines of the circle, a man emerges, his hand clasped over his left eye with blood streaming from his forehead. Another man is being constrained by the crowd. I don’t want to stick around long enough to see who won the fight, so I grab Julie by the arm and lead her in the opposite direction.

A few blocks later, we seek relief from the heat in the air-conditioned lobby of a hotel—Julie has to use the bathroom. Several minutes of pantomiming later, the staff points her in the right direction. It’s a two-star rated establishment—all hotels must be approved by the Chinese tourism board—and with a double room costing ¥218, plus the prospect of more wandering with heavy packs in the oppressive heat, we decide this hotel is as good as any.

A shower clears the cobwebs and makes us feel human again. Despite the long train ride, we’re both feeling quite rested as at least half of the journey was spent in some form of sleep, which is good, as we’re scheduled to meet up with a someone we had met while diving back in Borneo. His name is Huang Zhi, he lives in Shanghai and told us he’d be happy to show us around when we made it China. We sent him an email from Hong Kong, and he replied telling us to call him upon our arrival in Shanghai. In many ways, we’d made Shanghai our first stop in China because of him—a friendly face, and one who speaks english seems a good way to ease into the country.

In order to call him, we need to find access to the internet as we forgot to write down his phone number before leaving Hong Kong. Finding the internet proves challenging, but finally we’re helped by two young girls who are on vacation in Shanghai and eager to practice their english.

The internet cafe is filled with teenage-looking boys sitting in front of computer monitors wearing oversize headphones. Most of them are playing “World of Warcraft”, or other such network games. Finding Huang Zhi’s phone number, we give him a call and he tells us to take a taxi to his neighborhood. We pass the phone to a chinese-speaking man who writes down directions to Huang Zhi’s house in Chinese, so we can give them to the cab driver.

Huang Zhi is 3-D animator, and lives in what seems to be a young, trendy area in Shanghai. There’s a university nearby, from which the area seems to have profited with a healthy supply of small restaurants and boutique-looking shops. Young people ride along the sidewalks and street, going about the early evening in a peaceful yet purposeful manner. Huang Zhi meets us on the designated corner and walks us to a small restaurant, which is across the street from his apartment. The entrance to the restaurant has a glass floor with fish swimming below. After making sure it’s alright with us, Huang Zhi orders for everyone, and has the waitress bring us three tall Tsingtao’s, which taste amazing. Though cosmopolitan, Shanghai is still polluted by our standards, and our throats feel scratchy from hot, humid air. The food arrives one plate at a time, each one seemingly more delicious than the next. Steamed vegetables, marinated pork, skewered on a stick shrimp—head’s and all. The highlight is undoubtedly chopped frog, still simmering in an oily chilly sauce with bell peppers and onions. Eating frog is a first for both Julie and I. Everyone always says frog tastes just like chicken; honestly, I think it tastes better. It tastes far better than any kungpao chicken or sweet and sour pork I’ve had back home.

Frog simmered in chilly oil, bell peppers, and onions.

Pearl River

After dinner, Huang Zhi signals a cab and takes us down to what is known as Pearl River. Here runs the Juangpu river, which bisects the city and has facilitated trading in Shanghai as far back as 960 AD. In the 1840’s, after the Opium Wars, the British imposed the Treaty of Nanking on China, which forced China to open Shanghai to westerners. A large collection of colonial buildings sprang up to cater to western interests. The one’s that survived the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s still stand on the western bank of the river today. The Chinese government have cleaned the buildings up, added lights, and now bill them as a tourist attraction, which is commonly known to Westerners as the Bund.

Directly across the river lies Pudong Xinqu—the new Shanghai. A US$40 billion development project is planned here including an international airport, modern skyscrapers, and a state-of-the-art container port. Shanghai is a city of architecture, and nowhere is it more obvious than here with it’s towering highrises and glimmering billboards. Entire neighborhoods have been torn down and highrises put in their stead. Construction—even at night—is incessant, though amazingly unobtrusive as you walk the streets. On the eastern shore of the river stands Pearl Tower—the highest tower in Asia and the third tallest in the world rising 468 meters from the streets of Shanghai. It is a true spectacle in the nighttime sky; indeed, the entire skyline is a marvel, as the myriad buildings illuminate the sticky night with a grand display of neon incandescence. Shanghai is well on its way to becoming a modern giant. Even now it makes most western cities seem quaint in comparison, and you get feeling that Shanghai is just getting started. The people here are proud of their city, and there is an energy within it’s limits that is palpable.

Huang Zhi has a friend who works as a manager for one of the tourist ferry services, so he gets us onboard one for free and we take a boat for a short loop through water, giving us a view of both sides of the river from one vantage point. Chinese families pose for pictures, leaning against the boat railings, making sure so as to not block any important buildings in the background for their snapshots. Huang Zhi, Julie, and I sit and talk and take in the night.

Kai and Huang Zhi in front of Pearl Tower.

Shanghai skyline.

People’s Square

The following day Julie and find ourselves walking in People’s Square. If there is one thing the Chinese have gotten right it’s public space—and parks in particular. It’s Sunday and all around us are people enjoying the comforts of the park. Old Chinese men sit around low, stone tables playing cards and mahjong. Young families walk through park, snapping pictures on their digital cameras or, more often, their cell phones. Young couples swing gently in white benches that sit along the edge of a vibrant, green lawn. It is August so the lilies are in bloom in a pond inelegantly translated on a wooden sign as “Blue Green Pond”.

Earlier in the day we ran into three college students visiting Shanghai from Quingdao. They take us to a tea tasting, which we find highly coincidental. We ask them if they go to tea tastings often. They tell us they’ve never done it before but on this day, of all days, they had previously arranged for one not far from the park. The tasting is fun, though expensive at ¥30 per person per pot. We sample five pots of tea in total, including a delicious ginseng oolong, which Julie and I purchase 150 grams of to take with us. The girl of the group—her name is Zhang Mei, but she insists we call her by her western name, which is Betty—thinks Julie is beautiful. She continually compliments Julie’s “big, beautiful, blue eyes” and remarks on the large size of her nose, which in China is a symbol of beauty. She keeps wanting to touch it, which Julie finds amusing.

Tea tasting with our friends from Quingdao.

Having finished the tea tasting, we say goodbye to the trio after exchanging email addresses, and we return to the park. It is early afternoon and, unsurprisingly, it is swelteringly hot. Julie and I seek refuge under a canopy of trees that arch over a stone table surrounded by matching stone stools. We take a seat, wiping sweat from our brow and refreshing ourselves with water. As we’re sitting there, an older Chinese man approaches me shyly. He walks as if he’s going to go past the table but then, seemingly thinking otherwise, turns and approaches our table. In awkward, but perfectly understandable english, he asks me if I can tell him what a phrase he has written down means. He pulls out a worn, black notebook and begins scanning the pages. Most pages are covered in Chinese characters, but he finds several with english words written down, and shows me the phrase: Blue Funk. He asks me what it means. Not knowing the context, I tell him blue funk could mean feeling sad. He looks confused, and tells me he thought it meant music. I look at it again. I take his pen and add an “s” to the end of “Blue”, and tell him that Blues and Funk are two types of music, but that they can be combined musically. He seems to understand, and makes some notes in the margin of the page, and asks me about another: detox, only, he has it written as “dextox”. I scribble out the extraneous “x”. I have to think about how to explain this one. The best I can come up with is if a person drinks too much alcohol, it makes him feel sick. When a person feels sick, he needs to rest so his body feels better. The act of resting is a kind of detox. It’s a horrible analogy, but he seems satisfied and makes a few more notes to. He sits down at an empty bench and introduces himself as Zeng Fan Fu.

He tells me he was born in a small town in Chongqing. He came to Shanghai as a boy, but had to flee back to his home in the 1940s when Japan invaded. He later returned to Shanghai, where has lived for sixty years since. He wears dark-rimmed glasses, which magnify his bright eyes, making him appear younger than he likely is. He smiles a lot—he is missing a few teeth and others are stained yellow, but it’s a kind smile—-the kind of smile that makes you feel like a shithead for not smiling more yourself.

He asks what we’re doing in China, and I tell him we are here as tourists for two months. This seems to delight him. He pulls my map closer—we had taken it out so he could show me where he was born—and scans for something on the map. He find a small island off the coast of Shanghai and tells me I must go there. He’s never been there himself, but he heard it’s paradise. He then points to a mountain range back in the region he’s from. He tells me he used to like climbing mountains when he was younger. He tells me there’s a mountain there, one he always dreamed of climbing but never managed to. He also tells me I should have a blog, so I can post pictures of my travels. I literally fall of my seat when he says this. Here’s a man who was chased out of Shanghai during World War II, lived through the Cultural Revolution, and, coservatively, is in his eighties, telling me I should I have a blog. I decide in some small way he is my hero, and unlike Grouchie and Slouchie on the train, I hope to be just like him someday. I tell him I, in fact, have a blog, and write down the address in his notebook, telling him he must visit it. He promises to do so and writes down his email for me in return. He says I can email him if I have any questions and, considering it for a moment, then writes down his cell phone number and tells me to call him in case I get in trouble. He thanks me sincerely for my time, and asks me to send other tourists to him so he can continue practicing his english, and wanders off deeper into the park.

In the time that I have been talking to Zeng Fan Fu, and completely unbeknownst to me, we have been surrounded by a crowd of spectators in the park. Julie is fielding questions from five different people at once, and more are patiently waiting to get their turn. I turn to my left and see a shy, young boy looking at me and being coaxed to approach closer by his mother. He tells me his name is Stephen in timid english, and I tell him I have a cousin named Stephen. He smiles and hides in the folds of his mother’s dress. And so it goes. One person after the next taking their turn to talk to us—perhaps thirty in all. Most just want to practice their english and are content to stick with the basics: what’s your name? what’s your occupation? where are you going in China? Several, who have a stronger grasp on english, want us to explain the United States Social Security System, which proves quite a bit more complicated.

An hour later, Julie and I find ourselves sitting to ourselves in the park again, and just sort of look at each other in disbelief. Before coming here, everyone always warned us about China saying it was one of the most difficult places to travel: unfriendly people, overcrowded cities, no sense of personal space, lack of hygiene, and a ridiculously difficult language barrier. All this may prove to be true, but the last twenty-four hours have been anything but.

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