friday's list

when my godbrother and his mom, nancy, visited shanghai about a month ago, passing through after a few days' trip to beijing, she remarked after dinner banter with a few of our friends that we seemed very cynical about our lives in china. i'm the worst offender of the group, i'm sure, so i thought i'd take a few moments to appreciate some good things about living here, and why there are so many of us lao wai in this town, anyway.

my why-i-love-china list

1. chinese folk are unapologetic about eating. Slurping, spilling, speedily spooning, it’s all fine and good at the Chinese table. Nothing dainty here, it’s about efficiency: I’m hungry and I’m not ashamed to show it. I love this, because I’m the same way. If there’s food on the table, chances are I’m silent and stuffing my face. If I’m talking, I’m secretly irritated that social graces demand that I speak to you when there’s perfectly good food getting cold in front of me. Eating immediately after food lands in front of you and downing food rapidly are two of life’s great pleasures. My life, anyway.
2. China is kinda wild… and it can be fun. It’s true. You can drink booze on the street, in a moving vehicle, if you like. You can cruise onto the metro, a bus, or into a cab with a plastic cup full of fish balls on a skewer and a beard papa cream puff. You can bring your own popcorn to the movies. You can pair your new marigold-orange suit with your new burgundy hairdo and ride down the street on your bicycle without a single stare. You can sing at the top of your lungs at noon on a crowded sidewalk and no one will even blink (unless you’re not singing in Chinese). You can throw an entire bucket of dirty water on a passer-by and only elicit a mild protest (it was dark and rainy, I was screaming curses at the offender… but in China, volume bears no relation to rage level and she just laughed heartily and went back to what she was doing).
3. Napping at work is no big thing. Seriously. It’s even normal. After lunch I peek my head over my cubicle wall and see about three people (on average), heads down on desks, taking a little snooze. After 20 minutes or so they pop back up and it’s business as usual. Makes you wonder why the same thing can get you fired at home.
4. Men raise children and clean house. Especially in Shanghai, where men are famous for being responsible for all housework, including cooking the meals, I see dads and grandpas on the bus cuddling babies, carrying bags of vegetables and mian bao and dofu, hanging the wash out on balconies overlooking the street. It’s not a novelty, it’s normal.
5. It’s a grassroots experience. And by this I mean industry. There are factories and huge manufacturers galore, but it’s just as easy to find a person parked in a random lane with a sewing machine and a selection of replacement shoe heels, waiting for business. There are fruit stands on every block. You can stumble around a random corner and find the trimming street, where store after store carries only buttons, ribbons, crocheted collars, leather for belts. One street near my office houses all of the color pigment vendors, where you can buy bags of loose pigment powders to use in god knows what.
6. It’s humane… and I’m not being ironic. Go past the di-ethylene glycol and fucked-up blood plasma and pet food horror stories and take a look at the people. I don’t feel like I’m in the rat race, and I live in a city renowned for the fiscal trickery of its people – blink too long and suddenly your taxi driver is taking you ‘round the block once more – I feel like I’m being understood as human if I call in sick, or announce that I can’t focus until I’ve eaten dinner, or can’t meet a deadline due to a hectic week. Heads don’t roll if I show that I’m human. It’s not as efficient or cost-effective as applying undue pressure and unrealistic expectations, but it’s life and I don’t feel guilty for living it.
7. You don’t take your wealth for granted. I’m well off here. I afford my own 80 square meters of luxury living including an oven, a clothes dryer, satellite TV, and about 5 different facial cleansers. I pay $10 USD for my Lavazzo espresso beans, have a yoga studio membership, and own about 45 pairs of shoes. I ride my bike for fun. I don’t share my kitchen or my bathroom and my plumbing is indoors. I have an ayi who cleans my house twice a week, cooks for me, pays my bills, arranges my water delivery, and cusses out the landlord when he needs to be cussed out. I’m incredibly lucky, and every day I realize this. I realize it when I line up at the convenience store and see the reconstituted paper soles on the shoes of the old man next to me, or when the company driver drops me off at home in the A6 next to the neighbor who cooks outdoors year-round on a single burner. I don’t bitch about the bald spot on my velvet ballet flats because my ayi is still rocking the shoes she wore to her wedding… and her son is 17 years old.
8. Everything is recycled. And this isn’t eco-chic I'm taking about, its survival. The old people digging in trash cans with pointed sticks isn’t a phenomenon exclusive to San Francisco Chinatown. The Mainland takes it a step further, where landfill warlords employ scores of people to scour through mountains of trash for anything recyclable. Not just cans and bottles, but cardboard and building materials, old computer monitors, used refrigerators, steel and aluminum, wood scraps, nails. All of the demolition sites around the city are sifted through for anything reusable. ‘Sustainability’ in the western media is a tag word, but those men bicycling used scrap metal through the streets don’t have the luxury to learn the concept. For them it's about making a few bucks and surviving. It’s a simple and very direct reminder of that I am a product of marketing drives and consumerism. I didn’t know you could re-use a goddamn nail because I never thought about people who needed to do that.