The Shanghai Skyline
When we first came to China, we had a list of places in mind that we had to visit. Shanghai was not on that list. Our impression of the city was that it was just a huge, traffic-congested, polluted cement jungle. Further, 19 Million people call Shanghai “home”. That’s only 2 million fewer people than the entire continent of Australia! The thought of traveling to Shanghai gave me visions of being packed onto subways and sidewalks like sardines. I didn’t want any of that. Still, when we found out that we had a 4-day weekend due to our students taking mid-terms, Shanghai was the logical place to go. Four days wasn’t enough time to travel to and fully explore Beijing or Sichuan Province, two places we hadn’t seen yet. It was enough time to see Xi’an, but the weather there was lousy. Plus, the more we thought about it, it would be a shame to spend a whole year in China and not see the Mainland’s largest and “most developed” city. So, off to Shanghai we went.
A bit about Shanghai: A century and a half ago, Shanghai was a mere fishing village. All that changed after the First Opium War, when the village was opened to The West. The Americans, British, French, Germans, and Russians all established a presence in Shanghai, and the city became a thriving international center in the early 1900’s (During this time, the city had two nicknames: “The Paris of the East” and “The Whore of Asia”. These nicknames allude to the fact that Shanghai was home to foreign dignitaries & businessmen, as well as gangsters, during this time. Things slowed down for Shanghai as a financial center and international hub after the Communist Party took control in 1949, but the remnants of the foreign presence is still evident in many of the city’s buildings and neighborhoods. Government sponsored economic reforms in 1990 breathed new life into Shanghai, which caused an explosion of growth in the city. The “building boom” continues to this day, and this already huge city is still growing at a rapid rate. From what we heard during our stay in Shanghai, the government would love nothing more than for Shanghai to replace Hong Kong (a former British colony) as the country’s #1 International and Financial center.
So our preconceived impressions of Shanghai turned out to be a bit off the mark. The city wasn’t just a crowded and boring cement jungle. It had a lot of character. We enjoyed walking through The Bund and French Concession, two areas formerly dominated by the West, for their interesting architecture. We took in the ever-growing Shanghai skyline, with the giant Pearl Tower (which Chinese people will tell you is beautiful but actually looked pretty ugly to us). We toured the Old Fishing Village that was Shanghai’s beginning, and it was interesting even though it has turned pretty touristy (there are 2 Starbucks in the village, as well as men and women on every corner trying to sell you a fake Rolex). The Shanghai Museum is regarded as one of the finest in Asia, and we spent nearly an entire rainy day in there! In general, we felt that the city was just a nice place to be. It was also very eclectic. On one street, the feel would be very Chinese, and we could’ve sworn we were back in Zhuzhou, Hunan. There’d be people selling any number of odds and ends from their small shops, mingling outside while eating steamed buns, dumplings, or fruit. Babies would defecate on the sidewalk. (Yes, even in Shanghai they still do this . . .) Turn into another neighborhood, and you’d be strolling down a small, tree-lined street with homes favoring western architectural styles. Importantly to us, there were also a wide range of restaurants: From the cheap, hole-in-the-wall Chinese places that were nowhere to be found in Hong Kong to fancy French restaurants.
The Bund in the daytime
. . . and at night
Tree-lined streets in the French Concession look very European
But this nearby street looks more like China
Shanghai was also the first Chinese city where we’ve noticed a significant population of expats. Coming from the relative backwoods of Zhuzhou, it was strange at first for us to see so many foreigners “at home” in this Chinese city. They looked like they were enjoying their lives there. Shanghai struck us as a great place for expats: It has all the comforts of home (and enough foreigners around to make friends and speak English with), but it still maintains the feel of a Chinese city. Things are also easier there for foreigners. More people speak English – especially people in their 20’s and younger. The subway system is fantastic and can quickly get you to almost anywhere in the city you want to go. I would even call the Long Distance Train situation in Shanghai as “easy”, something I never thought I’d say about the Chinese trains. First, the Shanghai Train Station has an English ticket line, where the man behind the window speaks fluent English. Next, a seemingly infinite number of trains originate in Shanghai, which means they sell more (and better) seats at the Shanghai station. (This as opposed to Zhuzhou, where no trains originate and as such the station sells mainly standing or “hard-seat” tickets, leaving the entire population of 4-6 million people fighting to get the handful of sleeper tickets seats sold at our station). And finally, there are the trains. China has many different classes of trains, ranging from the slow, dirty, and un-air-conditioned to the superfast and super clean. Living in Zhuzhou, we never see the latter. But, in Shanghai, it seemed that every other train leaving the station was a high-speed train that looked half like a spaceship.
The fast train to Suzhou
We got to try out one of these trains on a side-trip we took from Shanghai to Suzhou. What would have been a 2-hour trip one way on a normal train was reduced to about 30 minutes. We were served a bottle of water and given a magazine to read (who cares if it was only in Chinese?). It felt like luxury! Anyway, about Suzhou: If you talk to any Chinese person, they’ll tell you that Suzhou is one of the 2 most beautiful cities in China (Hangzhou is the other). Suzhou was an important cultural center in ancient China, and its primary attractions are its gardens and its canals (which are what gives Suzhou its two nicknames, “The Garden City” and “The Venice of the East”. The gardens were really beautiful, but not exactly what I’d expected. For some reason, I’d expected the entire city to be like one gigantic green park that you could walk around all day. However, these were private gardens owned by various authority figures in ancient China that have now been opened to the public. They’re spread all across the city and charge admission. They were still very pretty and well kept, they just weren’t as vast as I’d imagined. We were busy in Suzhou, visiting the IM Pei designed Suzhou museum (IM Pei’s family has roots in Suzhou) and the remnants of the old City Wall. However, in our opinion, the best part of Suzhou were the buildings and homes in the old neighborhoods still surviving along the canals after many, many years. We could have walked up and down the canals and alleyways in those neighborhoods all day just watching life happen. We were a bit sad to see bulldozers in many of these neighborhoods, tearing the old buildings down. Before arriving in Suzhou, we’d read a lot about the city having lost a bit of its flavor due to rapid development. Some people fear that the city will soon become just like any other modern Chinese city (some say it already has lost a lot of its former flavor). In China, there is a saying that if you don’t get rid of the old, the new can’t come. While this saying holds some weight in many situations, in Suzhou I felt like saying “Wait! The old is better than the new! Can’t you just leave it alone?!”
The Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou
A Suzhou Canal
The Master of the Nets Garden, Suzhou
A Suzhou Canal
We stayed in Suzhou for 2 days and one night. On the evening of the second night we grabbed some Indian food (yum!) and trained back to Shanghai on the fast train. The next morning, it was time to head home to Zhuzhou. .
The trip home was not as simple as we’d hoped it would be. All told, we took 7 modes of transportation from our Shanghai hotel to our apartment in Zhuzhou. From our hotel to the Shanghai airport we traveled by Foot, Subway, and Mag-Lev (a train that uses magnetic forces to hover over the tracks and goes 200+ miles per hour). We then flew from Shanghai to Changsha (Zhuzhou does not have an airport). Rather than haggle with an illegal taxi driver to take us from the Changsha airport to Zhuzhou, we decided to take the 16RMB ($2.25) bus to the Changsha train station, where we could catch a train for the hour-long ride back to Zhuzhou. Once in Zhuzhou, we took a taxi to our school.
The trip home was not as simple as we’d hoped it would be. All told, we took 7 modes of transportation from our Shanghai hotel to our apartment in Zhuzhou. From our hotel to the Shanghai airport we traveled by Foot, Subway, and Mag-Lev (a train that uses magnetic forces to hover over the tracks and goes 200+ miles per hour). We then flew from Shanghai to Changsha (Zhuzhou does not have an airport). Rather than haggle with an illegal taxi driver to take us from the Changsha airport to Zhuzhou, we decided to take the 16RMB ($2.25) bus to the Changsha train station, where we could catch a train for the hour-long ride back to Zhuzhou. Once in Zhuzhou, we took a taxi to our school.
The Mag Lev Train, which goes 200+ MPH
All legs of the trip were fine except for the Changsha-Zhuzhou leg. Leave it to the train to be the “weak link” in the system. We knew we were in for an unpleasant ride the moment we walked into the station and saw the lines going clear out the back doors. This was a Sunday night, the time for students and workers to head back to their jobs across China after a weekend at home. After about a half hour in line, we successfully purchased a “standing-room” ticket for the ride home. It is just a 45 minute ride from Changsha to Zhuzhou, so we didn’t worry too much about not having a place to sit. Little did we know, not having a place to sit was the least of our concerns. On this particular train ride home, we would be lucky just to find a place to stand! The waiting room for the train was more crowded than I’d ever seen it before – and that’s saying something because we’ve seen it pretty crowded. It was a huge room, filled wall-to-wall with people standing in every possible space. After waiting for a half-hour or so in the waiting area, it was time for our train to leave. The giant mass of humanity that was the “line” of people wanting to board our train slowly and painfully moved through the narrow metal gate which led to the train platforms.
Things didn’t get much better once we were on the platform trying to actually board the train. Every car was already filled to the brim with passengers who were already on the train from previous stops, but there were still 15-20 additional people (including us) per car with tickets who were supposed to somehow cram their way onboard in Changsha. It was pretty vicious. Train attendants tried to keep things orderly during the boarding process. But, it wasn’t much of a “process” and they quickly lost control of the situation, as well as their emotions. One male train attendant in particular got especially red-faced and started screaming so loudly that I thought he might actually pick a fight with some of the passengers. The train attendants eventually just gave up trying to control things after the crowd of people either trampled them or threw them out of the way.
Eventually, we fought our way onto the train. We stood in the aisle, crammed tightly against other passengers. I laughed when I saw the sign listing the railcar’s “maximum capacity” and thought that there were 1.5 – 2 times that many people in our car. Once we were situated (or as situated as we could have possibly been), a couple of guys in their early 20’s came charging down the aisle looking for a place to stand. The problem was that there really wasn’t any space for them to walk: The aisle was completely full. Their solution to this problem was to grab whoever was blocking their way and throw them out of the aisle. I heard a couple of young Chinese women shriek with displeasure as the 2 men shoved them out of the way. At this point, I was pretty upset and couldn’t help but send a few hard elbows their way as they tried to come by me (which was wrong, I know). The 2 men didn’t appreciate this at all. Still, they didn’t do much other than shoot me a long, angry glare as they passed. When they made it to Tiffany, they also roughly pushed her out of the way. They didn’t seem to listen as she loudly voiced her anger at their rude behavior. While Tiffany was giving the two men a piece of her mind (in English, of course), another passenger on the train muttered a derogatory term under his breath (this term was one that is usually reserved for females). Tiffany heard this and assumed this passenger, another 20-something male had directed the comment at her. Upset, she began – in rather passionate fashion – to explain to this man that the term he’d called her was not an appropriate thing to say to a woman, especially one who was a guest in his country and had just been “bullied” by his countrymen. During this passionate “explanation”, a young college-aged girl standing nearby grabbed Tiffany by the shoulder and repeating over and over, “No Angry! No Angry!” The girl wasn’t trying to be funny, but the way she said this was humorous to us and her words seemed to diffuse the situation. The man who’d made the derogatory remark apologized and stated that he’d not meant to direct it at Tiffany, but instead towards the two men who were shoving others out of the way (I’m not sure whether this was true or not, but he seemed sincere). Tiffany apologized to him in return, and turned to the “No Angry” girl to thank her for her concern. To that, she gave a completely unexpected response: She said, “You know, you’re appearance looks familiar to me. Are you Tiffany? Is your Chinese name Zhou Xiao Hui?” At first, Tiffany was confused and surprised as to how this girl knew both Tiffany’s English and Chinese names. She then noticed the girl’s boyfriend standing in the aisle of the rail car next to her and remembered that they’d briefly met 4 or 5 months ago in a local noodle shop during lunch. After that short meeting, this girl had apparently remembered Tiffany (as well as both her names) all this time. I was pretty impressed with her memory. We talked with the girl, whose English name was Tanya, throughout the rest of our ride home to Zhuzhou. She was a college student in Changsha on her way to Zhuzhou to visit her family. Her major was Golf, which apparently taught her how to be a caddie as well as maintain golf courses (How strange!). We enjoyed talking to her. She seemed almost apologetic about the crowded nature of the train. At one point, as one of the food vendors on the train was rolling his food cart over everyone’s feet and into their legs in a futile attempt to make it down the aisle, Tanya asked “Does this situation (the so-crowded-it’s-a-fire-hazard, dirty, train) occur in America? I couldn’t help but smile when I heard that comment and say that this “situation” would likely not occur in America, for so many reasons.
Things didn’t get much better once we were on the platform trying to actually board the train. Every car was already filled to the brim with passengers who were already on the train from previous stops, but there were still 15-20 additional people (including us) per car with tickets who were supposed to somehow cram their way onboard in Changsha. It was pretty vicious. Train attendants tried to keep things orderly during the boarding process. But, it wasn’t much of a “process” and they quickly lost control of the situation, as well as their emotions. One male train attendant in particular got especially red-faced and started screaming so loudly that I thought he might actually pick a fight with some of the passengers. The train attendants eventually just gave up trying to control things after the crowd of people either trampled them or threw them out of the way.
Eventually, we fought our way onto the train. We stood in the aisle, crammed tightly against other passengers. I laughed when I saw the sign listing the railcar’s “maximum capacity” and thought that there were 1.5 – 2 times that many people in our car. Once we were situated (or as situated as we could have possibly been), a couple of guys in their early 20’s came charging down the aisle looking for a place to stand. The problem was that there really wasn’t any space for them to walk: The aisle was completely full. Their solution to this problem was to grab whoever was blocking their way and throw them out of the aisle. I heard a couple of young Chinese women shriek with displeasure as the 2 men shoved them out of the way. At this point, I was pretty upset and couldn’t help but send a few hard elbows their way as they tried to come by me (which was wrong, I know). The 2 men didn’t appreciate this at all. Still, they didn’t do much other than shoot me a long, angry glare as they passed. When they made it to Tiffany, they also roughly pushed her out of the way. They didn’t seem to listen as she loudly voiced her anger at their rude behavior. While Tiffany was giving the two men a piece of her mind (in English, of course), another passenger on the train muttered a derogatory term under his breath (this term was one that is usually reserved for females). Tiffany heard this and assumed this passenger, another 20-something male had directed the comment at her. Upset, she began – in rather passionate fashion – to explain to this man that the term he’d called her was not an appropriate thing to say to a woman, especially one who was a guest in his country and had just been “bullied” by his countrymen. During this passionate “explanation”, a young college-aged girl standing nearby grabbed Tiffany by the shoulder and repeating over and over, “No Angry! No Angry!” The girl wasn’t trying to be funny, but the way she said this was humorous to us and her words seemed to diffuse the situation. The man who’d made the derogatory remark apologized and stated that he’d not meant to direct it at Tiffany, but instead towards the two men who were shoving others out of the way (I’m not sure whether this was true or not, but he seemed sincere). Tiffany apologized to him in return, and turned to the “No Angry” girl to thank her for her concern. To that, she gave a completely unexpected response: She said, “You know, you’re appearance looks familiar to me. Are you Tiffany? Is your Chinese name Zhou Xiao Hui?” At first, Tiffany was confused and surprised as to how this girl knew both Tiffany’s English and Chinese names. She then noticed the girl’s boyfriend standing in the aisle of the rail car next to her and remembered that they’d briefly met 4 or 5 months ago in a local noodle shop during lunch. After that short meeting, this girl had apparently remembered Tiffany (as well as both her names) all this time. I was pretty impressed with her memory. We talked with the girl, whose English name was Tanya, throughout the rest of our ride home to Zhuzhou. She was a college student in Changsha on her way to Zhuzhou to visit her family. Her major was Golf, which apparently taught her how to be a caddie as well as maintain golf courses (How strange!). We enjoyed talking to her. She seemed almost apologetic about the crowded nature of the train. At one point, as one of the food vendors on the train was rolling his food cart over everyone’s feet and into their legs in a futile attempt to make it down the aisle, Tanya asked “Does this situation (the so-crowded-it’s-a-fire-hazard, dirty, train) occur in America? I couldn’t help but smile when I heard that comment and say that this “situation” would likely not occur in America, for so many reasons.
A crowded train station waiting lounge in Changsha
Anyway, Tanya spoke English pretty well and also helped translate for other nearby passengers crammed onto the train with us who wanted to talk to us but couldn’t speak English. It turns out that another woman sitting in a seat near us was a teacher at a neighboring Middle School in Zhuzhou where one of our friends teaches. Somehow, she knew exactly how much money we were being paid to teach in China (which is not much) and felt it was her duty to tell everyone within earshot. That was a bit annoying, to say the least.
About 45 minutes after the train left Changsha, it mercifully arrived in Zhuzhou. We climbed over and around people to exit the train. Once off the train, we then hopped in a taxi and made it safely home. The whole experience on the train ride from Changsha to Zhuzhou was a bit enlightening. Everywhere we go, people notice us because we look different. We know that. We can’t help but notice the regular stares and the shouts of “Hello!” from strangers on the street. Still, we don’t always realize that wherever we go, there are probably also people who know us (or at least know of us) silently watching and observing, unbeknown to us. On that crowded train, we were right next to a girl who’d previously met us and a teacher who knew of us and knew the exact amount of our salary. I would have never suspected that. It really made me wonder, how many other times have we been surrounded by other people who “knew” us and not realized it (I know it’s happened several times at least – people will tell us that someone they know saw us shopping around town and will be able to tell us exactly what we bought and how much we paid – it’s amazing). We do realize that all of the people here form lasting impressions of us based on how we act and react to situations in their presence. We came here to make a good impression, and we really try to put our best foot forward when we’re out in public. This experience just made us even more aware of our surroundings and reminded us that someone’s always watching.
About 45 minutes after the train left Changsha, it mercifully arrived in Zhuzhou. We climbed over and around people to exit the train. Once off the train, we then hopped in a taxi and made it safely home. The whole experience on the train ride from Changsha to Zhuzhou was a bit enlightening. Everywhere we go, people notice us because we look different. We know that. We can’t help but notice the regular stares and the shouts of “Hello!” from strangers on the street. Still, we don’t always realize that wherever we go, there are probably also people who know us (or at least know of us) silently watching and observing, unbeknown to us. On that crowded train, we were right next to a girl who’d previously met us and a teacher who knew of us and knew the exact amount of our salary. I would have never suspected that. It really made me wonder, how many other times have we been surrounded by other people who “knew” us and not realized it (I know it’s happened several times at least – people will tell us that someone they know saw us shopping around town and will be able to tell us exactly what we bought and how much we paid – it’s amazing). We do realize that all of the people here form lasting impressions of us based on how we act and react to situations in their presence. We came here to make a good impression, and we really try to put our best foot forward when we’re out in public. This experience just made us even more aware of our surroundings and reminded us that someone’s always watching.
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