‘I’d rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle.’

My very first friend in Shanghai, Vicky, taught me to say: ‘I’d rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle.’ Apparently it was said by a girl on a dating show to an unemployed contender who asked her to ride with him on his bike in 2010.

As Palmer explains in his article on Chinese youth, the preference to cry in a BMW can be used to explain China's society both in its favour and against it. Personally I think it is one of the ugliest aspects of contemporary Chinese life. And it goes hand in hand with the lack of religion and the vacuum that has created. Because every society needs values, needs 'Sunday' activities, needs reasons for and ways of celebration to flourish.

Religion is almost non-existing in todays Shanghai unless you regard 'money' as a god, then all of a sudden the city is filled to the brim with devotees. If 'money' is the upper god in this religion, then 'real estate', 'big cars', 'gold' and 'LV handbags' are in the slightly lower ranks.

Values are the likes of 'foreign' is better than local, owning is better than sharing. 'Sunday' activities include shopping, lots of time online for more shopping. Celebrations look like 40% discount on clothes (women's day), 30% discount on toys (children's day), or everything on discount (single's day on November 11). When people will go home to pay respect to the dead next weekend, they will burn not only the traditional paper money, but paper iPhones, and paper houses as well.

Money god has many temples: shopping malls, housing estates, banks and karaoke bars. All worshippers are invited to these temples (enjoy the cold/heat of the airco in the mall, sit on comfy sofas at IKEA) but its high priests have some outstanding features:

• Buick or BMW with a driver parked outside on the curb. Or, self driven Porsche parked halfway on the curb (because driving skills are hard to buy).  
• iPhone 6 (or two) 
• Tiny dog in LV bag, LV bag, golden necklace, too high heels for the occasion
• Big eyes, white skin, toneless arms and legs for lack of exercise, impeccable black hair
• Seldom a smile

To get back to the saying about the BMW versus the bike, there are roughly two types of people who still bike as a means of transport in Shanghai, (remember the song 'nine million bicycles in Beijing'? That's no longer a fact, mrs Katie Melua..) it is the really poor buggers, who cannot even afford an electric bike, or the bus, or the metro. And, the foreigners and overseas Chinese, who cannot shake off their habits. 

Are these bikers unhappy? Or are they laughing despite the general wisdom that a bike is never a BMW? On many days it is hard to tell as more and more bikers are wearing PM2.5 masks to protect them from smog and exhaust fumes. But on days like today, when AQI is pretty ok, and people go out unprotected, few people are laughing. 

It remains one of the unresolved mysteries of Shanghai for me, why it is hard to find people looking happy, looking relaxt. Both high priests in their imported Porsches and the poor bastards who are only marginally surviving, but also the hard working middle class: neither of them seems to enjoy life much. Or at least not so in public.

(All pictures stolen from the www: citilab.com, viiphoto.com, luxuo.com)

Wei?! Ni Hao!

Looking for a landline reminded me to write something about online shopping in China. It's crazy. And fun!

I look up www.taobao.com, type 电话 (dianhua or telephone) and the adventure begins...

Almost 900,000 different kinds of phones and online phone shops pop up. Simple phones, funky phones, classic phones, Hello Kitty phones, you name it, they have it. And incredibly cheap most of it. This is where you realize again what "Made in China" means. 

So I browse and click, and google translate helps me to read what other people said about this product and what kind of rating the store got. I have a good laugh at some more crazy models.. 

When I decide against the €2 Coca Cola phone, and find a integer looking model from Siemens, I fill out my details, pay online, and close the browser. Delivery service is usually only €0.60 within Shanghai. 

Now I just have to sit back and wait for the next morning. It almost never takes more than one night for the courier to arrive, his scooter packed with parcels. He is always in a hurry, makes you sign and runs off to the next address. 

In this particular case, I unwrapped the phone, put the pieces together, and to my surprise, it has everything, except for the brandname. Siemens is nowhere to be found. Haha! 

Made in China 3

We met an artist last week whose living room was full of these colorful objects, very stylish and a little impractical in use. As you get a new pair of chopsticks with every meal you order, they felt they need to make a statement, collected & dyed used bamboo sticks and shaped them into furniture. Nice!

More Made in China

Zhang Huishan is the designer of these contemporary fairytale cheongsams. Who dares say that Chinese don't innovate or design again? And there's more...!

Zhang Huishan: "In the mood for love" 

Made in China

IKEA

"It's only with the arrival of tv-series like 'sex and the city' that Chinese have taken an interest in Western interior design." I read this sentence once, over a year ago as an explanation of the popularity of IKEA in China. I wondered since what the Chinese version of 'Köttbullar' (Swedish meatballs) is and if the products have a special 'made in China' feel to them. Today is our chance.

Getting to IKEA is a bit of a hassle. Although we'll find that the store is universal, the pronunciation of the name isn't. It takes a lot of gesticulation before the driver understands us. "Aija!" he jells and makes a sharp U-turn.
The Scandinavian design and colors have a whole different touch and feel in this Asian context. Whole families sit around on the flowered sofas in the showrooms and one mother has put her child to sleep in a children's bed. Everything else is exactly the same as it is in any IKEA anywhere in the world. No need for a floor plan, we follow the yellow arrows with our eyes closed.
Products that are hard to find elsewhere are available in big stacks and many colors. Candles, tea towels, baby beds. It's there, and it's called SOMNET, or RÖRVIK, just as it is at home. Looking at the endless flow of customers, these alien products are in high demand.
We settle for a children's bed (made in Rumania) and a mattress (made in Turkey). After check out, we buy chocolate (made in Germany) and knäckebröd, and consider cranberry jam and rösti. We settle for the usual ice cream (1 yuan only) and take a minute to look at a Chinese bachelor buying his complete interior.
It's only when we are back outside bargaining the price of the taxi ride back home that we feel back in Shanghai.

At home I read up on the topic of retailtainment in this funny article from The Wall Street Journal. Did we do this in Europe fifty years ago?