‘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)

Many small windows together give the best view

As it goes, I started off writing posts about my colleagues, as they have been the most intimate relations I have with anyone in Shanghai and my best windows to China. First there was Demi, and then Sophie and Peipei and more recently I wrote about my experiences with  Leona on our Philippines trip and a paragraph on Future. I always intended to write about each and everyone at the office, but then the team expanded so fast, and relations deepened and widened so quickly that I got lost and paused.

Little windows onto people's lives
Having read a lot on Chinese culture, I 'know' many things that are happening here. But as we worked, had lunch, traveled and drank together, sharing the little things of life that you never tell anyone but your colleagues, I continued to be surprised, and shocked as these stories got a face, and societal problems turned out to be my friends' personal problems.

A few of the sentences that rang in my ears long after they were spoken:

• The incredible influence that parents have on their (one) child's choices in life: "My mother won't let me have a baby this year, because it is the year of the wooden sheep, and the baby will feel cold and hungry all its life." 
• The long distance relations that many people have "I only see my husband once every two months / once every two weeks etc he is very busy and I live with his mum, who is old and sick"
• The complex relationship between women and their in laws who usually come to live with them after childbirth "My husband and I want to let our baby cry until she falls asleep, but my in laws come into our bedroom and take her away from me when she cries" 
• The enormous pressure from society on girls to marry early "After coming home for Chinese New Year, I had to explain 1000 times why I am not married" "After 30 they say my life will be over if I am not married" 
• Wondering what my assistant was chatting about with her boyfriend from morning til night:  hundreds of Hello Kitty emoticons back and forth, shaping a story in a language that I am too old to understand. 
• Materialism is everywhere, and in short the 'new religion' "My husband and I are always talking throughout the day (on wechat) usually about what we will buy, or what we have bought." 

It's not all clichés

But at the same time, just working for an NGO means going against mainstream thought about what is deemed important in life: money, a stable job, buying a house, buying an expensive handbag, an expensive car, an expensive holiday, etc. So where in general many people have a hard time trusting each other, because that other person might have bad intentions with our money, or break a deal that we are about to sign, we as a team were pretty harmonious and open, maybe because we had nothing to loose, and had already stepped off the societal ladder to fame and wealth. This openness has been one of the biggest sources for gratitude for me. 

The biggest window of all

That being said, my next post will be about my now former director, Alan, who was much more than a window to China because he was among the few who actually provided subtitles to my experiences. A bit of an intelligentsia, he told me the things (sometimes in a whisper) that are beneath the surface, culture, history, religion, rebellion, and that put together gave me many new perspectives while looking at Shanghai and I got to see old things with new eyes. 

In transition

First thing this morning is a razzia at a nearby restaurant. Twenty city guards block the road, an even larger number of workers tears the facade down, carry the kitchen outside, load it on vans and leave a completely stripped space behind. It's the second time in a week that it happens. The other shops have been empty since, leaving the owners looking rather devastated.

Apparently its an omen, a little further down the road where our market used to be, there is only en empty street. This used to be a kilometer of bustling wet market, full of exotic fruits and vegetables, poultry, meat, and to my horror: alive turtles. Completely gone in a day! 

It looks like the final stage of tearing down the original houses in our neighborhood has started. At first sight, all the 3 story buildings here have been demolished and abandoned. But upon closer inspection, they are still very alive. A face appears from a window, hanging his underwear to dry. Elder people sit chatting on their porch, little noodle stands are still selling. At night there are little lights everywhere. In between the ruins people hold on to their homes .

All around us, these old fashioned houses have made room for 32 story high risers. The crowded narrow alleys where everything happens outside make place for modern compounds where a month's rent comes to €750. More people per square kilometer, smart looking, better for the pockets of government. 

There's been a big wave of urban renewal running up to the Expo in 2010. Shanghai has become more accessible for foreigners, has a better look and feel to it, the old and ugly is (almost) gone. 

With an average income of €300 per month, I don't think many of the Shanghainese will be able to afford an apartment like ours. They will be moving further out of town, in search of cheap places to live. It's sad to witness, but perhaps a small price to pay for speedy development. 

For an interesting view on the tearing down of Chinese 'urban villages', read this article by professor Bartlett.