Shanghai as a Solitary Vice

Another article I wrote for Global Times:

A recent farewell dinner for a fellow expat who is returning to our mutual home country led to a cheesy yet heartfelt discussion of what we all love most about Shanghai. Among the overwhelmingly positive answers, my favorite must have been about the strong independence that is necessary to develop throughout life here.


There are a slew of challenges thrown at me everyday dealing with language difficulties, errands, and public transportation mishaps (When will Line 10 finally be open past 4:00?). But this is a different type of independence-- merely the ability to subsist alone is not what life, or this article, is about.


What I'm talking about is the internal and segregating independence that accompanies the realization that most of my friends that I meet and become close with here are transient. Although we may develop a deep connection and a binding trust, there is always the lingering notion that after one or two crazy years in Shanghai, we will likely return to our respective hometowns, or travel on to our next big adventure in some other foreign location. It's a feeling fairly unique to Shanghai, as a true international hub for students and young members of the workforce.


In the same way that terminal dating can hinder an otherwise meaningful depth between two lovers, Shanghai's expat friendship scene can seem shallow. At times it's difficult to remember why we invest time in building bridges when we know they'll be singed after our departure. Although endless connections through social media have made maintaining contact with international friends easy, when there's fewer deep conversations and no real fun to be had together, friendships will quickly dissipate.


It's this separation that forces me to realize that really, you are your own best friend, and that's OK. In fact, it's great. There's so much to experience in this city and the world that to depend on others for all of one's life would be a true disservice to one's self.


On the other hand, the expats that I've met in Shanghai are often of a different breed from people I've met elsewhere. Open-minded, intelligent, and worldly, many of my friends in this city have contributed to my life experience in an extremely meaningful way. Even though I’ll likely never live in the same vicinity as my Parisian Shanghai best friend again, I’ll never forget the hours we spent discussing linguistic differences and their cultural implications while she earnestly tried to correct my pronunciation of the French ‘r.’


It’s an odd feeling to know that the people I frequent The Shelter, Moganshan Lu, or Bifengtang with might be removed from my mobile’s phonebook in 12 months. But it’s a great one to know that I can turn off that same phone, spend a day or two enjoying the recent outstanding weather on my own, and still feel completely fulfilled.

Knocking Down Culture

I freelanced a few articles for Global Times, Metro Shanghai, an English-language newspaper in China. Here's the first one, with a couple more to follow...

“This city is just so… futuristic,” my sister repeated over and over while I led her around my new home. It’s a surprising realization for an American who had never crossed over to Asian soil as China is often feared to be ancient, unkempt and raw.

The latter view of China is the one that most Westerners hold: a romanticized imagination of the Middle Kingdom as the home of fallen emperors and the historical sites they’ve left behind. Not only does this give Shanghai a unique identity among the world’s large cities, but it also brings soft power to the country as a whole – the attraction of this ideal of Chinese culture is a major driver of tourism, immigration and even investment.

One of my favorite things about living in Shanghai is when I see or experience the type of familiar interactions that I know have been commonplace in China for hundreds of years. In my hometown of Los Angeles, you will not see old men playing chess in the park or groups of ladies in a choreographed dance on a street corner. However, I find that the more modern each district becomes, the less likely you are to come across these types of richly cultural activities.

And increasingly, every older area of the city is being rebuilt to resemble the cookie-cutter, modern areas of Shanghai. According to the Shanghai Statistical Bureau, more than 800,000 households were demolished to make way for skyscrapers, shopping malls, and other city modernizations over the past 10 years. I witnessed firsthand a massive gentrification project on the old Shanghai neighborhood where I live in Hongkou district.

The unfortunate effect of globalization, modernization, and beautification of this evolving city might indeed undo a large portion of this community feeling. Police pluck peddlers and loiterers off the streets in order to create a better city and a better life. But in the process of reaching the global standard of a civilized locale, I truly hope that Shanghai doesn't sacrifice the most appealing parts of its everyday culture.

Freethought

"...Do not accept anything by mere tradition... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions... But when you know for yourselves—these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness—then do you live acting accordingly."

- Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha

Jianshui: The Slow Life

Along with my two new travel companions, I loaded up on barbequed tofu, apples, and nuts, and hopped on the supposedly 4-hour long bus to Jianshui. The bus departed the small mountainous town and began a steady descent through the winding roads that led back to the highway. This, however, turned out to be a mere tease. We quickly arrived at a line of buses, minivans, and rickshaws moving at a snail’s pace down the dirt road that should have been a half hour drive. We were shuffled between different buses and were overall confused about the situation for a full 3 hours until we finally made into, then out of, the new city at the foot of the mountain. Finally, we were on the real road to Jianshui.

The paved road to Jianshui was flanked by agricultural countryside. Around every bend, between every pair of hills was a new farm with some sort of crop flourishing in the constantly agreeable Yunnan climate. This brought me to thinking about another major question of my trip. One that, of course, can never really be answered, but is still quite addictive to consider. What is our purpose? As a carbon-based life form; as a species; as an individual; as a soul, or a spark? As a living, breathing, subparticle of the superconcious? The possible answer I arrived at was given to me by the very farms that I was speeding by.

Imagine, if you will, a completely self-sustainable farm. A farmer, with his wife and children perhaps, has a modest shanty, grows food for himself but not to sell, eats it with his family, and sleeps in a satisfactory bed. Day to day, this is his pattern. Wake up, eat, farm, eat, farm, eat, sleep. Certainly there is room for enjoyment of life: let’s say he can have an hour a day to spend time with his family, which they all mutually enjoy. BUT, and here’s the important part, even throughout the next generations, let’s assume that life doesn’t achieve progress. Our farmer’s son finds a new wife, and lives his life just like his father did. His methods are no more efficient; his vegetables and meat are no more delicious; his family is no happier, no sadder, rather all is perpetually just the same. And so it goes throughout generations of families who live on this farm, each of whom are forgotten once their grandsons, who knew them face-to-face, have perished.

What, I ask, is the purpose of such an existence in any realm greater than satisfying your own bodily urges? I couldn’t find any lasting legacy or enduring reason for that life, after it is expended. Rather, one that would have a legacy, have a purpose, and make a difference in the universe, is one that makes a contribution. One that improves the lives of others in the present and the future and extends the existence of life. It becomes rather circular, but still makes sense: the purpose of life is to contribute to life itself. The desire of life, and of the superconscious, is simply existence, so discovering information in all fields and passing that information on to future generations to be molded more carefully and researched more meticulously will never be a futile effort.

While these thoughts ran through my mind, I unconfidently began correspondence with the guesthouse owner I had been told about by sending him a text message in Chinese about my arrival. He quickly replied, reassuring me that he did indeed exist, and that I would have a place to sleep in the small town that I knew nothing about. He sent me an address and told me to call when we arrived and that he would come to meet us and walk us to the guesthouse. We hopped off the bus and into a cab and stopped in front of a hospital, confused as ever, less than 2 minutes later.

Out from an alley nearby saunters a friendly-looking old man with flecked gray hair and a slight, shy smile, who timidly assumes, “Aimei?” “Shi a,” I tell him he’s got the right girl. He carries my bags and leads us down an alley that looks much like one of Slim’s old dwellings in the USC neighborhood (for those of you who don’t get the South Central reference: think ghetto), and I become a bit uneasy. Myself, I am not very high-maintenance when it comes to sleeping conditions. Mice in my room (foreshadowing?), showers over toilets (done that one too), and other things which may be considered horrors to some are typically fine by me, but I began to feel guilty that I might be dragging my new travel buddies into something less than ideal. My heart racing for want of being a good travel hostess, Lao Li stops in front of an ancient-looking door and announces “Dao le,” as he takes out his key.

The door swings open to one of the most quaintly beautiful and serene houses I have ever seen, let alone had the pleasure of staying in. He shows us around in the front and rear courtyards, points out his family’s living quarters, and lets us have our choice of rooms to sleep in for the night. After we settle in, we sit down to chat with Lao Li (as far as my language skills allowed), drank tea, listened to Chinese guqin (I don’t know what the instrument is called in English—it’s a 7-stringed instrument that’s laid flat on a table), and soaked in the atmosphere of a traditional Chinese house that had been in our host’s family for four generations.

The sites of the small town (the second largest Confucian temple in China, for one) were pristine and interesting, but were much less important than the overwhelmingly comfortable vibe of Lao Li’s guesthouse. He proudly showed us his hand made pottery, paintings, and calligraphy. His daughter-in-law performed a few songs live on the guqin for us, and even taught me a few skills on the instrument. His wife, though unable to speak Putonghua (Beijing Dialect Mandarin, the only one I am able to speak or understand at all), happily drank tea and ate pipa (loquats) with us and cooked us a delicious dinner. I had never been made to feel so at home so quickly, and felt truly at ease and at peace during my stay in this tiny town that rarely hosts laowai (old outsiders: foreigners).

Regrettably, after a few short days in this town, I knew it was time to head on to the next leg of my journey, so walked to the bus station in order to head back to Kunming so I could catch a bus to Dali. After parting from my friends, I solitarily boarded a night bus to Dali (a story in and of itself, sigh), and woke up the next morning in a new town, with no plan except for the name of a nearby monastery in my pocket.

Yuanyang Rice Terraces

The next stop on my trip was one of the most pristinely beautiful locales I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. A popular destination for Chinese tourists and photographers, Yuanyang (原阳) is famous for its agricultural wonderland of rice terraces, as well as its inhabitation by the Hani minority group.

I arrived after a hefty 7 hour bus ride and walked 30 seconds from the bus stop to Chen Family Guesthouse. Ready to throw down a few dollars for a dorm bed, they informed me that a private room with its own shower and balcony overlooking the terraces was going for only 35 kuai, or approximately US $5. Unable to turn down such a steal, I checked into my room and chatted with a man downstairs who informed me he could drive me to the best terraces to watch the sunset for a small fee. I agreed, and off we went on a 45 minute bumpy race against the sun in a three-wheeled motorized rickshaw to Tiger Mouth Terraces.

Neither words nor pictures can describe just what I saw or how I felt on watching the ethereal sun falling down behind the mountains beyond the reflective pools of the terraces. What surprised me most is that typically, human interference with landscapes scars the natural beauty of the place. However, the snaking plateaus and striking geometric patterns of the fields reminded me that although there originates such destruction and negativity from our own species, we are also capable of creating aesthetic masterpieces on a grand scale.

This location is where I began to truly identify with my Chinese name. I had already grown extremely attached to it throughout the last year and a half since its coinage, but had perhaps not realized its significance. 爱美- Aimei. Translated directly, it means Love Beauty and as I’ve found out can be interpreted in more than one way. A good (Chinese) friend back at home's parents chuckled when they heard it, saying that it means Pretty Girl. However, the meaning to me is not so shallow. What it really means is Love of Beauty, and that I seek beauty both throughout the world, and within everything. Though my definition of beauty is not limited to the physical, I fell deeply in love with Yuanyang nonetheless.

The next morning, I met my new taxi-driving friend who took me on a similarly rough journey to Duoyishu to watch the sunrise. From a distance, I snapped photographs of the fields and sky on a platform near the top of the hill. Once the sun began to light the way of the path down to terrace-level, I tucked away my camera and trekked on down. I sat at the edge of the Hani village and read, drew, and chatted with some local boys who unabashedly asked me for money.

Sunrise at Duoyishu

A man working in the fields (Notice the scale).

I stayed in that exact spot for a few hours, during which I also met a new friend who, as luck would have it, grew up approximately 45 minutes away from me in Southern California. We spoke of travels, ambitions, and interests, and quickly came to realize that we had in common many perspectives and preferences. Thus, she, along with her travel companion, decided to accompany me on my next adventure to the mysterious literary scholar’s guesthouse.

And for good measure, a pantsless man doing work in the terraces.

Strawberries and Spiced Wine

The rest of the day in Kunming was spent meandering through the streets, searching for various sights mentioned in the Lonely Planet, and especially meeting interesting new acquaintances. The flower and bird market was far less than impressive, as was the local specialty Across the Bridge Noodles (although the legend of why they are served in such a way is quite lovely).

My favorite part of Kunming wasn’t any famous temple, museum, shopping center, or anything that would be of significance to most travelers, but has stuck out in my mind all the same. It is very common every part of China that I travel in to see women selling fruits from wicker baskets on the side of the street, and I often enjoy their delicious wares. The strawberry ladies in Kunming, however, are on a completely different level of quality. Each bright red, plump strawberry was perfectly placed in a pristine linear pyramid structure that displayed the vivid berries as perfect specimens. In alignment with the book I was reading, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, these simple strawberry vendors made me consider quality and its link to desire and enjoyment. Within the past few months, I’d noticed a pattern of myself as a consumer to purchase not based on the products themselves, but on the quality of the experience, particularly quality of service. This is not in that they served me well as a customer, but in that they exhibited to me subtly their passion and appreciation for their craft. The strawberry ladies took an extra step to create intense beauty with their wares, and it certainly earned them at least one redheaded customer.

Another significant occurrence in Kunming was my pleasant experience at Nordica, a gallery and café owned by a Chinese woman and her Swedish best friend. I perused the exhibition and was immediately enthused when I saw glogg (a Swedish hot spiced wine beverage that I was exposed to at a multicultural roommate extravaganza) on the sparse menu. I sipped on a small cup or two while chatting with the owner’s husband. Luckily, despite our language limitations, we were still able to discuss my travel plans, and he gave me a piece of advice that led me to one of my favorite locations of the month. He enthusiastically informed me that a good friend of his, Li, a literary scholar, owned a guesthouse in a small town called Jianshui (建水) and would love to have me stay with him. After knowing me for a mere 10 or so minutes, he called up his friend, and informed him that I would be coming, and to take care of “his good friend 爱美.”

I returned to my hostel in the evening, enjoyed the aforementioned strawberries with a new traveler friend, and went to sleep in Room 301A, Bed 3, ripe with anticipation for my next day’s travel to Yuanyang—home of the most picturesque rice terraces in all of China.

Yunnan Trip: Day 1, Kunming

I left Shanghai feeling less than thrilled. Although I was excited about my journey, I was distracted by some slight fright and nervousness at the beginning of my first solo trip.

When I arrived in Kunming, I was first frustrated by the man who worked at the taxi line. He pushed a few Chinese people to cut in front of me in the line by signaling them to the next incoming taxis. It’s unfortunate that to me it feels like blatant racism, but I cannot be sure if perhaps instead, it is merely that he feels embarrassed that I won’t be able to understand what he says (as he likely assumes my mandarin skills are nonexistent) A quick hiccup in an otherwise smooth trip to the hostel, however, as I phoned the reception and they gave my confused taxi driver directions for where to drop me off. Despite arriving past midnight, the The Hump Hostel’s doors were still wide-open and I checked into my 4-bed dorm room and quietly got ready to go to sleep while my new roommates slumbered.

In the morning, with my Lonely Planet guidebook at hand, I grabbed a cab and took off to the North side of town to visit Yuantong temple. Although Kunming is still a large Chinese city, the first observation that I made is that it is much quieter than Shanghai. Even the blaring horns from busses and haywire taxi drivers seemed to take a muted backseat to their East coast counterparts. Upon arrival at the temple, this distinction was even more apparent. Any given sightseeing area in Shanghai is constantly plagued with tourists, Chinese and Western alike. I sat in the entrance to this temple, and despite (or maybe because of) the less than visually appealing cardboard and wooden façade flanked by scaffolding and other construction equipment, I sat down and enjoyed my other senses. The smelled the light, warm air and allowed it to fill my lungs. I listened to birdsong warbling down from the trees. And I ran my hand over the rough stone wall on which I sat, getting ready to intensely observe, feel, and analyze every part of my trip that was to come.

This temple, on the first real day of my travels, is where I made a first significant revelation. The question of religion and how it ties into my belief system was an enormous point of confusion at the beginning of this last month. I felt the need to define my spirituality and whether it is aligned with the Catholic beliefs with which I identified myself for the first 18 years of my life, and had been steering away from over the last 4. I’ve never strongly doubted the existence of some higher power. I’m lucky enough to have received an unquestionable sign from this higher power at a time when I needed it the most, so have always steadfastly held faith. However, Catholic (or any other single religion) I now know I am not.

I perused the temple shops and admired a strand of prayer beads that I imagined myself using. In this fantasy, I knew just how to use the beads to connect me to this new god, and humbly sat praying to Buddha. My own familiar Catholic Lord watched over and became jealous and angry that I dared to worship any other but him, in the way I was taught. The beautiful rosary that I bought outside of the Vatican came to mind, and I saw myself instead sitting on my bed at home, repeating Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s. But that’s just it: what’s the difference between the Buddhist praying to his god at a temple in Kunming and the Catholic praying to his at church in Southern California? It’s negligible at best. And moreover, I can’t imagine the higher power wasting time picking at details of how us lower beings worship him. Why should it make a difference, if the earnestness is present?

So these thoughts went on and developed, and I started thinking about how spirituality manifests itself in the way we actually live our lives. In my opinion, religion is most helpful in developing two things about life: (1)a comfort in knowing that there is a purpose of life and that we are not merely meaningless creatures who exist for approximately 75 years and then perish entirely, and (2)a code of ethics and a striving for morality that guide our behavior and give us a sense of obligation towards treatment of other beings. Given these two thoughts, I began to toy with the idea that perhaps the higher power isn’t quite as external as I always imagined it to be. Perhaps it is not an entity that exists in some distinct form and subsequently permeates through the world; perhaps the permeation is of significantly more hierarchical importance.

Thus, I internally coined the word Superconscious (which I subsequently discovered has already been used to explain more or less the theory that was being constructed in my mind). The permeation is a connection between all things in the world. That which is subconscious is unattainable for us to examine in consciousness because it is too internal, too biological, and underneath that which we can call upon in life. That which exists superconsciously is similarly elusive, but differs in the sense that it is too external; it is a bridge between beings. One that exists in a realm we cannot develop awareness of because of the limitations of our own consciousness, but still manifests itself in everyday life through the obligations that we feel towards other human beings, towards other living beings, and towards non-living forces and objects. The amalgamation of these bridges, perhaps, is the higher power.

In the interest of keeping my blog readable and being able to ever get through my month-long trip (I just covered the first 10 hrs, during 8 of which I was asleep), I’ll stop here for today. I felt it important to focus my first entry on introspection rather than sight-seeing and adventures, because although I experienced a fair amount of the latter on my journey, the significance of the trip really lied with the internal changes that occurred. And in regards to my first sentence of this entry—the nerves and fright were completely unnecessary. Traveling alone beats out traveling any other way, and I truly wish for everyone to experience it at some point in their lives.