Made in Shanghai

Objects of the old Shanghai can still be found in the city when you know where to look for. Very expensive icons of doubtful authenticity are offered to tourists for enormous amounts of money. What I find more interesting is to look for daily life objects that have gone through the ages. They are generally much cheaper and less likely to be fakes. I recently run into a full box of sewing line for sell in an antic market. It was probably an old survivor of times, kept preciously in a bottom of a wardrobe during dark times when replacement would be difficult to find and all originality in dresses forbidden. Although the box seemed old, I was not sure when it was from and whether this could have any interest in my search of the old Shanghai. The box contained about 30 rolls of line of various color. I looked at it, but did not really want to buy them... Until I saw "MADE IN SHANGHAI" printed on the label. The Chinese characters are traditional characters, so these objects were probably produced before 1949, when the characters were changed to simplified. The "MADE IN SHANGHAI" label in English proves to me that these rolls were made during the old Shanghai time, as from 1949 there are is little chance to have something written in English on the product, and certainly not "MADE IN SHANGHAI", but more probably "MADE IN CHINA".

These rolls were probably made in one of the multiple factories that were built in Shanghai during the concession time. Today Xu Jia Hui (Xi Ka Wei in the old spelling) was a heavy industry area. Today's symbol of it is the Xu Jia Hui park, where a high column of bricks stands... the old chimney of a factory. As for other objects and documents, they are a little bit of the old Shanghai that have crossed the ages. Touching it and looking at old pictures, it's easy to imagine Chinese tailor sewing fabrics to create traditional Chinese or modern western cloths, as they still do today. In today's Shanghai as in the old Shanghai, tailor is a respected work and most people have their cloths made by their skilled hands. This is one of those things that never changes in Shanghai, part of daily life in both the old and new Shanghai.

Soviet Nostalgia

Old Shanghai was the most developed Asian City of it’s time… and Shanghai is today’s economic capital of China… but the political capital city remains Beijing. I was in Beijing again recently and the difference between those two cities is always striking. Now that most of the traditional habitat of Beijing (the famous Hutong) has been destroyed out of the core center, Beijing looks even more like the ideal communist city of the Markism inspired planners. Like a communist post-modern postcard, it has the great large avenues, large brand new buildings one the side, and apartment blocks of various styles around. Bikes have nearly disappeared… as they don’t look modern and rich enough anymore. I wish that there was just a few cars in the streets like on those postcards, not like the permanent traffic jam that this city is. The friends I visited live around the people stadium, in a nice area that was all built in the 50’s. Small 4-5 floors buildings with a shop at the bottom, quite a number of restaurant around, this area looks like the suburb of Moscow, Warsaw or Bucharest. I have to admit that I still like the Eastern European feeling I get when I go there. Beijing has also a large Russian community, and as a result a Russian district and several Russian restaurants.

Walking on the south side of Ritan Park, I was looking for a fancy bar and restaurant that I visited last year. Cruising the empty boulevard on Monday night, I finally reached the place I was looking for, just to find out that it was closed, being transformed into something else. I was just wandering around, following the dark street, looking for another place for diner when I started to see some lights through the fog. As I was walking further, the vision became clearer. The Kremlin skyline with "MOCKBA" written in neon lights was standing over a Soviet style building. Black Mercedes were parked in front of me, with two bigs guys falling in each others arms and speaking Russian. I stepped forward feeling like Neo facing Morpheus. Swallowing the red pill, I passed through the door. The room was very large with 2 floors, many soviet style wooden tables... and about 10 customers. The restaurant's menu was written in Russian and Chinese, with some parts being sub-titled in English. The waiter started naturally to talk to me in Russian. Despite Monday night emptiness, the show started when I arrived. Typical Russian dancers in traditional costumes were followed by acrobats straight out of Russian navy seals performing a very blond, blue eyes and muscular version of hip hop dancing. Then came the Russian singers. I did not really understand the lyrics, but the sound of the keyboard straight out of the 1980's fitted perfectly the sad and nostalgic voice of the girl singing. I would not have been surprised to see Leonid Brejnev's face showing up in news I was watching in the massive Russian TV.

MOCKBA is not a Russian restaurant, it's a portal back to USSR. The social-realist decor, passable food and terrible service contribute wonderfully to the time travel. I'm not sure I will come back ever, but this place is really worth a visit. Shanghai is become a world city and has no space for such a weird place anymore. I am glad I could find it in Beijing.

The nexus of Shanghai

It is only a few minutes walk from my beloved and quiet Anting Street, but it's always a shock for me to go to Xu Jia Hui. This area is a major concentration of new buildings in South Western Shanghai. Within a few hundred meters, one can find dozens of shopping centers, including the biggest techmalls (mall specialised in computers and technology products) of the city. It includes one of the major metro station of the (Xu Jia Hui), one of the largest road in Shanghai (twice four lane Zhao Jia Bang Lu, larger than many European motorways), as well as hundreds of buses crossing the district in all directions at all time of the day and night. The area is next to the Shanghai stadium(the largest stadium of the city) and the beginning of the South-Western Shanghai, an area in transformation from industrial to residential. Hundred of thousands of people live in or around Xu Jia Hui making it a major hub for transportation, living, working and shopping. It is also hosting major construction projects and the population is still increasing at a high speed.
This district was always densely populated,mixing industrial and living areas. It used to be covered by little houses with red roof that are still very common in Shanghai. It's now covered with twenty to thirty floors buildings and new ones are being built all the time. Between two skyscrapers, one can discover the largest cathedral and the old south railway station of Shanghai, (now a restaurant, the new station has just been opened a few kilometers further out) and the Shanghai catholic covent.
An unforgettable experience one can have every day is to try and get through the area at peak hours. My friends who working in the area compare it to the experience of going to a major concert... every morning. At that time of the day, the whole district is covered with people and it's nearly impossible to find an empty space. As Xu Jia Hui is also a major shopping district, it gets even more flooded with people on bank holidays. It's difficult to describe this feeling... it's a bit like being in a large demonstration, where the only thing you can is do is to go with the flow. With all kind people mixing, loudspeakers from sales booth, buses and taxis constently horning, the whole area feels like straight out of Blade Runner. Towers, lot's of people, shopping centers everywhere surrounded with car... this is the way that Shanghai is becoming a world city.

Sympathy for the Uighurs

They are around in Shanghai. They cook meat sticks on the charcoal barbecue, sell raisins and dried fruits, try to push you into buying a slice of their sweeties or whole skins of wild foxes. Most of us don't pay much attention for these people that definitely do not look like Han Chinese, and barely speak Chinese anyway. The only time we interact with them is generally around 2 am, when the late night make the smell of grilled meet impossible to ignore. They grill a few meat sticks for us, and we forget them in the night. Most of them are Uighur people, coming from the faraway province of XinJiang.
Like many of the foreigners living in Shanghai, I have heard Xinjiang a lot and I wanted to go there for a long time, so I spent my October holiday there. Ulumuqi was the first shock. In the middle of an uninteresting Chinese city, stands a large Muslim style shopping center... with a Carrefour supermarket in the middle. Walk the street behind, and China disappears for a crowd of central Asian faces, smells and sound. People barely speak Chinese, and prefer broken English to address foreigners. My preferred place was a small square with lot's old guy playing chess under the trees and a supermarket full of products imported from Turkey. This was just the very first time when I had to ironically remind myself that I am in China... otherwise I may simply forget it.
Turpan is another shock altogether. Apart from the People Square and the modern Chinese city, the rest of seems much closer to Tehran or Istanbul than... Beijing. Raisins dry in red brick houses. The muezzin calls for pray several times a day and the most dishes are made of potato and lamb. The deeper you go in Xinjiang, the more you live China behind you. Going to markets in small towns like Yarkan or Markit is just like walking on a market in the middle East or North Africa. Donkey carts are nearly the only available vehicle and women wear various kind of the Islamic veil. By looking around and talking to the local one quickly realize that the local law applied is the Islamic sharia more than anything else.
XinJiang feels like really far from the rest of China, and not only because of the distance. Most people there come from "ethnic minorities" and what you see around does sound, taste,feel and smell very different from the China I am used to.
It's touching to see the proud lords of the desert and mountains of XinJiang province in Shanghai. So far away from their homeland, trying to make a few Yuan selling things but still bringing with them the sun of their province. Now that I have been to their homeland, I appreciate them even more.They bring a lot of colors, sounds and tastes to our all-too-modern and formatted cities. As Shanghai is becoming a world city, I hope they will find a better place here.

Moleskine or else

I ran into my first Moleskine in a book shop in Hong Kong. I had never seen one before, but I have had many carnets de voyage. After a few pages the notebooks were often quickly lost or forgotten... to give way to another notebook of a different fashion... but I would never travel without one. A note book is always part of of what I call "city survival kit", along with a good book, a pen, a map of the city and a camera. But I never thought that a notebook could be something so nice and resistant as a Moleskine.
Moleskine's marketing is just so smart. Evocating past writers and painters that won't be able to contradict them, they simply explain that their products have been the companion of artists and adventurers for centuries. I'm not sure this is such an accurate statement, and the new makers of Moleskine are probably somewhat remixing history to their advantage... but the product remains great. My first Moleskine has been a travel companion for nearly a year, from XuJiaWai to Kashgar, from China to Germany. It's (soon to come) successor is already waiting in my bookshelf for breaking into action. My Moleskine is always in my pocket and has become a companion of every day. I used to collect the million of thoughts (including blog entries) coming to my mind and disappearing soon after... I now catch them on my Moleskine, and re-use them later.
I'm not sure whether it's the quality of the manufacturing or the beauty of the item, but its very existence is a tremendous help. With resistant leather binding, and good quality paper, this booklet can go through a lot without damage and has a superb advantage over all it's electronic equivalents... it just takes any pen to work and its operating system never crashes.

Before the storm

The weather was so hot three days ago. The temperature reached 37 degrees (about 100F), and taking a walk outside was the best way to loose liters of water within a few minutes. Streets were deserted, and people were finding refuge in the air-conditioned metro stations, buildings hallways and shopping centers. The temperature dropped a little two days ago, as the wind started to blow the city. From my office on the 18^th floor I could see banners floating, pushed away by the invisible force from the sea. This strong wing sometimes reminds us that Shanghai is a city on the sea (上海 literally means “on the sea”), although we see so little of it. The more and more clouds made the sky darker and darker, as night fell much earlier than usual. We were all waiting for the storm to splash the city coming from the Southern provinces and we were all apprehending it... but the storm did not come. Yesterday morning brought a feeling of relief, as the sky cleared. The very idea of a storm seemed just like a collective nightmare...
Pictures of last year's storm come through my mind, torrent of rain pouring, wind blowing the trees downs, cars looking like boats floating half a meter of water. There are not many storms like this in Shanghai. Typhoons in Hong Kong are very frequent, people simply leave offices and go home when the drill comes. They are prepared, ready for the tempest descending on the city. Typhoons are rare in Shanghai, and the city is far from ready for it. Last year, many of the luxury villas of the suburb were flooded, the designer just did not think so much rain could fall on the city. Some friends got water coming into their expensive apartment, as the construction was just no thick enough to resist the pressure. The wind blew also an advertising sign killing several people in its flight. I can not stop thinking that some of the stuff hanging on balconies on tours and skyscrapers could easily take off and fall on somebody.
The wind has started to blow again today, even stronger than yesterday. Trees are starting to shake, clouds are flying fast in the sky. The whole city is going through the anticipation, the presentiment of the events to come. Everyone knows the storm is coming, everyone can feel it. All streets are crowded, all taxis are taken by people trying to reach home as soon as possible. The city will become a gigantic traffic jam tonight, before getting quiet under the pouring rain. The ambiance is electric, expectancy mixed with fear and haste. The atmosphere before the storm is just really special.