Shanghai trip
Have been living in Bangkok for three years, these three years are the time that I have travelled to Shanghai the most. My feeling towards Shanghai has gradually changed throughout the years too.
The first time travelling to Shanghai that I could remember was the university time. I stopped by Shanghai on the way back from Taiwan to Beijing. I was with my Shanghaiese friend. Shanghai was a city of wonder at that time. Year 2014 or 2015 was still the year when high speed railway train was still quite a fancy thing, but Shanghai has been operating a competing technology Magnetic Levitated train for years. The tilted floor when the train made a turn was still a vivid memory. Everything outside just flew past us, silently and swiftly. That was my earliest memory about Shanghai - elegancy and cutting-edge. It was one of the dream cities I would pursue.
Like nothing is perfect, Shanghai wasn’t perfect to me at that time. For example, the magical maglev train doesn’t connect two airports, but stop at one big hub station in the suburb. Taking metro into the city was another trip which could feel slow. At that time, I was fascinated about metro system. Shanghai apparently had the largest metro network in China, and that should be something I would be excited for; however, as far as I could remember, I didn’t like it that much. Of course, it was convenience. In fact it was mind-blowing. One interchange station for four lines; more than ten exits squashed in just one station; multiple interchange stations next to each other in a row. I only dreamed about it, and that was the day-to-day reality at Shanghai at that time.
Later I came to know the story behind the maglev project, the reason it failed to connect two airports together. That refreshed Shanghai’s image in my mind again. According to the original plan, this ground-breaking maglev line was supposed to connect Hongqiao and Pudong airports, enabling hustle-free transfer experience. However, since it was too ground-breaking, it stroke the concern of the neighborhood. The worries about the radioactivity from the magnetics quickly developed into several protests. Eventually, the plan was changed and the maglev train never entered densely populated city centre. In a country where construction speed is highly valued, making such a significant change in response to people’s demand was a surprise to me. Even though I didn’t agree with the outcome, which made my first maglev train experience incomplete, it was one story that made me feel big cities make a difference.
After that, I have been to Shanghai multiple times throughout the years. Sometimes for travel, and sometimes for work. Because Shanghai is so developed, every time I came here I felt at ease. The lights of Shanghai never dims, and that seems to give me a good feeling - the feeling of prosperity, or the feeling that the prosperity belongs to me, or at least a part of it.
The good feeling started to change this time. If I compare what have changed materialistically, Shanghai has probably become better. Drones are integrated in the police system to monitor the traffic. Long-distance underground road to relieve the traffic jam on the ground (Beiheng channel). Metro system has also supported contactless card payment in addition to all mobile payment methods it has already supported. The city was never behind any trend. Disney Land, Shanghai Planetarium, the North Bund area. New activities keep coming, faster than everyone could keep up, so people really have very diversified tastes, and almost nothing look really special.
It was great and bad at the same time. It was great because it curates better options for life. It was bad too because people will take the greatness for granted and keep asking more. This time when I came to Shanghai, I sensed a mismatch of myself and this city. That sense of belonging that I was after, if any, has mostly gone, and instead I felt incompatible. Perhaps I have been used to relax and treat things easy. The blinking green man on the traffic light triggered a surprise, and I reckoned that I wouldn’t give it any thoughts many years back. Here is the thing, when the traffic light is going to switch from green to red, many lights will switch the light to flashing mode so the pedestrians is aware of the time. Not sure if it has been like this all the time, but I just noticed it this time. At some crossings in Shanghai, the green light blinks from the very first second when it turns green, even though there are still 30+ seconds for people to cross. I was puzzled. Why do they have to urge me? And when I brought this up to my Shanghaiese friends, of course nobody noticed, and we only verified it after we talked about it. This is one examples of these incompatibilities. I tend to notice more minor points that I and many typical Chinese people wouldn’t care to notice, and it brings me a small surprise from time to time.
Another experience is the so-called “Hu currency”, aka “Shanghaiese currency”. This was a popular sarcasm about Shanghai a few years back. I didn’t resonate with it until this time. I am generally blunt with price. Maybe this is the reason I failed to notice Shanghai is an expensive city. The experience of “Hu currency” of this time was about buying bottled water at Nanjing East road. Typical bottled water is 4-6 Yuan, nearly 2 times more expensive than normal. Then we went to a supermarket in the basement of a mall, assuming the water in the supermarket would be normally priced. We were not wrong, the supermarket labelled the water reasonably according to the brand, but here is one problem: the supermarket doesn’t sell cheap water. We know Starbucks displays expensive water mostly to anchor its value to high-end market. Those supermarkets in Nanjing East road do exactly the same thing. Their water ranges from 8-30 Yuan. There are even western brands that I have never seen. I suppose the only difference between Starbucks and these supermarkets is those water in these supermarket may really have a chance to be sold.
As I mentioned to my friend, I feel I would feel strange if I ever come back to work in a big Chinese city like Shanghai. They couldn’t imagine why, nor could I imagine how. It doesn’t eliminate the chance, but this is how I feel at this moment. An interesting change of view along the way.