We approached one of the
many gigantesque malls recently constructed in Shanghai and entered, somewhat cautiously. The massive structures are connected via aerial and subterranean
tunnels and house hundreds of
shops, most of which were mid to high-range foreign brands. This was not a mall
that catered fake brands being sold (at least not blatantly but does it qualify
as commercial plagiarism when the shop is called Ralf Laurene? The mall is a
testament to the booking Chinese middle class who, just as foreigners, wants to
shop for clothing, accessories and electronics. I read about a t-shirt a woman
saw on Tai Kang Lu that showed a little Chinese girl wearing a traditional
Communist red uniform who was carrying a Louis Vuitton hang bag and listening
to an ipod. Underneath the picture of the girl were the words "What
Recession?"
Shopkeepers shout "huan
ying guang lin" (welcome) when you enter a shop and for quite some time I
was convince they were saying “Good morning” since I was a foreigner. In order
to anticipate your every need, a sales person trails behind you but I found
this to be genuinely claustrophobic, as though someone suspected I was going to
slip something into my back pocket.
We tried to find a lunch
spot in the mall where scents emanating from the lovely xialongbao and hot pot
on offer made me swoon. Our stomachs were eager but the cues of hundreds of
people were unappealing. The only vendor with a shorter cue was offering stinky
tofu and over-fried-greasy-day-old-noodles.
Shanghai streets are teeming with diverse eateries so we decided to find
an option outside of the mall.
We stopped at the restroom
before leaving the mall and I entered to find a mob of women waiting around the
stalls. Nobody had lined up in a general cue but rather, they paced back and
forth protectively in front of a particular stall. Aware that I needed to
quickly learn the rules of this game, I memorized who entered and in what order
so that I was strategically positioned. A woman who gave in after me pushing
past me to enter a vacating stall but I gently took hold of her elbow and said
‘no’, wagging my finger as if she were a schoolgirl. She looked confused and tried to shake me off
and push her way into the stall but I was thought the door, simultaneously grumbling
in English, Polish and Spanish. I should have concentrated less on this woman
since I stepping right into the Turkish toilet, but luckily I was not wearing
open-toed shoes. Many argue that squat toilets are more hygienic than seated
ones. The older generation in China rejects the notion of sitting to the degree
that signs are often hung in bathrooms asking people not to stand on the toilet
seat. And nevertheless, one often sees footprints on the seat.
Feeling
accomplished, I exited to find Andy waiting in the hallway trembling and white.
It seems that his first-time-in-a-public-bathroom-in-a-Chinese-mall was not a
positive experience. Without dwelling on the topic of public bathrooms for too
long, the overview is that Andy entered the men’s restroom to find a man
sitting on the toilet, grunting and moaning as he read the newspaper and smoked
a cigarette. There was no door on the stall and restroom was filthy, covered in
muck and cigarette butts. Flies were rampant and yet, this man had a plethora
of bags resting by his side, all boasting the names of high-end fashion brands!
(Fast-forward a few
years to May 2012 when Leo Lewis wrote in The Times: “China's draconian
'one-child' policy is well known. But now a new code has come into effect: a
two-fly rule now governs public toilets across Beijing. Central to the campaign
is ensuring that the number of flies in each facility is never allowed to
exceed two. The rules offer no suggestions on how to achieve the exacting
standard or how to measure the fly population. The two-fly rule does not
specify whether the quota refers to living or dead specimens, or whether to
count a fly that, after entering, shows no sign of wishing to prolong the
visit. One Beijing toilet cleaner, who gave her name as Wang, said that the
rules were vague on what to do if the fly count was precisely two: "Are we
obliged to destroy the surviving two, or leave them be?")
We left the mall
and walked towards the Bund, discarding our aspirations for a meal as Andy
recovered. Vendors selling real Rolex
watches or Prada bags swarmed about offering good price. Weaving away from them was quite difficult and they
adjusted their walking pace to ours so when I found myself trotting, the watch
vendor trotted beside me, exhibiting an impressive level of balance. Smiles and
no-thank-you only made us more vulnerable so we finally reverted to an
aggressive-hand-up-bark-no-attitude.
We arrived at the
Bund (Zhongshan Road), that is the waterfront area of Puxi (West City) facing
Pudong (East City), the newer part of Shanghai. The Bund has been regarded as
the symbol of Shanghai for hundreds of years, is less than one mile in length,
and is a popular destination for tourists since it offers a glimpse of old
Shanghai. Walking along the Bund at night causes sensory overload since the
entire Pudong skyline is illuminated, including the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and
Jin Mao Tower (the 2nd tallest building in the world). In terms of the
buildings facing the river on the Puxi side, many of the major firms of the Far
East used to be headquartered in these Gothic, Romanesque and Baroque style
buildings but now most house high-end fashion brands or haute couture
restaurants.
Just do not look at
the river where you will find tons of plastic garbage floating in the
waters.
When walking away
from the Bund towards some less tourist-ridden streets, an older woman with a
shoeshine box blocked Andy on the sidewalk. He shook his head to decline but
she insisted and squirted some cream on the tip of his shoe as we walked away.
He started to walk faster but she began to swat at his feet with a rag.
Hopping-trotting-and-then-running, I watched the old woman take after Andy in
full pursuit. He dodged into a German pub and I joined him, my sides heaving
from the laughter.
After a few stiff
Bloody Mary’s we walked to the Metro to take the train back home. We stopped at the pharmacy and I almost fell
over since a saleswoman aggressively pulled me towards the mirror. Tapping
furiously on the glass, she shouted that I had many terrible and ugly eye
wrinkles. She shoved a bottle of eye cream into my palm and said my husband
would no longer want me unless I became beautiful.
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