This article first appeared on The China Travel Blog, the English-language travel guide of China’s largest travel company, Ctrip.
In many ways, Shanghai is the gateway drug for wide-eyed expats, providing a less-shocking alternative to life in China than, say, Baotou. There is a booming, diverse expat population; English language services are practically omnipresent; cabs are (fairly) easy to come by and the metro is a (mostly) rodent-free breeze; English-based work is in high demand; and familiar, quality comfort foods can be found across the city, especially if you find yourself in the Former French Concession. All of these things can provide a much-needed respite for the displaced and homesick foreigner on a bad China day, or during a particularly low point on the China Cycle of Funk. A kind of Diet China, perhaps.
But Diet China or not, and even with the presence of a number of foreigner friendly enclaves, Shanghai is very much a Chinese city — and an enormous one at that— and living in any city is a goddamned grind sometimes. As one of Asia’s premier centers of finance and international business for at least the last two decades, Shanghai has seen a steady influx of money, domestic and international investment, and is a city absolutely barreling, fearlessly, into a newer, richer tomorrow. Byproducts of this transformation include, but are certainly not limited to: piles of money, rapid infrastructural development, high-stress jobs, an overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by pavement and neon, the creeping suspicion that your only value in this world is that which can be tangibly measured in flow charts, year-end projections and on a bank statement, the list goes on. In light of these kinds of city-living, soul-crushing realities, it’s incredibly important to remember to ease back — I would recommend, at the very least, that this be a quarterly undertaking — and consider the idea that’s it’s not all about the Benjamins (or the Redbacks, as the case may be).
Shanghai could learn a thing or two from Chengdu. Chengdu folks kick it. They relax. They relax everywhere; beside streams, under trees, on the sidewalks in front of houses, spread across hotel plazas, in parks, whatever. Tea houses, cards, sunflower seeds, plums, cigarettes; whatever you need to breathe deep and take a load off. Wherever there is space in Chengdu, you’ll find clusters of those little foldable tables and chairs alive with the smell of green tea, Honghe cigarettes and that sweet scent of people at their leisure.
Last time I was in Chengdu, I spent the majority of my time playing dou dizhu (a fantastic card game that translates to “struggle with the landlord”) and eating delicious, huajiao-laced Sichuan food. It was glorious. I reveled in the cabbie’s thick Sichuan accents and the RMB 7 taxicab flagfall. I wore regular-ass clothes out to the bar at night and never once felt like I was in the wrong place.
When I’ve had enough of it all in Shanghai, and I’ve begun to pull my hair out with trembling, ink-stained fingers, my thoughts turn to sitting lazily somewhere, anywhere, and playing cards with sunflower seed shrapnel down the front of my mapo dofou stained shirt. In the most trying times, I even welcome strategic suggestions from the curious, over-the-shoulder Chinese onlookers schooling the laowai in the world of Chinese cards.
I live and spend almost all of my time in the Former French Concession, a small footprint that I share with many an expat. I don’t get out to Minhang much, or Qingpu, or Songjiang. It is perhaps because of this that I see so little of this longed-for Chengdu-ness. After all, you won’t find an apron-clad woman mingling among the crowds at People’s Square, wielding a corked, faded hot-water thermos, searching for a cup to fill. And there is no room for roadside tables on Huaihai Lu (what, and block part of that massive, three-story D&G wall of neon?).
And, generally speaking, I avoid most of the parks in downtown Shanghai, as they tend to be more like brown, post-apocalyptic wastelands than the lush green fields of my dreams. If I want to sit on a dusty, dirt covered surface, I’ll just sit on my living room floor.
Inevitably, I get sick of getting drunk on patios, in overpriced bars and hearing the eardrum-splitting terrible pop at 88 and the like. At a certain point, I just can’t order another cocktail with the word “infused” in its description. I can’t eat any more lousy ham sandwiches in poorly lit establishments. Sometimes I think I need some of that familiar, Western goodness, but these are not solutions. And with a notable exception or two (I’m looking at you Maoming Lu scallion pancakes, my sweet, delicious friends), Shanghai cuisine just doesn’t always cut it when I need that intangible jolt of something comforting. And let’s be clear: a cold bottle of Reeb has never done any good for anyone.
Sometimes the blues I’m feeling aren’t the China Blues, but just the everyday, stuck-in-the-trenches Blues of the Everyman. The Any City Blues. It just so happens that I like the way the Chengdu Everyman has evolved. I appreciate their unabashed affinity for relaxation.
And while the Shanghainese can, no doubt, relax, I just don’t see it on the same scale. So what do I do? I emulate my brothers and sisters in Chengdu, by slowing down, by easing back. I head to Fuxing Park, avoid the “grass” and the “amusement park”, walk over to the frantic, packed teahouse, order something to drink and deal some cards. I high five my bao’an. I drink beer outside of Feidan on Anfu Lu, close my eyes and pretend I’m not surrounded by a contingent of well-dressed go-getters, always on the lookout for more, more, more. I watch dudes play Chinese chess at that little park on the corner of Wulumuqi and Huaihai. I go to Spice Spirit and order blind. I eat too much laziji and regret it later. I remember, as best and as often as I can, to relax.