Tasting the new, ancient and typical China—through Shanghai and Hangzhou (Part 2)

Chapter 2: the people

At first glance, Shanghai looks glamorous. Fancy glassy skyscrapers mushroom everywhere, ubiquitous foreign fast food chains and Starbucks make you feel like home (as long as you are from city), Pudong Airport Maglev (which can travel at 431km/h in normal operation and could reach 501km/h in a test) takes only 7 minutes and 20 seconds to finish the whole 30.5km track connecting the airport and the peripheral area of Shanghai, which is about 10 minutes faster than taking a bus and 5 minutes than a cab.

While the infrastructure and economic development leave any new comers breathless, the social development does not seem to catch up. Like Eliza Doolittle with a strong Cockney accent and vulgar attitudes in My Fair Lady; no matter how well she dressed or jeweled herself, she's still that uncivilized girl once she speaks.

It isn't a norm for others to say 'excuse me' before they knock you out of their way; nor is it usual to follow traffic lights. On the first day, I saw a man in rather formal dressing piss next to the crowded Wei Tan. Thanks to the massive civic education campaign, people are now learning to line up at bus stop; but at the ticket office at Shanghai train station, the situation is still chaotic. People keep jumping the line or pushing you out of the queue. Luckily my tripmate and I were vigilant and didn't give anybody a chance to cut in.

At some point of my journey, I was really fed up with complaining and wondered if I had been using my hometown standard to judge this city.

I couldn't help but contemplate: in ancient China, we claimed ourselves the country of courtesy and despised those who had no manners. Now, nobody will disagree that Japan is the real country of courtesy. What happened to China in the past centuries? How much can we nurse the scar of Cultural Revolution? How can we set people's soul free from the suppressed fear of the century long poverty and deprivation?

(This is an ad. from a fast food shop. Age-ists!)

Chapter 3: the government

With such high population mobility, Shanghai is stumbling on the path to a more civilized society. However, when compared with the HKSAR government, the Shanghai government is stronger and more practical. She knows the weaknesses of the city and is willing to step up efforts to change that.

The government seizes every single chance to numb your nerves with different slogans. Mottos like 'be civilized, be a lovely Shanghai citizen' can be seen and heard everywhere. There are traffic controllers at main roads so as to enforce the traffic rules (at first I was too naïve to wonder why there was a traffic controller while traffic lights were doing his job at the same time) and traffic ambassadors holding little flags which read 'be a civilized driver, observe the traffic rules' alongside the road.

(The traffic controller looks cool!)

Apart from the slogan thing, they actually ban people from promoting sales in major streets and train stations which is a big difference from other Mainland cities. Take the photo-taking booths at Wei Tan as an example. The government would cancel their license if they walk out of their booths and disturb visitors with their sales promotion.

Roads and streets are clearly labeled; even for direction dummies like me, it is still easy to navigate the city.

The most important thing is, the government does a great job on heritage preservation. Not only are centuries old trees and buildings labeled as heritage treasures, younger buildings with important historical background are also under the protection of the government. Like the former residence of Lu Xun (who spent the last 3 years of his life there), it has become an important heritage a few years after his death. After all, you can sense a soul in this city—through history.

Our crave for more and more land has already made us lose our minds. The government keeps reclaiming Victoria Harbour—the most valuable resource we're once proud of, abolishing old—but not old enough—buildings, logging more and more big trees in urban area.

When I look at our own city—all those mindless developments, I don't know where we're heading to. Without history, we're nothing.

One thing I'm glad about my trip is that, most teenagers we met were energetic and civilized. I can see the New China through them.