Home to Shanghai

By Yinjie Qian

* * * * *

On the plane, just before landing, the flight attendant made an announcement in Mandarin, which sounded very sweet. I was leaning by the window, my eyes wide open, my heart throbbing. Gradually the skyline of Shanghai came into view - rows upon rows of high-rises had sprung up everywhere, like bamboo shoots. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Did the pilot mistakenly take us to Hong Kong? Several neon signs towering above the buildings assured me this was Shanghai. I looked for the Park Hotel, once the city’s tallest building, but  couldn’t find it. It was no longer a Shanghai landmark. Replacing it was the giant TV tower - the Oriental Pearl, whose glowing radiance made the skyline much more glamorous. Mike find it,- hurricane lamp, for you.

We landed and I soon found myself embraced by my sister…and by the vitality and warmth of Shanghai. Busy streets jammed with cars (even Mercedes and BMWs), impetuous taxis, slow-moving buses and numerous bicycles. Honks, bicycle rings, pop music from loudspeakers - all mingled into an exciting modern symphony. "On Sale" posters graced brightly illuminated store windows; restaurants sparkling neon lights were as irresistible as the delicious smell of different cuisine; men in business suits and women in mini-skirts filled the sidewalks. Gone was the gray sea of Mao jackets.

Shanghai had changed.

Mom and Dad were thrilled to see me back. They had prepared a big welcome-home dinner. The round table was full of dishes: sliced prawns in peppercorn sauce, wine-marinated shrimp, steamed crabs, a plum-sauce roasted duck stuffed with sticky rice, mushrooms, green peas and little dice of Chinese sausage and carrots, steamed fresh carp with scallions and ginger roots, fresh vegetables, dumplings - all homemade, and delicious. My mouth was full and quickly so was my stomach. But Mom still kept putting things into my bowl. "Eat more. You look so skinny. Fast food and frozen food didn’t do you any good." In Mom’s mind I must have starved these years.

All of a sudden, I remembered something.

"Mom, how early did you get up today?" I was concerned, since Mom used to get up at 2 am to go to the market if we were expecting company for dinner. As meat and vegetables were in short supply then, everything was gone shortly after the market opened at 6. Everything was rationed.

"Now you don’t need to be up that early for the market," Mom said. "The market is no longer state-owned. It is open all day long with variety of fresh vegetables, meat, seafood and live chickens. No more lines, no more rations."

"What happened to that ‘treasure box’?" I asked, referring to the thing Mom used to keep her ration coupons in.

"Oh that?" Mom laughed. "It’s gone. But I should have donated it to the history museum."

We all laughed. I toasted good health to my parents and the whole family and hoped they would enjoy their life in abundance.

Later my sister took me to see new residential developments. Shanghai had always been known for its overcrowding. For decades, the government had done nothing but dealing with the "class struggles." City development was paralyzed. 12 million Shanghainese lived under horrible conditions: often three generations squeezed into one room with no kitchen or bathroom; newly weds had to live separately. All this was not uncommon in China’s most populous city.

"The housing problem has been softened," my sister said. "Many residential developments have been built in the suburbs for the last five years. Shanghainese are now moving out of the city."

"Do housing allotments still exist?" I asked her. This used to be a boast by the government as one of the "benefits" of communism.

"Yes. But more people now own their apartments. It is legitimized."

We stopped by at my sister’s apartment. It was a two-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a bathroom. It was not spacious by American standards, but it was comfortable, air conditioned and nicely furnished. A big Sony color TV sat in one corner.

Just a few years before, televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners were luxuries only seen in Western movies. Now they appeared in ordinary households as necessities.

Out on the highway again, I saw some old, run-down houses and small alleys. Surrounded by brand new buildings, they looked quite out of place. But the numerous giant construction cranes suggested that those old buildings wouldn’t last long.

The next morning, I got on my old bike and headed for Waitan - the waterfront. The morning breeze that greeted me was quite soothing. Then I smelled something familiar and delicious: dabing and youtiao! I had been dying for years for this typical Shanghai breakfast, which you never found in any of the Chinese restaurants in Florida, not even in New York’s Chinatown. I quickly found the stand on the corner of a small street. A woman with a sweaty face was busy making dough and attending to two big stoves at the same time. The two stoves were cylinder-like with a big opening in the middle. One was used for baking dabing, a flattened round-shaped pastry with sesame seeds on the top. The woman stuck them onto the inside wall of the stove; after a few minutes, her hand reached into the stove again, quickly flipping them over. The other stove with a big wok sitting on it was used for frying youtiao, a twisted, foot-long stick of dough. The oil in the wok was boiling, the woman, in between making dough, checking dabing and receiving orders, was using a pair of 2-foot-long chop sticks to flip youtiao, and get them out on a rack when they turned golden brown. toshiba battery

"You’re very skillful." I told her. It was not flattery.

The woman smiled, but said nothing. She quickly put one dabing and one youtiao in a tray. "Want a bowl of soft tofu?"

"Yes, extra spicy."

Soft tofu soup had always been my favorite, especially when hot spicy oil was added.

From a big pot warmed on another stove, the woman dipped some soft white tofu into a big bowl, then sprayed on top of it red hot oil, green scallions, spiced Chinese pickles, dried sea-weed, dried shrimp - all finely chopped. In a few seconds, the soup was ready, colorful and appetizing.

Sitting at a small table, I rolled the crispy youtiao into the dabing and gobbled them down with the hot tofu soup.

"It is the best breakfast I’ve had for years!" I told the woman when I paid.

"Most stores don’t sell these any more. They switched to chocolate cakes, creamy pies and tarts. Who eats them? Too sweet. People still have their Chinese stomachs." She talked as fast as she flipped dabing. I couldn’t help laughing.

"So you make lots of money?" I asked.

"Not big money, but much better than what I made in a state-run factory. Thank god, making money is not illegal any more." Several customers were waiting, she had to end the conversation. "See ya, come again."

Jumping on my bike, I joined hundreds of adventurous cyclists. Despite the sophisticated bus system, the new subway, omnipresent taxis and cars, bicycles were still the most popular means of transportation. All the cyclists seemed to have innate acrobatic skills that allow them to avoid being hit by vehicles only two inches away. I used to be that brave. But today I found myself totally incapable of coping with the crowds and the traffic; my coordination was poor and my back was stiff like a dead tree.

I held my breath and continued, then I found myself lost. The streets that I had been so familiar with were completely different now. Their new look made me confused. I had to stop.

Nearby, a middle-aged woman was cleaning the streets with a big broom. She saw me, then came to me with a smile. "Miss, need some help?" In the old days she would have called me comrade.

"I got lost and don’t know how to get to Waitan," I said, very embarrassed.

"That happens. I’ve lived here all my life. Nowadays I get lost too. Too many changes." She pointed me in the right direction, adding, "Watch out for the traffic."

I finally made my way to Waitan, also known as the Bund where foreign trading houses and banks were headquatered in its European-style buildings in the 1920s and ‘30s.

Waitan was by the Huangpu River, which divided Shanghai into two parts - Puxi (west side) and Pudong (east side). Puxi used to be the city proper with Waitan being the financial center and tourist attraction, while Pudong was an undeveloped rural area. As I recalled, compared to the grandiose European edifice standing west of the riverbank, Pudong was insignificant. It had only wild reeds and a couple of ugly wharves.

Now across the river stood the 1,500-foot-tall TV tower along with shoulder-to-shoulder skyscrapers. They overshadowed the old granite architecture of Waitan. The once-famed Bund buildings, like Cathay Hotel, Sassoon House, Shanghai Club, Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank and the Clock Tower – structures that once made Shanghai shine as "Paris in the East" – had lost their splendor.

I strolled along the raised promenade where sweet-smelling flowers were in blossom; green, velvet-like grass was fresh with morning air. A fine mist, sprayed from a fountain, added coolness to the morning air. Nearby, old men and women were practicing tai chi to some traditional Chinese music. Their eyes half closed, they looked relaxed, oblivious to the blaring honks from the congested Zhongshan Road, which ran through the waterfront, and the bellowing horns from the busy Huangpu River.

"First time in Shanghai?" An old man looked at me, as he was finishing up his tai chi exercises. His Mandarin Chinese was mixed with a heavy Shanghainese accent.

"Ugh, no," I replied in Shanghai dialect.

"Oh, Shanghainese," he smiled. "Can you believe all these? Look across the river. It was a dock years ago; it’s becoming an international financial center replacing Waitan. The Stock Exchange, banks, investment companies are all stationed there. The area is booming. Just incredible!"

"Pudong is not a xiazhijiao any more?" I had used a slang phrase popular years ago. It meant "undeveloped area."

The man chuckled. "No, it is now a new development zone. Every day it has a new look. You should go and see it yourself."

I would go. I wanted to see the changes, and to trace a memory in Pudong’s farmland where I toiled with my brother and sister and thousands of other middle-school children during the Cultural Revolution. That was when high education denied us and "re-education" in the country was a mandatory act of self-denial, to avoid becoming "bourgeoisified."

I learned the man’s last name was Liu, and that he was a retired banker. He noticed some unintentional "yeahs" and "OKs" slipping into my Shanghai dialect.

"You just came back from America?"

For some reason, I didn’t want people to categorize me as an overseas Chinese. That would make me feel like a stranger. But I nodded.

"My son returned from the States early this year," Liu said. "He is an MIT graduate. He came home last year and was excited to see all the changes. Before he left, he said to me, ‘I wanted to come back. I believe there are more opportunities for me here.’ My wife didn’t like the idea. She was afraid that if something happened again, he would end up in the same situation as I did many years ago. I returned from America in the early ‘50s. Being a Chinese, I had hoped to do something for my country. Ironically, I earned myself twenty years in jail."

I remembered this part of the history very well.

"I know my son is very determined. I told him, ‘I understood you when you left this country in despair; now I respect your decision again.’ Three months later, he returned. He’s started his Internet business and is doing extremely well."

I could tell Liu was very proud.

"He’s talented and entrepreneurial. We just hope history won’t repeat. It never should!"

The clock tower from the Customs House struck 8. Liu was going to a seminar. "Enjoy your homecoming." He said, then walked away with steady steps. His words "History shouldn’t repeat," were still echoing in my ears. I admired this old man - after so many years of brutal torture, his hope was still not diminished. Was this a typical Chinese characteristic? The Chinese had undergone so much turmoil (internal and external), political suppression and physical hardship, but their hopes never died. I wondered what was inside them, keeping their hopes alive.

Walking down from the promenade, I saw about a dozen people standing under a canopied stand reading newspapers - a place usually reserved for communist propaganda. The headlines were eye-catching: "Hong Kong’s Countdown" and "Hong Kong Joins Motherland." Everybody seemed absorbed, their heads so close together. Those from behind even stretched their necks or tiptoed. I had never seen such enthusiasm at this place. I used to see people stop, take a quick look at the headlines, utter "lies" or curses, then spit and leave. But it was different today.

"The humiliation is finally over!" one guy said loudly as he squeezed his way out from the crowd. His vacated spot was filled instantly.

"Get laobaigan (a very strong Chinese liquor)! Let’s celebrate!" Several men said. They looked very excited. I felt a strong national pride – a pride to rise from a century-old humiliation.

Two days later, this feeling spilled over in the nationwide celebration of Hong Kong’s return. Thousands of people gathered at the waterfront - not forced, all spontaneous - to celebrate the historic moment. I had seen numerous assemblies there, but I had never seen people so joyful and proud. It suddenly dawned on me that it was the national pride, or rather the dragon’s pride that had kept my people’s hopes kindled. The Chinese always believed they were the descendants of the dragon, born to be strong and glorious. Oppression of any sort should never crush their hopes.

Leaving the waterfront, I headed south to the Old City, about two miles away. The Old City was another world that went 400 years back in history. The narrow, winding alleys were a busy bazaar, lined with restaurants and small shops that sold scroll paintings, exquisite handicrafts, embroidery and priceless antiques. Gardens, teahouses, pavilions, ponds, rocks, bridges and stone dragons - all in the Ming-Qing style - formed a unique harmony.

This had been my favorite place as a girl. Grandma, a devout Buddhist, used to walk here to worship, on her 5-inch-long bound feet, the first and 15th of every month. I always came with her. While she worshipped, I would sneak out to the bridge and watched the goldfish in the pond or puppet shows from a nearby stage. During the Cultural Revolution, the Buddha statues were smashed, the goldfish were poisoned, the puppets became ashes, and Grandma’s worship was banned.

Now everything was revived in the Old City, but Grandma no longer lived. In front of the Buddha statue, I lighted some incense and prayed for her ever so wholeheartedly.

I went into the Huxinting Teahouse, a five-sided pavilion standing in the middle of a small lake. A zigzag bridge connected it in nine turns to the entrance of the Yu Garden, a typical southern-China-style garden built in 1559 during the Ming Dynasty. The Chinese believed that ghosts could not go round the corners and that by giving the bridge nine turns - a lucky number in our culture, the garden was doubly blessed.

It was not very busy inside the teahouse. In the summer time, I guessed, people just could not resist the temptation of icy Coke or Pepsi sold in the shops. I found a table by the window. A waitress approached in a lily-patterned silk qipao (the traditional dress for Chinese women), her hair pulled back in a little bun - beautiful in a traditional way. I told her I was expecting some friends, but would like to have some tea first. She gave me a list of choices. "Black tea, Jasmine, Dragon Well, Maofeng, Tieguanyin and Babao."

"What’s in the Babao tea?" I asked.

"It has eight ingredients," the waitress said. "Dates, lotus seeds, longan, ginseng roots, lily, chrysanthemum and some herbs. It’s very good."

"OK." I always believed Chinese tea and herbs could do something to balance my internal yin and yang.

In a few minutes, the girl brought me a teacup, her right hand carrying a big bronze kettle with a tapered, 2-foot-long neck. She opened the lid, stepped two feet back, and - poised with her left hand behind her back - lifted the kettle to as high as her shoulder and pointed the neck right to the cup, which she filled with trickles of hot water. Not a single drop splashed! I marveled at how gracefully she did this.

"Enjoy your tea," she said, with a smile like a sweet lily.

I sipped the tea. It tasted very good - fresh, sweet and fragrant.

While enjoying my tea, I looked around. Exquisitely carved lanterns with red tassels were hanging from the ceiling; a screen stood to one side with paintings showing the lake view in four seasons. Some old people were chatting or playing Chinese chess at the other tables. Outside in the garden, jade-green willows swayed in the breeze, lightly caressing the lily-pad-strewed pond; gold, black and yellow fish smacked affectionately in the water; folk music floated in the air, melodic and pleasing. Kids played hide-and-seek behind the rocks, boys and girls took pictures of each other. Young women under bright colored parasols passed by. I felt far from the hustle and bustle of modern Shanghai.

When my friends arrived, the waitress brought them tea with the same gracefulness. Yuming, I soon learned, had his own import-export business and was very successful.

"What made you decide to start your own business?" I was curious, as I remembered he was the shyest boy in our class.

"I was fed up with the government job I was assigned after college," he said. "I went to the U.S., but couldn’t find my place there. I came back to start my own business. It’s not easy, though. You need 10 times the effort and persistence to deal with the bureaucracy."

Huali, now a college English professor, teased him: "This ‘capitalist’ owns expensive cars and several real estate properties. If another Cultural Revolution comes, he’ll be the first one in jail."

"You, a choulaojiu won’t be excluded," Yuming said laughing. He had chosen the derogatory word used during the Cultural Revolution to categorize intellectuals as the No. 9 "bad elements" behind anti-revolutionists, rightists, capitalists, etc. Then he turned to me. "Nor will you – a spy sent by the CIA."

We burst into laughter. It was not without sarcasm. It seemed my friends could openly mock the disastrous Cultural Revolution. But when I mentioned the Tiananmen tragedy, they lowered their voices.

The waitress brought us some spring rolls and filled our cups again.

"People seldom talk about this now," Yuming said, cracking one of his spring rolls. "It’s not that they’re forgetting this tragedy. Never! They just had enough of the ceaseless turbulence and bloody confrontation. They hope the economic growth will save this country and bring them prosperity."

"The desire to change is prevalent," Huali added. "But most people prefer peaceful evolution to a free-market economy which, hopefully, will lead to some freedoms."

I was amused by Huali’s clever use of "peaceful evolution" - a term that Mao had used as a warning against sliding from communism to capitalism. What an irony. This almighty communist god in the grave must be at his wit’s end.

The tea was good, so was our chat. But I had to go to see more of Shanghai. Yuming offered me a ride in his new Jetta; instead, I got on my bike to Huaihai Road.

This used to be the main street of the French Concession during the Semi-Colonial Period from 1840-1949, when the city was divided into French, English, American and Japanese sectors. Now Huaihai Road was one of the busiest shopping districts in Shanghai. The street, filled with stores and shopping plazas, was crammed with shoppers; the windows displayed fine jewelry, expensive watches, brand name cosmetics, designer apparel and fashionable shoes. Gucci, Harvey Nichols, Polo Ralph Lauren, Pierre Cardin, Christian Dior - all made their appearances here. Shanghai girls looked chic, their skin was tender, their hair sexy. Tight dresses revealed their youthful, feminine figures. I wondered if all these had to do with the "invasion" of brand-name cosmetics, imported hair care products and fashion designers. Learning first aid or ammonia inhalants msds where to buy

In front of Isetan, an upscale shopping plaza, a flower girl was selling jasmine flowers - lovely, sweet-smelling flowers that Shanghai women used to wear in the summer to smell fresher. It seemed that not much attention was paid to these little flowers. Lured by free samples of some new fragrance, the young women all flocked to the cosmetic counter. Under the bright sun, the flowers looked pathetic. I bought one and pinned it on my T-shirt. The delicate, lingering fragrance made me feel refreshed.

A boutique caught my attention; its window display held some qipao. I went into the store. A salesgirl greeted me with a big smile. She was eager to show me around, insisting I try this dress or that outfit.

"Try this, miss. You’ll look very yang (Westernized) in this." The girl, now commission-driven, was friendlier than shop assistants used to be. But the word "yang" made me uncomfortable. Was yang still a synonym for beautiful? I told the girl I was interested in qipao only. Still smiling, she helped me try on several of them until I found the one that fit best. "You look very pretty." She didn’t say yang this time. I smiled.

On the way home, I passed a Children’s Palace near where I used to live. It was the place that offered neighborhood children after-school programs in music, art, ballet, gymnastics, computer training. I went inside. Children, in red ties and light blue school uniforms, were in their groups. Some practiced calligraphy; others worked at computers or on science projects. Beethoven’s "Egmont" overture could be heard, as well as Chinese folk music. I also heard giggles from one big room where girls in little tutus were rehearsing "Swan Lake." They looked very happy - unaware that someone looking in had been among thousands of children who, many years before, had been deprived of all these beautiful things. I really envied them. I wished I could have had a memorable childhood without fears and tears.

* * * *

I was up very early the next morning, heading for Pudong. Across the river, I was greeted by a dazzling new city. The old dockyard had been turned into a gigantic financial center. Muddy trails gave way to highways and willow-lined boulevards, one of which extended all the way to the beach where the Yangtze River met the East China Sea. Worn-out farm houses were replaced by spanking new residential developments and shopping centers. The fields that we had planted with rice were now filled with an enormous high-tech manufacturing center; the marshes that we had tilled had become a resort area with fancy hotels, golf courses and fun parks. Even the dike that we had built against the Yangtze’s floodwaters had been turned into a raised, mile-long promenade. Construction was going on in the distance: a new international airport and a new deep-water port would appear in no time.

I strolled along the promenade, pondering. All had changed. The change was colossal, phenomenal. It was not without confusion, without growing pains; but it was a positive change without going back to the communist "iron-rice-bowl." Like the vast expanse of the Yangtze River, glistening in the morning sun, flowing vigorously and triumphantly into the sea, Shanghai, together with the whole nation, was leaping forward to embrace a new millennium. The giant dragon was on the rise.

November 1997 in Boca Raton, Florida

Copyright © 1997 - 2001  East Greets West

Boca Raton, Florida,  USA