I arrived in Shanghai in mid-February 2023. In this blogpost, I will record my initial impressions of the city and its culture, while making some tenuous connections to the experience of living and working in China.
Many Americans, British, Italians, Germans, Russians, and other Western expats live and work in Shanghai, and some have settled semi-permanently. A profile of the typical expat is that they are either a teacher/professor (like me), or in business, between 30 and 50 years old, and as befits the city they live in, very cosmopolitan. They organize many activities, such as book clubs, art and philosophy discussions, or talks on contemporary and topical matters. I was invited to give a talk at one of the these events on the subject of populism, which I did, and about 45 people attended—mostly expats but also Westernized locals.
Participating in these activities has been a goldmine of intellectual growth and social enrichment for several reasons. First is that often, the subject is China, allowing me to deepen my knowledge about this ancient, complex, and fascinating civilization. Many of the participants in the mentioned events are Chinese, while others are foreigners and, unlike me, have lived here for a long time, speak the language fluently, and some have deeply assimilated via marriage and family; this gives them unique perspectives and insights. Second is that I have been able to connect with like-minded individuals and have a semi-social life in the city. After a long day of work, participating in one of the events organized by the expat community in Shanghai provides highly valued meaningful connection and conversation.
In other non-English speaking cities I have lived in—in Paris and Madrid, for example—I have almost always connected with locals rather than expats, in part because, by the time I arrived, I had basic or inter-mediate conversational ability in the local languages (I have recounted those experiences here and here). And I now have a good level of French and Spanish in no small part because of the intense learning accrued during periods of full immersion in France and Spain. This time it’s a little different mainly because when I arrived, I knew very little Mandarin. I started learning the language on an app very recently, and by February of this year I could communicate some simple sentences, while my listening skills were basically zero. I have continued to learn the language using the same app and taking weekly classes at the university, and although progress is slow, it is easily one of the most fascinating and enjoyable aspects about living in Shanghai. I can now communicate the essentials, for example, when shopping, and each advance, however little, is gratifying. I hope to obtain conversational capacity in a year, and perhaps by then, I will be able to participate in local activities in Mandarin rather than in English. At that point, a deeper assimilation will be possible.
One unexpected discovery is how technologically advanced Shanghai is, particularly its transport, communication, and financial infrastructure. I take the metro and train frequently, and both are hyper-modern, very clean, always on time, very cheap and relatively easy to use. For example, a return ticket from Shanghai to Suzhou—a distance of about 80 kilometers—on a high-speed train that travels at almost 300 kilometers per hour costs the equivalent of about 8 euros. Travelling the same distance in Europe on a high-speed train would cost double or triple that. Meanwhile, a single trip on the metro is equivalent to less than a dollar—here, the cost is similar in European cities, but not in Toronto, where one trip costs more than 3 dollars.
The high-speed trains I frequently use are marvels of human engineering that are so integrated into the city’s quotidian fabric, that they have become banal to locals. I have a vivid memory which illustrates this. One early morning I was on the train to Suzhou. As it arrived, I and other passengers got up and formed a queue and waited to get off. We started moving towards exiting the train, and as I approached the exit looking straight ahead, in front was the outline of the train’s sliding door, which divided the interior of the train, with its white walls and artificial light, and outside the train, where the soft rays of the morning sun were reflecting on the surfaces of the platform’s shiny grey marble floors. At that moment, on the other side of the platform, directly in front of me, another train—which didn’t stop at Suzhou—raced by travelling at over 200 kilometers an hour and made a kind of high-pitched swooshing sound. Between me exiting the train, and the racing train in front on the other side of the platform, were other passengers blithely looking at the phones. I was awestruck by what for me was a most extraordinary scene was, for the rest, hardly noticeable.
In Shanghai, the digital infrastructure is far more advanced than in other cities I have lived in. Because all payments can be done digitally, it is in effect a cashless society. Although cash can still be used, and sometimes still is by senior citizens or tourists, in practice, most payments are made with a QR code on your phone directly connected to your bank account, including for large and small transactions. This system is much more efficient than what I am used to, and this was recently brought home to me when I had to make a payment to Whirlpool Canada from China (I owed them some money for servicing the washing machine in my Toronto apartment). To pay them, I had to call during their open hours (somewhat tricky while in China’s time zone), and when I did, I was put on hold for 10 minutes. I finally spoke to someone and had to give him the invoice number plus credit card information, and this information needed to be communicated slowly and sharply to ensure it was correctly received. The entire process took 20 minutes. With the payment system in China, Whirlpool would have sent me a QR code, I’d scan it with the payment app, and then I’d receive a text message with the electronic receipt; the transaction would have lasted 5 seconds at most.
Apps are used for countless other activities, from going to the library, to using the metro and the public biking system. Cycling in Shanghai has been an interesting experience. Like other forms of transportation, it is very cheap and accessible, and the public bikes can be found on most streets. So, for example, when leaving my building, there are always available bikes in front. I scan the QR code on the bike with the app on my phone, the bike unlocks, and off I go to visit a friend, or go shopping; there is no time limit, and when reaching my destination, I can leave the bike, and then follow the same process when returning home. It is very different using public bikes in Toronto and Paris; in both, there are 30-minute time limits for each ride, meaning one must find a bike station within 30 minutes otherwise they are charged additional fees.
Biking in the city has been quite the experience because of how crowded it is. Shanghai has around 25 million residents, and many work downtown, close to where I live. During rush hour, large numbers of bikes, cars, and pedestrians are competing for relatively little space. It is partly for this reason that often there are officers at major intersections. Traffic lights can be insufficient to properly regulate the flow, leading to jams, and at these moments, officers help by telling some to stop, others to go. This is mostly a problem for car drivers; although the streets can also be crowded with bikes, there is always enough space for them to move forward, in part because most streets have large bike lanes, and in part because when the bike lanes are full, it is easy to zig-zag into the car lanes or even onto the sidewalk (while scrupulously avoiding pedestrians). Watching a scene like this—hundreds of people moving on bikes on a small street full of cars—an external observer may perceive chaos, but as a cyclist in Shanghai, I can confirm that beneath the surface there is an underlying harmony, where bike-riders compete for space while respecting others doing the same, producing generally accepted implicit rules. So, for example, the rule that those who want to race ahead can go onto the car lane is pretty much respected by everyone—cars and bikers alike—even though it is not formal or written. It basically emerges from practice. Another is that cyclists and pedestrians can cross a red light if there are few cars, while this would be unacceptable for an automobile, which always must respect traffic lights. It is these implicit rules which form an emergent order and which minimize accidents on crowded and superficially chaotic streets.
 |
| A common scene in Shanghai |
As can be surmised from the above, in Shanghai one is almost completely dependent on their phone. This raises a number of tricky practical issues, as the following will attest. One day in late February, as usual, I had plugged in my phone at the university to ensure a full battery for my return home. At the end of the day, I unplugged the phone, and went to the train station, and discovered that it had not charged (perhaps it was not plugged-in well, or the outlet malfunctioned). I had a brief and mild panic as it dawned on me that I would not be able to access the metro in Shanghai, or take a cab, or use a bike, any of which would be essential to reach my place from the central train station. Of course, I could go on foot, but I would not be able to use Apple maps, an essential tool for a newly arrived foreigner in a sprawling city like Shanghai. I walked around the Suzhou train station looking for an outlet and could not find one. It then occurred to me that I could plug the phone to my laptop, which still had a full battery; this gave the amount of battery power needed to get home. In other cities I have lived in, nothing remotely similar has ever happened, because, of course, I was never so utterly dependent on my phone. It was a lesson that advanced digital infrastructure brings convenience and efficiency but also creates fragility of the kind that occurs when value—defined as the essentials, not only in the monetary sense—is concentrated in a single place.
Then, of course, there are the ethical quandaries, as this system gives immense power to authority to control its citizenry. On this a few comments based on my short experience in the country may be worthwhile. For the vast majority of people I have encountered, locals and foreigners, this does not seem to be a problem, perhaps because they are law-abiding. Second, and relatedly, through my conversations with many Chinese, it becomes clear that the authorities enjoy a very high level of legitimacy. Perhaps this is rooted in Confucian culture, which, unlike the individualist Western one, still places a high value on respect for all types of authority (parents, teachers, the state, elders). It may also be rooted in the sense that the government functions well in terms of providing order, security, and the conditions of economic growth; this is the implicit social contract upon which the government’s legitimacy depends.
 |
| The older part of the Bund |
A few final comments on the unique architectural landscape of Shanghai, which combines multiple influences. Right in front of my building, for example, there is a Buddhist temple that is a reconstruction of the one that was built there almost 2000 years ago, and later destroyed. It bestrides modern the skyscrapers that characterize Shanghai and that are the fruit of the economic boom which began after China’s opening in 1978. Moreover, many European empires that colonized Shanghai have left their architectural mark, most notably the French and the British.
 |
| Shanghai's iconic skyline |
One of the more charming neighborhoods is the French concession, which contains many houses and buildings of the same style found in Paris. Meanwhile, the British influence is more widespread, and can be especially seen in the Bund, the area with Shanghai’s iconic skyline. On one side are towering buildings, some reaching 100 stories, which at night are brightly lit with playful neon colours, creating an almost psychedelic impression, as if one is completely immersed in some virtual reality video game. On the other side, there are much smaller brick and marble structures built by the British in the early 20th century, the kind that can be seen in other former-British colonies or in Britain itself. They, too, are brightly lit at night. Walking along the Bund, one cannot help but be struck by this juxtaposition of buildings; some embody China’s colonization and humiliation by foreign powers, while facing them are towering skyscrapers, grand and imposing and seemingly saying: we are now in charge.
