Entry #7 Sunday Afternoon at People's Park

Sunday afternoon at People's Park is the very essence of Shanghai, hand-sifted through the fabric of a micromesh filter, twice distilled by reverse osmosis, and concentrated into a pleasantly eccentric aroma by the heat of a diligent afternoon sun. You can smell it as you stroll along the spotless gravel walkway, so carefully paved, the most ancient mark of civilization in a city struggling to play catch up to the likes of New York and Paris. As I walked amongst the throngs of people on one of the most beautiful Sunday afternoons Shanghai has seen in a long time, I couldn't help but feel like I was somehow a part of the pulsating flow of vitality that this city lived and breathed upon. And on a particularly offbeat day like today, the pulse seemed a gentle and lazy one.

Situated in the middle of the bustling people's square commerical district, the park is a pocket of free air in the tightly clenched fist of the city's downtown. People from all walks of life gathered here in a heterogenous mix of something wholly unseen anywhere else in this often frighteningly exclusive metropolis. Lovers old and new sat pair by pair along the open grassy lawns, taking refuge under the towering shadows of skyscrapers nearby. Elderly citizens clustered around chess tables as incessant and unsolicited advice filled the air. Checkmate in three moves, I can't believe he doesn't see it.

As I strolled farther into the park - all the while taking pictures of anything that piqued my interest - I came upon what people here have come to term as the "Marriage Market". True to it's name, this particular corner of the park was packed with parents seeking potential partners for their romantically challenged or otherwise incredibly busy children. Resumes were tagged along the rows of shrubery that bounded this small yet vivacious little corner of the park. Contrary to my initial impression - that these people were socially awkward losers - I realized from reading their bios that they were all relatively successful and predominantly female. Perhaps it is that men in Shanghai can't deal with a woman more successful than they are or maybe successful women in Shanghai have too high of expectations for their partners? Either way it seems like this place would be a haven for successful Chinese men looking to marry. For one, the girls here are all quite successful themselves and will be less likely to engage in gold-digging. Secondly, you can see their pictures before meeting the person, decreasing the likelihood of unwanted surprises on the first date. And lastly, any foreigner looking to snatch themselves an obedient Chinese wife are swiftly deflected by the 5 inch steel-plated shield standing between them and Chinese parents raised under five thousand years of culturally entrenched racial discrimination. I soon began taking pictures of this little social phenomenon but no sooner had I taken two pictures did I begin to receive complaints from a majority of the people expressing their wish not to be photographed. In hindsight, I guess I can understand why. No one wants to be known as the parent of a kid who can't find a husband/wife and has to resort to a flea-market like system to perpetuate the family line. Sure makes for interesting people watching though...

After making my way through the marriage market and politely turning down offers from not one, not two, but THREE elderly Chinese ladies for their daughter's hand in marriage, I found myself arriving at the infamous English Corner. The thing to notice about this particular feature of the park is the fan-like distribution of local Chinese around isolated foreigners. Accented English can be heard falling from the lips of nearly everyone, from 6 year old boys to 50 year old men. Topics range from foreign politics to favorite restaurants to who's Ah Yi does the best job of scrubing the toilet. If you did not already know what this place was, you would probably walk in thinking that these foreigners were some sort of celebrities vacationing in Shanghai, when in actuality, they're just people with a different stamp on their passport. All the foreigners seem to enjoy the undivided attention they get from each of their little circle of disciples. They're laughing, smiling, making friends while the locals get to improve their English free of charge from assholes like me who gets paid 100 kuai an hour for opening my mouth and uttering senseless bullshit. Indeed, everyone seems so happy and content with this little exchange that for a second it really doesn't matter that the majority of these foreigners are French.

I think I'm going to make People's Park a regular stop for my Sunday afternoon trips from now on. Nowhere do I feel more like I'm in Shanghai than I do here. It's that wonderfully electic mix of old and new at this place that embodies the very spirit of a city caught between the past and the future. Who knows, maybe I'll even start an English Corner of my own.

Entry #6 I Went to a Whorehouse Last Night

I wake up, head to the gym, shower, and go to work. Sometimes I have lunch at a nearby restaurant and sometimes I bring my lunch. I leave work around 6 PM and sometimes I have dinner with a friend. Other times I cook at home. Nothing fancy, just whatever I can throw together to form an edible bowl of assorted foods that bear a faint resemblance to something I have eaten before. This is how I've spent my days for the past 2 months. Oh yeah, sometimes I have dinner with some relatives and maybe head to a bar later with my cousins.

I often wonder to myself while I'm in Shanghai, usually on those lonely cab rides home at 4:00 AM on a Sunday morning, what the fuck am I doing here? My mind floods with a deluge of short answers, but not one is satisfying enough to quell the whimpering fire of my self-loathing curiosity. I can't even write anymore.

I came here with a purpose, but some point down the line, I lost it. Why am I going to bars and clubs and getting pissed drunk with strangers every weekend? I mean, yeah, it's fun sometimes and it's a good way to past time, but it's nothing I can't do in the US with people I would probably like better.

So like I said, I went to a whorehouse last night. It was for some guy's 25th birthday party. He seemed like a cool guy. Dragged there by his friends while announcing that he absolutely refused to "fuck a hooker". I think we could have had some good conversation had he not been drunk enough to spit on himself. We both apparently like to watch "The Hunt for the Predator" on NBC and anyone who hates pedophiles enough to love a show which completely strips them of their human dignity while engaging in hardcore entrapment is okay in my book. Now, before you jump to conclusions and pronounce me to be a dirty pathetic perv, I will let you know here and now that I did not partake in their services. In fact, I didn't even touch a whore despite the fact that a number of them were eyeing me like a pack of hungry she-wolves ready to pounce on a can of SPAM. It was a disgusting joint of an establishment. Chinese girls pulling in customers from the streets by their semi-flaccid cocks and drowning them in overpriced faux-beer and disease-ridden kisses. Had I gone there alone, I would have felt like I was the detached self-destructive main character of some long lost Hemingway novel. The cheap colored light bulbs casted a lusty red shade over every ecstasy painted face masking the deep void beneath, which easily betrays itself, if you would just look a little harder. But no one ever does.

So what am I doing here? Am I the same as them? Trying so hard to fill some draining well of a hole inside me but I just think too highly of myself to resort to paying for sex? Do I think I'm better than the guy next to me who is shamelessly having his cock stroked through the cheap fabric of his Made-in-China denim jeans sold off of some peddler on Qipu Road? Yeah, I guess I do.

I need to stop hanging out with people I barely like.