via: metro society
it is in shanghai metro ...
A funny thing happened on the way to...
A young couple were near me on the metro, talking to each other in rather low voices, and speaking in English, in an effort not to be heard or understood by those around them. Overheard in the Shanghai Metro, around Hengshan Station last Saturday...
Boy: Did you like it?
Girl: It was... okay.
Boy: Are you okay?
Girl: Yes. Are you?
Boy: Yes. Did it hurt?
Girl: So So.
Boy: I'm sorry.
Girl: It's okay. I did not do that before.
Boy: I want to make love again. Do you want to?
Girl: I think so.
Boy: Can we do it today?
Girl: Uhh, I think so. Where?
Then they got off.
except hongkong and shanghai, i don't see any other chinese city (hongkong is actually a western city in terms of many things) in which people talk and write in english in their daily life. shanghai represents the top 2-3% of the country, and therefore making it a special place in china. an article about shanghai appears in a recent issue of wired magazine (via: wang jianshuo's blog by dave):
Here's the new cultural revolution: Every morning, Wang Jian Shua and his wife leave their condo in the suburbs of Shanghai, get into their Fiat sedan, and drive to jobs in the city. Two years ago, they lived in a cramped, decrepit apartment in the center of Shanghai, and Wang, an engineer for Microsoft, traveled to work by bus or train. "I never thought of getting a car," he says. "Driving was a very serious profession - like medicine." Cars were for party bureaucrats, or at least the very rich.
At a Hyundai dealership not far from Wang's condo, families prowl the showroom, inspecting the stitching on the seats, criticizing the design of the rear lights, trying to find the biggest car for their yuan. A TV blares a gov't program featuring a singer in a yellow dress crooning in front of a suburban development. "Nowadays life is getting better, sweeter and sweeter," she sings. "You can fulfill your dreams. The roads are getting wider and wider."
to anyone who knows china, the above scene sounds surreal. it is true that more and more chinese can afford a mamahuhu car, but painting china with the top 3% brightest color creats an illusion that is dangerous not only to foreigners but also to chinese. compared with demonizing china as a communist monster, this, in my view, is another type of "media brainwashing", although they are from different motives.
john from sinosplice has his voice in a recent post "the developing" :
I started my existence in China in Hangzhou, a very pleasant city as Chinese cities go. Now I live in Shanghai, China's model modern city and an economic monster. I think it's good to keep in mind that these cities are not representative of China as a whole. It's good to keep in mind that China is still a developing nation. It can be remarkably easy to forget...
here is a pic of Zhuzhou of Hunan province in central china (view other pics and a comparison of us-japan-china cities here):
and finally, next time you meet the i-want-to-make-love-again boy in the shanghai metro, tell him: TAKE IT EASY, YOU HAVE TIME!