Making a home in Shanghai

Talk about a change in lifestyle. Emily Prager just wrote an interesting story for the NY Times about her decision to uproot her life and leave New York City in order to move to Shanghai.

I left Manhattan a year ago, after a lifetime there…I decided to move myself and my 12-year-old daughter, Lulu – whom I had adopted as a baby in China - from the old capital of the world to the new: to make a home in Shanghai, a city of the future.

It was a bold move on her part, but the most interesting part of the article is not her decision-making process nor her experiences with the Chinese real estate market, both of which are intriguing, but rather the fascinating descriptions of life in her new Shanghai neighborhood. Here is an excerpt:

There are two types of life coexisting in Shanghai: the Westernized life which is becoming more or less like New York’s, and the old lane life still lived by a good many of the city’s inhabitants, now including myself and my daughter.

Each lane is a perfect little ecosystem. There is a lanekeeper who watches over the lane and a lane sweeper who comes morning and evening to clean it up, to whom I contribute about $5 a month. At the end of each lane is a little house with square windows, which covers garbage bins on one side of a wall and a communal sink on the other.

I can also leave garbage outside my door against the lane wall. The first time I did , I was embarrassed: I put out a big garbage bag stuffed with unnecessary junk while my neighbors had almost no garbage at all. It was clear they used no paper products and ate every bit of food. I have not bought paper towels or anything that I can do without since.

There are recyclers who travel the lanes in bicycle carts and collect boxes, making their living by taking them to recycling stations. They ring their bicycle bells to announce their arrival and you bring out your brown paper or cardboard boxes or bags. They fold every bit ever so neatly and tie it all up with string. Sometimes their stack is four feet tall and four feet wide, a huge burden delicately balanced as they ride slowly away…

People buy fresh food daily. They buy clothes directly from clothes carts or in markets. Things like nail clippers and cotton swabs are sold from carts in the street outside the lane, as are dishes and cups and most other household items. I went to buy some string one day and the man cut me a 12-inch piece. People buy only as much as they need. They do not hoard and their homes are not full of items they never use.

My house is very solid and I never hear my neighbors. In all but two of the other houses on the lane, three or four families still live in very close quarters. (People seem amused and curious, rather than resentful, about the difference in the ways we live, but I am often embarrassed by it.) Windows are always open, even in winter, but the ethic is that one does not look in. Privacy in China is mental rather than physical. You make yourself unaware of who’s right next to you, whether it’s someone shelling beans or having an argument or brushing his teeth in his underwear. People sit out in the lane during the day and chat and laugh. In the evening, if it’s warm, families set up tables and barbecue.

Related posts:

1. Images of China ...
2. Visiting Muslim China ...
3. Food from the rest of China ...