14 April 2006
Shanghai as straight man
Of course, much of this is intended to happen. Shanghai is a sort of Sinoworld theme park, Shenzhen's 'Splendid China' writ large, and perhaps the government's most ambitious propaganda effort ever, although now under strong challenge from mutant pre-Olympic Beijing. Shanghai is advertisement by architectural mass, and its target is investors. "Look," it says, "Chinese standards of living soon to overtake those of foreigners! Come and market to One Billion Customers! If you don't give us your money you'll be shut out from the greatest opportunity in the history of commerce!"
Meanwhile the washing swings from the shells of incomplete and halted projects, and only a few hundred metres from The Bund the squalor begins, although it's nothing compared to that found in much of the rest of China. Somehow neither tourists nor commentators flown in for three-day trips nor dewy-eyed travel writers seem to see what's right in front of their eyes.
Last week The Observer carried a Shanghai travel story which seems almost intended to fit into a tradition of writing about China dating back to the books of Times correspondent Peter Fleming (brother of the James Bond creator).
Fleming's News from Tartary, first published in 1936 and still in print, is the account of a trip from Beijing to Kashmir in the midst of civil war, involving a variety of types of transport including horses and camels, and travel around the south side of the Taklamakan at a time when very few foreigners indeed had in modern times ventured that way. It's one of the funniest travel books ever written, not least because it rarely deigns to try very hard, and also because a dryness and lightness of touch with the humour is combined with deft and vivid descriptive material and a depth of knowledge about the political situation of the time. Fleming poses as the wildly amateur and slightly eccentric Englishman, but is nothing of the kind.
Unfortunately many a wannabe writer since then, and particularly but not exclusively those taking routes through Xinjiang, has read Fleming and completely missed the point, mistaking his sham amateurism for the real thing. They've thus felt themselves licensed to travel without knowledge or the slightest research, and indeed to parade their ignorance. Comedy is supposed to provide compensation, and indeed deliberate ignorance is helpful in generating the clumsily comic situations that cover for a lack of writing ability, too. No doubt in modern times Lonely Planet is also largely to blame for spreading the idea that any old tripe can pass as prose and still get into print, but as far as China goes, Fleming has unwittingly become the godfather of some of the worst writing ever to appear in public, such as the astonishingly dimwitted Night Train to Turkistan by Stuart Stevens.
At first it seems Phil Hogan, the author of The Observer's Shanghai story falls into precisely the same trap:
Like most frequent flyers and citizens of the world, the one thing I know about Shanghai is that it is teeming with opium dens, rickshaws, brothels and assassins. Oh, and laundries. Admittedly I have been swayed in my thinking by the 1967 Julie Andrews sex-trafficking classic Thoroughly Modern Millie, not to mention The White Countess starring Natasha Richardson as an impoverished Russian émigré reduced to making a living swallowing her vowels as an enigmatic escort girl and stopping visually impaired nightclub frequenter Ralph Fiennes from bumping into the tables. And what about that cheesy old song 'Shanghai Lil' from the vintage musical with James Cagney, who if memory serves played a short American with an aggressive manner and a loud barking voice? Ah, old Shanghai! Could it have changed so very much since the days when this lawless idler's paradise ('Whore of the Orient'!) was run by swaggering Brits and Yanks and no one paid tax or gave a damn whether a man's car had an MOT or not?
Actually, it has changed a bit, says my guide book, pointing out that there has been a war since then, not to mention the rise of Communism, which banned public expressions of fun and sent all the foreign parasites fleeing to Hong Kong, making it all but impossible to get a drink after hours.
Ignorance paraded for the purposes of clumsy comedy. Does it get more dull and predictable than this?
It turns out that Hogan has a regular column, dealing with such fascinating issues as his inability to use the dishwasher in the absence of his wife. In short, this sort of thing is his schtick.
At least because his purpose is to apply his technique to an exotic location he doesn't feel the need to go all misty-eyed on Shanghai, and for once in travel pages we get a glimpse of something real:
But no, even that's history now, what with the government turning the place into a Big Rock Candy Mountain for hyperactive property developers and a glittery new playground for tourists who want to go to China but not see any culture.
But this information is provided, he claims, by his guide book.
Later his own observations do make it clear he's noticed that not everything is entirely well, although it may be that it's the opportunity to get in a quick joke that leads to that observation.
Agents of forbidden goods and services surface around us like U-boats.
'Rolex?'
'No thanks.'
'You like Chinese lady?'
'Not right now, thank you.'
'Massage?'
'Perhaps later.'
Mild, but at least it's there, and we go on to get away from the numbingly dull list of obvious tourists sites encountered so far (but cut here--see link above for full story):
A leisurely detour beckons through the interesting shambles of sidestreets where the real people live, criss-crossed with clothes lines and jammed with little food shops and barber's kiosks and steamed-up cafes so small they do the washing-up in a bowl outside. A man in a chef's hat smokes a fag and watches the lady of the house empty a chamberpot in the drain.
And although this overstates the case, there's a note of familiarity likely to bring a smile to the face of even the most hardened expat:
Moving through the crowd I practise my 'dui bu qi' ('excuse me') to the surprise of the locals, who could hardly have been more delighted to hear a dog talk.
But isn't anyone tired of this kind of lightweight and largely self-interested drivel, although this is better written than most? What do we read travel articles in newspapers for? Wouldn't anyone actually like a vivid description of Shanghai, with the writer's ego carefully out of sight, giving both the good and the bad, the expensive and the cheap, and in short all the detail needed to help us decide whether we want to go there or not?
And if it happens to be funny, too, that's fine. But let's get our priorities sorted out.
An earlier post on misrepresenting Shanghai here: Blind leading the blind
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1 comment:
Tourists visiting Honolulu go to the beach, and maybe hiking, and don't even consider hanging out with Meth addicts along King Street, or getting a feel for the more blue-collar Moili'ili, or pop into a local joint for a bowl of saimin with Spam or fish cake.
Readers don't want travel writing to capture the city as a whole. They want a take on the tourist highlights, and for foreign countries, a few wacky anecdotes that capture the cultural disconnect. Locations for a good hamburger are also well appreciated. Blaming authors for this just doesn't make sense, and as vacations are expensive, time valuable, and brain cells limited, I wouldn't blame the reader, either. There really isn't much about the area North of the Bund of interest to a general English readership.
Really I think the linked story was pretty good, its main fault being that it tried way too hard to be funny.
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