The view from my ivory tower

Make no mistake, I live in a new high rise apartment.  Unlike most other modern compounds, ours is in a 'still developing neighbourhood', and as such is surrounded by low rise local accomodation, known to some as lane housing.  Inevitably, within a matter of months or years the local housing will be razed and replaced by more high rises.  Looking around Shanghai city centre, those around us are some of the poorest areas I have seen.  The houses, whilst architecturally sound and elegant, are packed close together, and have poor sewerage.  The shops, market and restaurants (other than the expensive restaurants on Huang he lu) are of a very low standard.

 

When we first arrived, looking around a 'food street' nearby, we witnessed a couple of fights.  Seemingly, the way it worked would be that a would be customer would get very upset with a stall owner, during the food ordering process, and a loud and threatening fight would ensue, usually involving the would be customer, seemingly a very desperate person, picking up something large and heavy like a large bit of wood.  Apparently these are daily goings on, I'm not quite sure why.

 

And in the last few days, there have been a couple of strange goings on in the street just opposite.  I think on the weekend on coming home, there was a crowd and a police car in the road outside our block.  Apparently there was some sort of family dispute, which resulted in the police trying to calm the various parties down over about an hour, and maybe 30 or 40 people standing around getting a good nosy in.  Martin saw the events unfold, and he says the people were pushing around the police as well.  I think the police are quite tolerant and understanding in this respect.  They can 'take' being pushed around and shouted out.  That kind of behaviour would have you locked up in a jiffy in the UK.  I'm not saying that the police Can be pushed around - I think if I shoved a police officer I would most certainly end up in a police station.  But they're certainly brave to put themselves into these situations.  I can see why the police don't really rush around the whole time now - maybe much of their job is not pursuing criminals, but solving household disputes.  I thought perhaps events such as this were the result of increasingly unhappy people, feeling the pressures of a difficult life. 

 

And in the middle of the night last night I heard shouting and glass being broken.  Over the space of about half an hour, I think I heard what sounded like 3 bottles being smashed on the floor.  There was a police car out there, and a fair amount of shouting.  I couldn't make out what it was about, but someone was clearly not happy.

 

I read in the news a few weeks back that Beijing government is seriously looking into the poverty gap between the seafront provinces and the inland provinces.  With significant unrest inland, it's posing a serious risk to peace.  Whilst China is booming, it's booming in a lopsided way.  With these recent events, I can feel the tension.  Even in Shanghai, where residents are lucky to be living in a prosperous city and are far more likely to find decent housing and employment, such struggles and discontent exists.  When I have time and my language improves, I look forward to heading inland one day to find out how the 'other side' live.

 

I do feel safe where I live.  I think the locals are very welcoming, as they know that we our fancy condos bring custom to their businesses.  The struggles I think are between themselves, within the hardship of their lives.  When I say hardships, I mean living in a house where the air is thick with the smell of urine.  I mean working in an open fronted restaurant in the day, chopping the meat on the street in the morning, and standing in the same spot in one's underpants at night, washing with a bowl of water, and then sleeping inside the restaurant.  I mean pushing a heavy cart around the streets of shanghai, looking to sell bags of popcorn.

 

Sure not everyone in shanghai lives like this.  Far from it.  But there are certainly levels of society here.  Many within shanghai are wealthy.  There are a fair number of toyota Land Cruisers, or Audi A6s around for example.  They cost serious money.  But the base level of living standard, even in Shanghai, is still much lower than any country citizen could regard as fair.