One of the things that foreigners enjoy lamenting in China is the destruction of architectural heritage. It is understandable, modern China has a terrible record of heritage destruction, and today there are cities with 2,000 years of history where it is hard to find any trace of old construction. But the worst is that you can witness the destruction ongoing even today, before your very eyes.

It is true that in the last years there is a growing awareness of this cultural loss (and the loss of tourism revenues), and the authorities have started to take measures. Unfortunately, these measures come in the form of “restoration”, usually by the method of demolishing and re-building something vaguely similar, in brand new materials. Of the many infamous examples of this, perhaps the concrete-and-plastic Jing An Temple in Shanghai is the most obvious.

As all my readers probably now, XinTiandi is an old neighborhood in Shanghai that was “restored” some 10 years ago into an Old Shanghai themed commercial area. A favourite question of many visitors – and particularly Europeans – is how many walls are still standing from the original buildings. In fact, most of it is 100% new, and I often wonder how it is possible that such a creation actually does attract “cultural” tourists, who flock there to take pictures of each other.

Recently I saw an article on China News saying that “The Second Xintiandi” was being built on Jiangguo Road. The project’s real name is 建业里, and it is a residential complex that bears little relation with the present Xintiandi. But both have one thing in common: they promise to restore the Shanghai Shikumen [1] to their original beauty.

This weekend I rode my bike to the place and took some pictures to illustrate how the “Xintiandis” are created. See the gallery below:

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I was very interested in the commercial copy of the project, I copy here with my obnoxious comments:

1. Classic buildings with 80 years of history. [used to stand here]
2. The Historic Shikumen will be restored to their original beauty. [Not]
3. Creating the landmarks, Defining the Sky. [That's more like it]

I could only enter one part of the construction, but climbing on a railing outside I could see most of the rest. To be fair, there is a part close to the entrance (where the workers are) that has kept the old walls. The rest of the Shikumen has been completely demolished and it is being built from scratch, using reinforced concrete structure. In the picture taken from the crossroads you can appreciate the formwork.

I don’t think this is in any way important, the value of that Shikumen is insignificant compared to the old city of Kashgar or the Beijing Drum Tower Hutongs that are going to be “restored” soon. But it is a good illustration of the Chinese approach, and I will use it as intro to this series on heritage conservation that I was planning to do. More to come. Soon?

1. the Shikumen is a style of residential street typical of early 20th century Shanghai

This week I have little time to do the Language post, partly because I have been busy writing a short story, partly because I have already discussed a good deal about language in other blogs. I take advantage of this to do the post with my final views on Shanghainese after the long discussion we had on the Wu blog.

The discussion started with an unrelated comment on a language learning site. But what really got me heated up is the painful realization that many Shanghainese speakers – or more precisely Wu speakers – not only don’t protect their beautiful language, but they are in fact actively destroying their rich cultural heritage out of pure ignorance.

If you have been reading me for a while, you probably know that I feel very strongly about languages, and particularly about disappearing ones. Perhaps part of the reason is that I come from a culture where we spend a significant amount of our resources to promote a minority language, so small and useless that it has about 1% of the speakers of Shanghainese. Stupid perhaps, but it is our language.

Now, I don’t say that everyone has to do the same. A language belongs to its speakers, and Chinese are free to abandon their languages if they chose to do so. But I can’t avoid feeling upset when not only Wu is abandoned, but also it is deliberately mocked and destroyed by those who say they are “protecting” or “teaching” it.

Wu and Shanghainese

First of all, a very brief introduction to these notions which I am using interchangeably. You can see more on the wikipedia articles, but essentially Shanghainese is one of the dialects of the Wu language [1]. Modern Shanghainese is not the original Wu dialect spoken in Shanghai, but rather a result of the combination of the various Wu dialects from immigrants that came to the city around the end of the 19th century.

In the context of this post I am using the word Shanghainese loosely to refer to the Wu language as a whole, because Shanghainese is today the main standard of the language. Like most languages that haven’t been subject to political unifying pressure, there is significant variance between the different versions of Wu, but that doesn’t make it less of a language.

Wu and Mandarin

For various reasons, mostly involved with “protecting” the language or just for the fun of being different, there is a trend today by Shanghainese netizens to exaggerate the difference between their language and mandarin. They do this, among other ways, by choosing to transcribe Shanghainese in nonsensical Chinese characters based on the mandarin pronunciation. For example, using 它 to represent 太, because in Shanghainese the word sounds similar to the mandarin 它.

The ignorance is so extended even among natives, and some comedians and other “linguists” following this approach have been so successful, that there is an extended notion among many foreigners that Shanghainese is a completely different language from Mandarin.

The fact is that Shanghainese is extremely similar to mandarin, they both derived from the same Middle Chinese language, they evolved most of the time under a single political unit, and the speakers  always used the same characters to represent it on paper. It is not unlike the difference between Portuguese and Spanish, both coming from the same original vulgar latin, and becoming deformed over time.

The vocabulary in these two languages is identical in the majority of cases. There are a few differences in grammar, but most of the difference comes in the pronunciation of what are essentially the same words. These are called cognates by linguists because they belong to different languages, but in most cases their meaning is identical; it is simply the same word with a different accent.

It is silly of Shanghainese to feel that their language needs to look “more different” to be really a language. This is not what makes a language strong. An ancient cultural tradition and a knowledge and respect for it, that is what makes the culture – and the language – strong. As I try to explain below, writing Wu incorrectly is just accelerating its destruction.

Chinese Characters and the Writing of Wu

One of the first objections people do to my points is that “anyway, there is no standard spelling rules for Shanghainese, so there is no such a thing as correct or incorrect”.

This is in my opinion absurd, and worthy of incorrigible prescriptivists who need to have an authority stamp a document to see how a language should be written. Writing should be based on established use, and the tradition of Wu languages during all their existence (until the government of modern China decided to dump Wu) is to write in correct Chinese characters.

Indeed, it is a great mistake to consider the characters are “mandarin characters” and foreign to Wu. They are not. The Chinese characters are as Shanghainese as they are Beijinger. Arguably they are more Shanghainese, as the Wu people were already using them long before anyone thought of doing a capital in Beijing. In fact, the speakers in the Wu region were using the characters long before Wu even split from the other Chinese languages.

From the annals of the kingdom of Wu to the famous Kunshan opera, there is a massive corpus of Wu or pre-Wu literature in standardized post-Qin characters.

Obviously a large part of that is in Classic Chinese, so many Wu elements are excluded. But there is also a tradition in vernacular Wu, such as the 19th century 海上花列传, which was translated to mandarin by Eileen Chang. There is more than enough material to constitute a standard, and the only reason why it is not used is the complete ignorance of the subject by native speakers – caused mainly by the education system.

The proper way to write Wu is with the correct Chinese characters for the majority of words that are in common with Chinese, and to use established solutions from tradition for the few cases where there is no correspondence.

Admittedly, the only people using Shanghainese in writing today are the same netizens that I criticize here. Credit should be given to these people for at least using the language, it is obviously not their fault that nobody taught them how to write it. I just hope the government will take more serious action when they say they want to protect Shanghainese, and I hope Wu people are given a bit more of education on their local culture.

Then they can decide to dump it if they want, that is up to them. But at least they should know how and what it is they are abandoning.

1. language: whether Shanghainese is really a language or a dialect is another interesting discussion that I will leave aside for today.

When I approached, I saw they were parents waiting for their children. It was the “Shanghai City Common English for Children Stars Level Exam“, an official certification of English level for children in 小学 (6-11 yo). From what I understood, it is organized by some bureau of the City of Shanghai one of many private companies. The levels are given in stars: 1 star, 2 stars, 3 stars, and the exam emphasizes oral communication.

Two thoughts: 1- A people that takes education so seriously cannot go wrong in the long term (even if the system is certainly not perfect). 2- It looks like the Teachers of English will continue to be in high demand for years to come. Lucky you who’ll be pocketing the RMBs for explaining how to speak your own language!

UPDATE: I just clarified that the schools organizing this are not official institutions, but just private companies. I was fooled by the clever name on their pamphlet “City of Shanghai bureau of language learning etc.”  Looking on the internet there seems to be a few of these companies, complete with the star ranking system.

This is a brand new sculpture called “communication”, just arrived from the US to Shanghai to commemorate the 30 years of the opening of relations between the two countries. It is a great initiative, following the old tradition initiated in Troy and continued with the Statue of Liberty…

Except that, wait a second! Who are these guys? Do they represent Nixon and Mao? And why are they dressed up as two grannies getting ready for tea? Perverts!

OK, I see, this represents  the intimate relations built up in the last 30 years. The lady on the left is becoming a bit deaf, and her friend keeps repeating herself, saying the same things a thousand times, she is saying something about currency devaluation…

Whatever. What I find most amazing of all this is that in a city of 20 million I am the only one that finds this funny. The article on the Oriental is just a rehash of the press release, and they lost a great chance to poke some fun at the thing. And if there is one thing I do not forgive is missing a chance to have fun. Oriental, this was your last chance, you are fired!

• Preferably with journalism or media related experience.
• Experience in video and photography will be an advantage.

We’re looking for someone clever, active and with excellent communication skills. This person will be in charge of the press coverage of one of the most interesting pavilions in the Expo: writing press releases, covering their activities and interviewing the biggest personalities they will invite.

Interested please send your resume to natalia.tobontobon@china-files.com

CNY NOTE: This is posted as a favour for the the multi-lingual blog China-Files.  I am not paid for this ad, I agreed to publish it because it might be useful for some reader. The position is paid and I think there are perks like a press card to access the  Expo, but please contact Natalia directly for the details. Good luck.

Despite being a party newspaper, I am more a fan of the Shanghai Morning Post (新闻辰报) than the relatively less government-oriented Oriental Morning Post (东方日报). I find the Shanghai Morning Post to have more stories related to the city I live in, though the Shanghai paper sells out quicker outside my apartment building than the Oriental Morning Post, so I often have to settle for the Oriental if I make it outside past 10 a.m.

When I read this I realized why I almost never see the SMP and I am stuck with the Oriental. In the convenience store down my road it is exactly the same situation: most mornings the SMP is sold out by the time I get there, whereas the Oriental is still hanging like a stale fish when I am back from work in the evenings.

To confirm this information I sought the aid of a professional. Not the local Lawson’s store, but a proper newspaper selling stand:

Since newspapers is their core business, the ladies in the stand usually get more copies of the morning papers, which means that they have both the SMP and the Oriental available until late.

The first thing I noticed is that they clearly dislike the Oriental. They have it buried under a lot of magazines and every time I have been there they have tried to convince me to buy the SMP instead. It clearly looks like someone is not doing their homework on the distribution channels. Apart from this, here is what I found:

• Every day they sell about 3 times more copies of the SMP than the Oriental – approx 60 to 20.
• The newspapers that are not sold can be returned up to a certain number (not specified) and the rest is just thrown away.

These are just anecdotal observations, but all seems to indicate that a good part of the 400,000 copies posted by the Oriental end up right in the rubbish bin, or else used as toilet paper in the nearby construction site.

Incidentally, the Oriental today opens again with the full page Mont Blanc watch. A jolly nice picture I have to say, but not very satisfying because those dark colors tend to leave stains when used on damp places.

When I first got to Shanghai 3 years ago I was young and my heart was full of ambition. Eager to make a name for myself in the local business circles, I handed out my name card liberally to all those smiling locals that pullulated in the networking events, actively introducing themselves and offering their cards in the lovely Asian two-handed fashion.

It took me a few weeks to understand how things work in Shanghai, and by then my card had already become a commodity in the IDs market, classified right up there under the header: First Class Expat Suckers.

The downside of this is that a good 75% of the text messages I receive since then are adverts. The good side is that these adverts are among the most extraordinary that I have ever seen, giving a good insight of the resourcefulness and creativity of the Shanghai underworld.

The messages include special cards to spy on someone’s conversations, loving daughters I never knew I had, or innovative credit at advantageous rates of only 3-figures percent, right in the middle of the financial crisis. For a while I have given up reading them, as I considered I had already seen all there was to see. But recent evidence reveals that this field of research is far from exhausted. See the last message:

Go to Switzerland to enjoy the Living Cells of a (Sheep) Foetus Injection treatment, totally repairs the decaying organism. During the whole process a translator will look after you. This will make you rejuvenate, your youth will glow again in a totally new life experience. Telephone:X.

Like usual, excuse the inaccuracies. It would be easier if I chose originals that made more sense, but I like translating dangerously. The main problem here is with the character 羊, which is a sheep, but in words like 羊水, it just means amniotic fluid.  That is why sheep is in parenthesis, indicating that the expression 羊胎素 might actually refer to a normal (human) foetus. Just how much more disgusting can this get.

Working Questions: What exactly are these guys selling? Is it just a scam, or do they really have a place in Switzerland for old Chinese who are rolling in it?  Anyone tried the Living Cells of a Sheep Foetus Injection? If I try it, won’t my bodily hair grow white and fluffy like a little lamb?

Like usual, CNY readers are invited to call the number and test the treatment at your own risk and peril, post results in comments below.

Three workers take a short break to enjoy their new creation, as hundreds of pedestrians invade the former automobile exclusive zone.

Berlin 1989. The Wall of Cars is down and the Bund is invaded by pedestrians, happily crossing on (or nearby) the zebra passes.

Nanjing Lu should come next: When two lanes are invaded every weekend, it is time to widen the sidewalks and get rid of some smoke.

Here you are, Increased area + Increased visitors = Equal density.

We chat our way up to one of the Bund’s big banks. Here you see the two levels of the Bund, with an elevation of some 3 meters on the part next to the River. Here is my main problem with the new design, plus the fact that there are still too many car lanes.

And since we are here again, for the Nth time: he is NOT Mao, he is Chen Yi, the ex Mayor of Shanghai. You should visit his beautiful old house in the French concession, now a museum of Chinese art.

There is a brand new building on the Bund, the only one with modern architecture in the whole street. It fits very well, and it brings a certain air of European city, now that they cleaned all the facades. But I can’t help wondering, what happened to the old building that was there before?

And here is my main objection to the design. I understand the double level of the Bund is necessary, as the part next to the river must have a certain height to avoid flooding. But what I absolutely can’t understand is this horrible grey wall separating the two halves!

Not to mention the absurdly long ramps to go up and down, where it takes some 50 meters and 15 minutes to pass. It would have been much more functional and beautiful to do a sprawling stairway, where groups of people can sit down and even play instruments like on the stairs of Montmartre…

The Southern part of the Bund has been saved from the oppression of the elevated highway, which used to loom above the lighthouse, rendering this whole area useless. Now there are benches and a fountain. I am sure the Lighthouse bar will get more business.

And finally, here is a cross section taken from number 22. You can see the 2+1 lanes of cars each way, and the 2 heights of the promenade, with the background of Pudong and the moon.

Better Life, Better City? Yes, but still a lot more to do. We will continue waiting to see if they get it better for Bund 3.0. What do you think?

For more pictures of Shanghai new buildings see here. Also Shanghaiist has this covered here, and Danwei here.

This is the typical Chinese motivational message that can be seen everywhere, often in the form of rhyming Dos and Don’ts. For a while now many of them are appearing with the Expo as central theme. The Oriental Post had an article yesterday announcing new measures in some districts to have locals take responsibility for their street’s cleanliness.

Handwritten signs like this are very usual in the lanes. They are organized by the residents committee following directives from above. The task of writing the signs is often delegated to the local calligraphy hero, and then you get beautiful pieces of writing (but not in this case, IMO)

The translation of this one is:

The “Seven Builds” proposed by the City of Shanghai’s “Welcome the Expo Civilized Activities Plan”:

• • Maintain order – Build a lawful City
  • Keep Hygiene – Build a Healthy City
  • Protect Environment – Build a biological City
  • Be Polite – Build a Polite City
  • Have solid Credibility – Build a honest City
  • Love Science – Build a Study City
  • Give Kindness – Build a Friendly City

Any corrections welcome. As I usually say, Chinese slogans are very hard to translate because they rarely make any sense, so I didn’t bother to take out the dictionary. Use at your own risk.

In many ways, that first Expo was very similar to the one China is doing now. Spain had to prove something,  it had passed its own 改革开放 (reform and opening) in the late 70s with the transition to democracy. Then it went on to  join the European Union in the 80s, and by 1992 it was finally starting to look like a developed country. The old pessimistic phrases “Spain is different” and “Europe starts behind the Pyrenees” felt already like something from the past.

Granted, the Reform here has “Chinese characteristics”, and massive population of China needs more time than Spain to complete the Development.  But overall, there is a clear parallelism between Spain 92 and China 2008-2010, and that is one of the reasons I am so excited about the Expo. It was great stuff in 92, and I have some cool memories of chunks of icebergs in the Chile pavilion, or an outdoor temperature control system that was unseen at the time.

In the case of Shanghai, not only the host will be doing its best to impress, but also the participant countries are facing the most promising tourism market in the World, and they have a strong incentive to come up with good shows. If the Canada pavilion is representative of the rest, their Cirque du Soleil should give you a good idea of the World class material we can expect.

I had an article published yesterday on Danwei, where I explain why I think the Expo is an event worthy of attention.  Since a large part of the readers of China blogs are American, the most expo-skeptic country, my effort is unlikely to be successful. Even among the Chinese, I see little enthusiasm at 40 days from the inauguration, but I think the commenter on Danwei hits the nail when he says these long duration events become more popular after the opening.

I will be writing more about the Expo and Shanghai, so stay tuned. On the MiniYouren I also do updates of interesting daily information on the Chinese press related to the Expo (subscribe via Google buzz or reader). Let me know if you have any suggestion of aspects you might want to read about.

Finally, I recommend the following sites for Expo-related information:

• • Shanghai Scrap
  • A Sorry Spectacle
  • Lost Laowai Blog
  • Official page of the EXPO
  • Shanghai Morning Post EXPO special

The Shanghai Morning Post has the most interesting headlines, both coming from the press conference given yesterday by the Shanghai delegation in the NPC. Both statements are of interest:

1- Politburo member and head of the Communist Party in Shanghai Yu Zhengsheng agrees to review the serial Snail House (蜗居). Inside the paper, Mr Yu actually says that he watches Snail House and recommends all the other cadres to watch it. His only regret is that in the series there seems to be no good Shanghai people. Somehow he forgets to explain why such a great serial has been censored from Chinese TV.

2- The Mayor of Shanghai Han Zheng denies that this is the most expensive Expo ever. He is answering to the rumours that have recently spread on the internet that the total cost of the EXPO is around 400B RMB (60B USD), and he gives the figures of 18 Billion RMB for the construction and 10.6 Billion for the operation. Considering that most of the pavilions are financed by their own countries, the 60B USD (comparable to the whole cost of the 3 gorges dam megaproject) seemed indeed excessive.

The Men in Black give way to Blue

As the month of March progresses, it is forecasted that the men in black will slowly give way to the Haibaos on China’s front pages, and the excitement for the Shanghai EXPO will finally emerge. There are only 54 days left for the EXPO, and even in the heart of Shanghai, the popular enthusiasm is clearly lacking. I heard more talk of the Olympics 540 days ahead than I do of the EXPO today.

As the front pages above show, what discussions exist online and offline about the EXPO are mostly concerned with negative issues, such as the housing problem, the corruption involved and the large sums of money than some believe have been misspent. Add to this that many Shanghai citizens are not all that excited about the arrival of masses of “waidiren”, Chinese from different provinces who will collapse the traffic and make the city unbreathable for five months.

But we shouldn’t let the jaded attitude of some locals spoil the party. I have strong reasons to believe that the EXPO will be a great success, and in the long term it can be as significant or more than the Olympics for China. I will write more about this soon to justify my optimism, and if all goes according to plan, I will be covering Shanghai and EXPO related events regularly in the months to come.

A bit of background: signese is the Chinese humour contained in public signs before they are translated to English. It is not Chinglish, it goes much deeper into our cultural differences, and it is funny because it shows an unexpected approach to life. Look at this sign below, it is a classic of toilet signese, a sign that hangs above millions of urinals in China, from the Summer Palace to the smallest alley in Shanghai:

A small step for man, A great leap for civilization

Approximately 50 million urinals carry this sign in the mainland. I wonder if somebody has told Neil Armstrong in his old age that his famous and well rehearsed line is remembered today by 1/5th of humanity as a hygienic measure for urinating gentlemen.

Bad aiming skills in the toilet is a common ill in all societies, any lady will tell you that. But in China the problem is most acute, and sub-urinal ponds are part of the landscape. Some ascribe it to the natural optimism common in most Chinese males. I prefer to think it is a matter of multi-tasking abilities: speaking on the phone while smoking a cigarette is not the best way to ensure full control.

In any case, the Ministry of Health prefers to not leave anything to chance, and already a tech startup is taking care of this:

Until this new product hits the market, please one step forward.

I just hope the developers are thoughtful enough to give it hands-free capabilities, ashtrays and Bluetooth.

PS. Speaking of technology, I know, if I am going to take blogging seriously I better get rid of this phone and get one that can take proper pics. The problem is I am torn between that and the best dictionary of Chinese in the World, that runs in my second hand Palm from Taobao.