Shanghai, December 2019: Three Glimpses

by Marian Johnson (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown China

Shanghai, December 2019: Three Glimpses An unmarked door on Xizang Road led into the Wanshang Flower, Bird, Fish and Insect Market. None of the enticements we’d become accustomed to in this shopper’s city. Just a door. Inside, we found ourselves in a room full of tanks crammed with impossibly plump goldfish, many with monstrously bulging eyes and wildly fluttering fins, some the brightest orange, some white and red, some all white, their tummies painted with letters and designs: I HEART You. Outside this room ran a hall lined with tables on which sat containers of tiny red-eared turtles climbing atop one another and boxes of crickets, large and small, green and tan, trying to move their legs inside their tiny stalls. Farther down three men bent over something, yelling excitedly. We approached. They looked up. They stared, then went back to pondering four crickets crawling across some cloth. Orange gourds decorated the walls. Cricket houses. Cricket mansions. Cage after cage of singing birds hung above us. Crates of kittens. And insects and fish everywhere. Some few weeks later, after the corona virus erupted, I thought back on that market and wondered what viruses were hiding there, just waiting in a finny fin or turtle toe or cricket spine—to jump. Destination, a house in which Mao lived for several months in 1920, during which time he first read Marx. Visiting places where the revolution had percolated seemed important, if only to remind ourselves that history was made here, in this paradise of malls and skyscrapers and Ferraris. The house was an austere Chinese building of beautiful brown wood. But it was closed till 3:00. Two hours away. Disappointed, we turned to discover a bustling holiday market. Red, green, and white bunting, booths offering ornaments and gifts, music piping out of speakers, pine trees at every corner, signs proclaiming Merry Christmas or Joyeux Noel, children sucking on candy canes. I couldn’t help wonder what the house thought, looking with its beautiful windows on the spectacle before it. Adjacent yet alien. Jokes about Mao turning over in his grave and the war on Christmas popped out of our mouths. But who were we to make fun of this juxtaposition? Better to revel in the simultaneity of traditions, the collision of cultures, the international spectacle of teak wood and tinsel together. We were the only guests in our hotel, a lovely old house off an alley in the French Concession. Our last morning the concierge ordered us a cab. Middle-aged and in possession of no English, the distinguished driver moved us out of Shanghai and into the bleak world between city and airport. Massive skyscrapers marched across the landscape and up through clouds of pollution. Classical music played on the radio. Suddenly the driver began pounding his chest, over and over. Lurching forward, he banged the controls and the music changed to loud pop. Gradually the cab slowed till we must have been going just 20-30 mph. Cars and vans raced by and honked. The driver wheezed and gasped, his hands clutching the steering wheel, knuckles white. “Are you all right?” my husband asked, but him without Mandarin and the driver without English left us helpless. Along an enormous overpass he eased the car to the right. Looking down I saw purple, white, and yellow pansies on a grassy area below the highway and imagined our car falling through the thick brown air to smash at the feet of a giant building. What an end to our trip! What an end to life. But, still slumping and gasping, the driver kept going, and ten terrifying minutes later we rolled into the airport and leapt out. Grabbing our bags, we looked back to see if he was okay, if we could summon someone to help him, but the car was already pulling forward, moving perhaps to get another fare or a cup of tea or an oxygen tank. Scared but lucky, awed but humble, we walked into Pudong Airport, a super white palace of modernity