Stories of the Middle Kingdom

High Fashion

I went to Shanghai the other day. I was on Huaihai Lu, one of the most high-energy, fashionable tree-lined shopping streets anywhere. Tiny little 20-something Chinese rich girls in their clicking high-heeled shoes, Louie Vuitton bags, short shorts or dresses, flawless skin and gorgeous hair swarmed like little bees in the hive of high fashion. How can so many Shanghai girls be so beautiful? I actually like to be in this atmosphere with outdoor cafes, coffee shops, designer stores I can’t afford to enter, and near these hopeful young rich girls that seem to have the world as their oyster.

As I walked the street in the sweltering humid day, I scanned the streets and saw something that has probably always been there, but no doubt my mind blocked out because it didn’t fit the image of this fashionable street. There were men, very poor men, some quite elderly with bent backs, who at every corner were scouring through the trash bins, looking for empty plastic water bottles that they could put in their worn dirty sacks tied to poles they carried on their backs. The men were absolutely filthy, and their dull clothing was in shreds. One elderly man was so emaciated looking that I would have gone and given him some money for food if a red light had not separated me from him for too long.

I admire these men who try to make a living, regardless of the humiliating nature of their work.They could have just as easily gotten a tin cup from home and sat at the train station as beggars all day like so many others do. These men sought to retain their dignity by working. And yet the fashionable ladies of Huaihu Lu were from another world and didn’t even seem to notice that the poor men existed.

The contrasts in this place are both startling and humbling.

A local Chinese garden view

Meat

I rode my bicycle to get some grilled lamb kebabs at the Xinjiang restaurant a few blocks away. Xinjiang (sheen-jahng) is comparable to a state in the USA. It’s way out in the northwest in the barren middle of nowhere. (Sounds like where I grew up. I must go sometime.) The people who are from there, for the most part, are a Chinese ethnic minority who are Muslim. They have exquisitely yummy good, which is why I went to one of their restaurants to get kebabs. I wasn’t interested in a complete meal, I just wanted lamb kebabs, so I went to the grill that is always located outside the front of the restaurants and ordered some for take-away.

These Xinjiang guys working at the restaurant do not look Chinese. To me they look like Turks. They speak Chinese, but it is not their first language. I order ten kebabs. The grill guy asks me if I want the pepper that goes on the kebabs. That’s the way they are supposed to be made, but because another customer before me had asked for some without pepper, he thought he’d better ask. I ask for half with, and half without. I start to tell him that those without hot pepper on them were for my dog who shouldn’t eat spicy food, but then I thought he might get mad that his chef skills were being used for the benefit of a dog. Do Muslims even like dogs? It was safer to keep my mouth closed on this subject.

(Before you judge me about serving my dog this kind of food, I would like to point out that this food designed for human consumption is 75% cheaper than one individual serving of dog food that I can buy in the high-priced pet stores. I would be more foolish to buy the dog food. Things are not the same here as where you live, so….)

I continue to look at these Muslim minority men, thinking about how different they seem than Han Chinese men. And then it happened. One of the Muslim guys standing around pulled the bottom of his t-shirt up under his armpits. That’s when I knew--he was really and truly a bona fide Chinese man at heart.

Oh yeah, I know, you think Britney Spears was the trailblazer of baring the midriff, but no. Long before anyone ever heard of Britney, Chinese men were pulling up their shirts to cool their midsections. In fact, after giving it some thought, I think it is entirely possibly that back ten years ago, Britney had a Chinese man as her stylist. Yeah, that’s got to be it.

I would like to point out that is not an attractive look. On the other hand, it is funny and I always want to giggle. I really would like to take a photo of this sometime to show you, so you can giggle too, but I’m afraid the man being photographed would notice, think I was into him, and try to ask me out or something. So, if you don’t mind, please either go with the mental picture or try it yourself at home.