I visited the Expo in September, shortly after school started up again in China and just as the weather started to cool down. As a result, we were spared from the scorching temperatures and the crowds. Although, it must be said that on October 16, a whopping 1 million people crammed into the Expo grounds. Check out the outrageous scene here on ChinaSmack and be glad you’re looking at them through your browser and not in sandwiched in between people.

I was last in Shanghai in late 2007. I had a terrible time. I was robbed on The Bund, circled by three or four aggressive “salesmen” who actually came up to my friend and I as a group, waving brochures in our faces and even physically tugging at our sleeves. When we finally shook them loose, I took a few steps forward to discover that my digital camera was gone – the thick camera hand strap around my wrist was cut. The salesman that had been sticking so close to us just moments before? Gone.

Later that day, after a massage at the hotel, I was feeling just a little better when the jade pendant on my necklace fell on the hotel lobby floor, shattering into pieces. (I was putting the necklace back on post massage when this happened). I remember bursting into tears. My grandfather, who passed away a few years ago, had given that pendant to me.

The next day we took a day trip to a famous canal town just outside of Shanghai. As we posed for photos on a bridge in front of the picturesque town, a Chinese man prepared to spit. The unmistakable “haaaaaaagggggh” sound came from him and when he spit, a gust of wind blew and flecks of his saliva flew right into my face. Yep. It just can’t get any worse than that.

That night, I came down with a high fever, sore throat and a terrible chest cough. I was sick the rest of the trip and still when we returned to Beijing a few days later. I decided to go to the local hospital on our university campus and let’s just say it was a horrible experience – having to go through blood work and an x-ray before the doctor would give me medicine. Next time I’m just going to pay the exhorbitant fees at the hospital for foreigners.

So in a few words: I hated Shanghai.

I was determined that this year was going to be different.

Let me start off by saying the Expo was a lot of fun.

“It’s like an educational Disneyland for adults!” exclaimed the boyfriend. He was right. The country pavilions (CNNGo has a blog post about some of the more interesting-looking pavilions here) were fascinating, inspiring and a delight to the senses. Our favorite pavilion was Australia. Canada was pretty cool, too.

But our time there did not pass without confrontation. In fact, on the several trips into China in the past 6 months, I have encountered much dishonesty, aggression and chaos in the form a most deceitful cab driver in Tunxi, near Huangshan, and an angry mob stranded at Shenzhen airport because of a rain storm.

A sign in the queuing area at the Shanghai Expo.

The worst Expo confrontation happened in front of Thailand’s pavilion, where a Chinese man was moving fast through the queue, passing those who were patiently standing in line. As he tried to pass me, I asked him where he was going and he replied that he was meeting people up front. (The man was clearly a solo traveler and just skipping ahead.) I told him “You’ll have to line up behind everyone else.” Upon saying that, he physically grabbed me and thrust me violently to the side. I’ve never been manhandled like that, and I was deeply angered and disappointed.

People in China don’t line up. I usually don’t make sweeping generalizations, but this is the truth. Any woman traveling in China will agree, having spent much time queuing to use the toilet.

But you see, I expected more from Shanghai.

So much has gone into making Shanghai a “world city.” The Expo grounds are extensive. The area is 20 times bigger than the last World Expo held in Spain’s Zaragoza in 2008, spanning 5.3 square kilometres across both sides of Shanghai’s Huangpu River.

China says it has spent $4.2 billion USD — double what it spent at the Beijing Olympics — but in truth, it has cost to $58 billion.

Part of that money has gone into a $45 billion facelift for the city’s infrastructure, creating the world’s longest metro system, two new airport terminals and a $700 million promenade on the historic Bund as well as new roads, parks and bridges.

Quite fittingly, the Expo’s motto is: “Better City, Better Life.” But as I reflect on my visit to Shanghai this time around, I have to ask: “What about Better People?”

If Shanghai really wants to be considered the new face of China, a modern, cosmopolitan city on the forefront of economics, trade, fashion, food… then how about a focus on changing the way people behave? Improving subways and bus lines, planting trees and banning pajamas are all moves to change outward appearances.

Banning pajamas? Yes, you heard me correctly. Before the Expo began, 500 volunteers were dispatched at venues such as bus stops to persuade local residents not t0 wear pajamas in public - a quirky habit to foreigners but a practical one for the Shanghainese.

Just as Beijing distributed millions of “etiquette booklets” ahead of the 2008 Olympics, this campaign’s slogan was “No Pajamas in Public — Be Civilized for the Expo.”

For all the millions of dollars being spent on infrastructure and pajama campaigns, there more importantly needs to be a real change in the way the people in China see the world – not in terms of visual sense of sight – but in terms of what is right and what is wrong. Manhandling a young woman in a line up? Bad. Standing in line? Good. This is not a debate of East vs. West. Lining up is the right thing to do no matter where in the world you are and where in the world you are from.

It’s estimated about 70 million people would have visited the Expo by the end of the month. Let’s hope a majority of them lined up when they were there.

When I was in Beijing in 2007 and 2008, I witnessed new subway lines built, newly planted trees and greenery lining dusty streets, expanded bicycle lanes, taxi drivers telling me they were forced to take basic English lessons in order to better server the flood of foreigners, and of course, (my favorite) the “Supervisor Riding Politely” on subway platforms making sure people lined up and allowed passengers off the train before climbing onboard themselves (New York could use a Supervisor Riding Politely). 

In this latest letter from China by my former professor and NYTimes correspondent Howard French, we see through his eyes the changes going on in Shanghai in preparation for hosting the Expo in May. Especially disheartening for him is seeing the destruction of Shanghai’s old, historic neighborhoods — a place he spent a lot of time in during his years as a NYTimes correspondent in China, documenting the faces he encountered as he made his way through the maze of narrow streets, with his camera in hand. You can see his amazing photos here. 

As China’s big cities continue to participate and spearhead so many flashy, “world class” events, something crucial is missing from this cosmopolitan cocktail. French writes:

But amid all of this busy re-engineering, both physical and social, Shanghai has overlooked what is perhaps the most basic campaign of all: a hospitality campaign aimed at persuading Chinese people that they are the common siblings of the rest of mankind.

 

Why, one might ask, should there be such a need? The answer lies in the daily experience of any foreigner who wanders off the main streets, and it sometimes includes experiences on the main streets as well. Foreign visitors can often still draw stares as if freshly descended from the moon. People may talk about you in your presence, on the assumption that you don’t understand their language or, worse, that it doesn’t matter if you do. And the term “lao wai,” a less than endearing word for foreigner, hangs thickly in the air. Even the English word “hello” can take on a strange new meaning here, delivered as it sometimes is more as a sing-song taunt than as a true greeting.

The stares. The not-so-subtle attempts at taking your picture. The “Ha-looooo”s; all part of the foreigner’s experience in China. It’s funny at first. When it happens to you every 30 minutes, it’s not. I’ll never forget this one night at Tiananmen Square in late 2007 when my friend, an African American who speaks and writes Chinese fluently, overhead a group of Chinese talking about how unnaturally dark and therefore unattractive her skin was. My face was hot with anger. I was embarrassed and enraged at the same time. Somehow, I felt it would have been better if she didn’t understand. But she did understand. She heard every word.

This makes me think about how “One World, One Dream” really meant nothing during the Olympic campaign. It was China’s world and China’s dream and the laowais were invited in for a few weeks to see the glorious accomplishments of modern China. In order for Shanghai to be truly cosmopolitan, then the Chinese have really got to get over the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality. It’s a change I hope to see next time I’m there.

Professor French is in Shanghai for the summer, teaching a course on China at East China Normal University. He’ll be back in New York in September for the start of classes at Columbia’s J-school. It’ll be his second year teaching.