Shanghainese

We have now been in Shanghai for one week, and I can say confidently it is one of the best cities I have ever been to. Perhaps the thing most surprising to me about all of our time in China is that despite so many people and so much infrastructure, it is never hard to find a secret garden. 

Whether actually a garden, or a quiet corner, or your own space, it exists. It must be of value to everyone else, as well, because you never have to look far.  Shanghai, though the largest city (proper) in the world, takes this idea to task. The city is replete with quiet tea houses, parks in the middle of busy streets, and historical signs or statues that demand your attention. Even under a massive network of converging highways there was ivy covering every bit to refrain from the usual eyesore status.

Two nights ago, at our favorite sushi place (third time in a week - after nearly a month of Chinese food, can you blame us for hanging out in Japantown?), James and I both agreed that despite 95 countries between the two of us, our eyes and minds had been opened in a way unlike any other place our travels had taken us.

It’s difficult and bittersweet to explain. I’m hoping I’ll spend a lifetime traveling here and a lifetime articulating the feelings. I could not even scratch the surface of explaining everything we’ve seen and encountered in just a few weeks. 

We both wanted to make China personally “happen” in 2018, and so last year, after the success of a few short pieces for the magazine together, James and I were able to convince the editor to let us completely curate a quarterly travel series through the lens of architecture. We do the research, I manage logistics, James creates beautiful imagery, I write the story. It’s worked out well, and we’re here partly to produce an article that will be out in June. 

The other day I had scheduled an interview with Yu Ting, the founder of Wutopia Lab, one of the four Chinese architecture firms we’re featuring. I hadn’t slept well and hadn’t prepared much (though preparation is something I rarely fux with).

Finding the office turned out to be a disaster. Finding any place here is particularly hard (with no Google maps, double building names for everything, and the romanized Chinese street names often contradicting the Chinese character street names), but a particular joy of mine. In Shenzhen a week ago (two weeks ago?), one of the women we’ve connected with exclaimed “I can’t believe you actually showed up! This office is out of the way and even people from the city can’t find it.” Needless to say James had a hard time bringing my ego back to earth that day.

Even more needless to say, the Wutopia office (which was in a residential building, in a courtyard, in a gated community, with its own numbering system) brought the ego right back down. Eventually, Mr. Yu’s assistant Liran came out and met us on the street. Up three flights of stairs, twenty minutes late, and entirely flustered, we sat there in awe as this very gracious, charismatic man said, “Would you like me to share my design philosophy with you?”

We talked through decades of this man’s thinking and complex ideas. We talked about Chinese ancient history, its traditions, its recent history, its way of life. He brought out a paper that he had prepared with English words he was uncomfortable with - “paradigm” and “antithesis” and “thermodynamics”.

“Is that enough?” He laughed an hour and a half later. “Would you like to gossip now? Should we talk about Trump?” Fortunately his laughter continued and he said, “Would you like to have a local lunch? A very, very local lunch?”

Lunch began with a strong nitro coffee at a superhipster hole in the wall called Fish Eye. We then piled into another slightly larger hole in the wall, a noodle shop that he brought a food critic friend to, which has since exploded with popularity. There were collective tables of only 18 seats total, and everyone sat together. You stood filed along the wall, or in-between the tables, trying not to lurch over someone eating while you waited for a seat to become empty.

“What do you want?” He asked me as we stood, packed in tight during the lunch hour. In front of us lay the ingredients of the day - whatever you wanted your noodles to be tossed with. “Surprise me,” is really all you can say in a sea of unknown.

Over time, we each got seats, and we each got bowls of incredibly delicious noodles. “This is really Shanghai food,” he said, a huge grin on his face. Mr. Yu grew up on the wrong side of the tracks of Hu, as it’s called by the locals. He’s particularly proud of being from the city, and particularly proud of all of his local connections. Throughout our meal, he yelled back and forth with the chef. 

“They’re speaking Shanghainese,” Liran told me, rolling her eyes at her boss’s gregarious mood. 

“Oh! Can you understand?” 

“No,” she said, “It’s nothing like Mandarin.”

Afterward, we walked to a bar and he bought us all beer. Suddenly, after more than four hours of conversation, he said “I’m late for my doctor!” and ran down the street. “The acupuncturist is waiting at the office,” Liran explained.

Last night, I got a text from her. “Monday, 18:00. Mr. Yu would like to invite you two to eat in his secret kitchen.” 

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.