Tuesday, January 30, 2007

The Distance

Shanghai, a city that is the tip of the spear of advancement of China, is one of the most advanced city around. Nice buildings, nice towers, crazy neon lighting, and bridges that spread throughout the whole city like blood vessels, are nothing but a representation of their status in the world. Amazing… I must say.

During the weekends, I managed to find time to explore the city. The streets are crazy. Its worse than grand theft auto. The middle divider is just a yellow line, painted on the road. So its not very rare to see busses traveling in the opp direction, and blasting their horns at those cyclists who just cycle and don give a damn to them. Its like they are the sheep and the bus is the sheep dog. Sat night when I first stepped inside the club “babyface”, I was shocked to find around 8 girls, standing in the row at the entrance greeting me. China really no lag of manpower. I sent my coat and bag for safekeeping before going in. There is the hip hop room and the normal clubbing music room. We got a table in the latter. The lights, music and the girls really blew me off my feet. We dance quite a bit. Cos that is the only exercise we can get. Entrance fee 80 yuan. 1 bottle of chivas 550 yuan. 6 bottles of green tea to mix with the whiskey 210 yuan. There are some pictures of the more famous buildings I took when I was more sober the other day. It’s the museum and the government building and also the science and tech park. Never really have the time to go in see see. Well down here, money is really no enough. My friend told me 250 a month u can live like a king. No lor. We eat at this restaurant, we had quite a few dishes and the stupid pekin duck. In the end cost us 50+ yuan each. That’s 1/5 of the king’s money… more of like saying can live like a king for 1 week and survive on air the other 3 weeks. Me now quite sian of Chinese food liao… I want to eat chicken chop and bryani….

Like any other famous city, not everyone can keep up with the pace and jump on the band wagon. As you walk thr the streets of the poor, they make a living by selling fake goods, cheap food and some resort to begging. Just imagine… a posh mrt station like this, during peak hour, that’s the amount of human traffic. And everyone push when the door open. They don leave a space for the people who wants to come out. So its kinda fierce battle between those want to come out and those want to go in. And once you go in, when the mrt is less full, you see "them". They will usually arm themselves with a mac drink cup. They will walk up to those sitting down, and kneel infront of them. Then they will “kou tou” once and ask for money. If the person sitting down ignores them, or pretends to sleep, they move 1 seat down and redo the whole process again. And to the other side and to the next cabin and so on… some may bring their little kids along. Its such a painful sight… so I always keep some coins on my coat… incase I see them then I give them.
As you walk down the streets of the poor, you will find that the homes of the poor is so dilapidated that they might crumble when the wind is too big. And all this is just like 2 streets away from the posh skyscrapers. Sometimes you can’t help but stop and wonder, life is really so unfair. Anyway, after eating at the posh restaurants and eating at the broken down road side stall, the food is not much of a diff… its not like the road side stall food taste like crap. They also not too bad. And they are dirt cheap. Like 2 yuan for one big bowl of 18 +- dumplings. Quite cheap for a city like this.

The definition of a rat race is that the rats are just running to beat each other in a never ending race. Some rats may be in the front, driving huge cars, eating good food, wearing nice clothes, some may be behind, living under the bridges, and burn wood for warmth… but the fact is they are all rats… why should anyone despise the poorer rats just because they have a bit more of stuffs then them? The best things in life more often than none are free… When you find yourself so caught up in the rat race, its good to take a break, enjoy a simple evening with the ones closest to you… because in doing so, you are actually enjoying the most precious things in the world…