Jamal Mecklai: Looking for Shanghai's soul

MARKET MANIAC

While the China story and particularly its kick-ass show in comparison to India's modest pace of liberalisation has been apparent for several years, I only started becoming curious about going there a couple of years ago.

I'm usually a very conservative traveller "" business takes me to London and the US and whenever I can find even the smallest window of time, I go to Goa.

If I can find a slightly longer window of time, I go to Sri Lanka or Thailand and if I can find a real window of time "" say, over a week "" I go to London, New York, Paris, Barcelona, California, Greece, Italy, and, of course, Goa. Always Goa.

But, as I said, I've started becoming curious about China, and, more particularly, about Shanghai quite recently. It began about two years ago when a friend of mine "" a young man of about 25 at the time "" told me (or, more correctly, told his mother who told me) that Shanghai is like New York times seven. Why seven? I can't imagine.

I had lived in New York a long time and it certainly requires a large appetite for life. Over the 10 years or so I lived there, I probably have a story for every square foot of sidewalk in Manhattan. Seven times that! Wow! I couldn't even begin to imagine it.

Then, there were stories about the hotels, the infrastructure, the magnetic trains, the speed with which things were moving there, the speed with which you could start a business there, the speed with which you could make money there. It sounded wild, amazing.

But, I hadn't heard any stories about people, about the streets, about the soul of Shanghai. I know that it had once been one of the great cities of the world "" in fact, it's the only city I know that has actually inspired an English word. Hogtied and shanghaied. Opium and Suzie Wong. Romance and adventure.

I want to hear those stories. So, I've been asking around.

A few weeks ago, I met an American girl, who is in India working with an NGO, who told me she had spent three days there visiting her brother, who's been living there for four years. I asked her about her stories.

She said she had a great time, going to bars and partying all night. Did she hang out with expats or with Chinese? She said, "Well, I was only there three days but I went out one night with my brother's ex-girlfriend who is Chinese and we went to a club and I was the only non-Chinese there."

"So, what was it like? Was it like a club in Bombay? In New York?"

"More like New York, I would say "" dark with red walls, dance floor in the back. We went in and sat down at a table and the waiter came up and shouted at us, you can't sit there it's reserved. So my friend started shouting back "" you know how the Chinese love to shout.

Maybe they need to be noticed, like their love for showing off, for brands. I mean over there it's not enough to carry a Louis Vuitton bag, you need to be a Louis Vuitton bag, if that makes any sense."

"Did you like it?"

"It was great. But not like Bombay. I love it here "" I'd choose this any day."

Ramshackle infrastructure and all "" hmmmm. Well, she doesn't live here, does she? She's only here for a few months, and Bombay is a great city to visit if you have a taste for romance.

Her story was interesting but still not quite real enough. I want to know about the streets of Shanghai, the Bade Miyas, the Ram leelas at Azad Maidan, the Chalo Colaba festivals. What's happening on the streets there?

I ran into a friend last night, who is, in contemporary parlance, another old China hand. He's a management consultant and travels there quite a bit. I asked him what he thought. He said, "Sure, the clubs are full but the streets are deserted there at night. If you're Chinese, you need a permit to enter Shanghai unless you have a job. Shanghai has no soul."

He sighed as he took (yet another) sip of red wine. "But, of course, that only takes away marginally from its accomplishments. I was at a dinner the other night hosted by the city superintendent and ..."

But, it makes me wonder. Is it possible to build a sustainable global city after you have wiped it clean of its history, its culture, and its soul? Will Shanghai ever turn into a city like London, New York, Paris, Mexico City, Tokyo and, yes, Bombay, or will it simply become Singapore on steroids.

Singapore, like Shanghai, was a swamp of sin and decay, till Lee Kwan Yu took charge and changed it into the fine city it is "" where there's a fine for everything, from chewing gum to urinating in elevators (huh?).

No doubt, you can get a lot of business done there, but a global city it ain't. Decades of totalitarian rule have rendered most native Singaporeans unable to think creatively and, while, to give it credit, the current government does recognise the gap and is thinking of ways to repair it, it's a long road to reclaiming a lost soul.

And, I would imagine, Shanghai would have an even longer road.

I guess I have to visit there to find out. Maybe next year "" this year I have to go to Goa again!

(Jamal Mecklai is CEO of Mecklai Financial)