A glimpse of Shanghai’s culture

I knew autumn had finally come to Shanghai when a large leaf hit me in the face as I was walking down the road last week.

I say ‘finally’ because this summer, lasting 157 days, was the longest (and hottest) since records began, which explains the humid heat that continued until last Monday. Then a cold spell passed through, so sudden that it felled five of the seven writers taking part in this residency, but in our defence, we have been a busy lot these last two months.

At the end of September, as guests of the Shanghai Daily, we travelled to Wujiang to take part in a televised panel discussion on the theme of “Hometown” — a challenging concept for a bunch of rootless writers — and to visit the old water town of Tongli.

Accompanied by a TV crew and a dozen journalists, we were interviewed as we went along. At one point a microphone-bearing journalist asked me to share my impressions of Tongli. I had to point out that we hadn’t arrived there yet. Often referred to as the Venice of the East, with narrow waterways and tiny footbridges, Tongli was indeed lovely, and although its longboats were more reminiscent of Oxbridge punts than gondolas, a leisurely slide through the canals was a pleasant way to spend a hot afternoon. At the Three Bridge Intersection, five cormorants, tethered to a boat, were fishing for their owner’s supper.

After visiting gardens, museums, and walking a lane so narrow it is reputedly a perfect spot to find a lover, we were revived in a local tea-house by green tea, fried beans and wafer-thin sesame pastries.

That evening we were guests at an official banquet, where there was much toasting with rice wine, and after a short performance of Chinese opera in another tea-house, we were fairly done in when we returned to our gorgeous boutique hotel.

In Shanghai, we have attended many events, discussions and readings, and last week we visited a private secondary school for a Q&A with some students. Mostly girls and mostly 15, their English was excellent and their questions good. One girl explained that she had turned to writing because she is not allowed to watch television or use the computer. These kids work so hard. Going out with friends doesn’t feature on their timetables, but they explained that they don’t need to relax, because they don’t feel tired even after all their extra-curricular activities.

One of my most interesting meetings was with two sheng players. This traditional Chinese mouth organ (first played 3,500 years ago) is a magnificent instrument, which seems endlessly adaptable whether playing the simple 17-pipes bamboo sheng or the heavier 27-pipe bamboo and metal sheng. Breathing in and breathing out creates the same, unique, sound. These musicians had both been to Cork, which is twinned with Shanghai, as indeed have quite a few Shanghai writers. All spoke of feeling very much at home there, so it was perhaps inevitable that I was asked, at a packed event, if I likewise had been able to find Cork in Shanghai? Frantic pause. How to compare a city of 119,00 people with one of 23 million; a city that enjoys (comparatively) pristine air with one that suffers so many bad air days that our throats hurt. However, I was able to say that the people, more than anything, remind me of home. The Shanghainese laugh easily and love their culture.

Before taking the overnight train to Hong Kong, I must wander again in the old town, hang out in the leafy streets of the French Concession, and stand at an intersection watching everything that I will ever know of life cycle past me. All living is carried out on bicycles and tricycles in motion: eating noodles, sleeping, doing homework, having a family argument, playing with phones, carrying goods packed high as a house, and no doubt sex, birth and death too. I should also, I suppose, walk the glass-bottomed ‘Skywalk’ at the top of the Financial Centre in Pudong … vertigo, anyone?