从印度到中国 (cóng Yìn dù dào Zhōng guó)

There's a new movie coming to town on Jan 15, called "Chandni Chowk to China". Below the title in English can be seen the title in Mandarin - 从印度到中国 (cóng Yìn dù dào Zhōng guó), which means "From India to China". Not quite the same as the English title, but close enough.

.. all of which reminds me of something else which I've been meaning to blog about, but never got around to, my brief visit to Shanghai a few weeks back.

Visiting China, especially Shanghai does leave quite a forceful impression. As Westerners never tire of saying about India, it doesn't matter how much you read about it, the experience is entirely different and worth it.

Here are a few random impressions from my visit. Be warned to take all of them with a pinch of salt - it is all too easy to read too much into too little in China.

The Chinese are making a serious effort at modernizing their country, and doing it from the outside in as it were. The overwhelming impression one gets when one enters the country is of a concerted attempt to copy the Americans wherever possible. The immigration area at Shanghai airport looks like a copy of any American airport, down to the uniforms of the security guards. Once you're out, the highway system looks American in design, except for the driving which will make Indians feel right at home. Red are considered suggestions, and lane markings ignored when needed.

The famous Shanghai smog is as bad as advertised. I didn't get to see much other than a uniform dull grey in the skies, with rather low visibility. The city itself is quite interesting, divided into a modern quarter (Pudong) east of the Huang Pu river and the old city (Puxi) west of Huang Pu. Pudong is where most of the recent development action is, as was allegedly nothing but farmland not too long ago. Locals apparently prefer to live in Puxi, which has more of the Chinese-European flavour of Old rather than the dull modernity of Shanghai. The Nanpu bridge over the Huangpu river is quite spectacular.

I didn't have too much time for painting the town red (ahem), but did manage a brief trip to the Bund and Xintiandi, happening districts of Shanghai. The food, it must be said is rather good. If you let your Chinese hosts order, you will end up with rather interesting and quite tasty food. As is widely known, very few Chinese speak even passable English. You do encounter passable (but not very good) English among those working in the hospitality industry at the high end. Most taxi drivers do not speak or comprehend English, neither do people at normal restaurants. Having a Chinese speaker go with you is almost a must, to interpret for you and show you the right places.

One thing my trip has done is to get me thinking more about the old Hindi debate. Talking to Chinese who've turned up in Shanghai from all over the country, it seems like it's perhaps not all that bad a thing to have some enforced uniformity in language. The Mandarin policy has indeed suppressed a lot of cultural and linguistic diversity in China. However, it seems to have given the Chinese a level of easy mobility that we do not have in India. In my brief chats, I did not hear of much resistance from "locals" to the influx into Shanghai from all over China. Compare Bangalore, where one doesn't feel fully welcome even after a decade and a half here. I'm not convinced yet, but I am less sure of my position on the Hindi question than I was. Piyush, are you reading this?

A striking story that I heard second hand is that of someone whose family's farmland was taken away by the government when he was younger. His family moved into a city, where he went to school, did well, and was able to build a good life. Apparently, this person believes he got a good deal overall, and was happy that lots of jobs were created as a result of farmland being turned into industry. This is just one data point, but it's inevitable to contrast this with attempts to take over farmland in India, which have seen violent and counterproductive protests from those who lost land. Perhaps it is the naivete of the Chinese, or their trotting out the party line to a foreigner, but it would definitely seem that they're a lot more sanguine about side-effects of development than the Indian populace. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but it does help the wheel of development roll much smoother.

Chinese aren't as well informed about the world, it would seem from my brief impression, as their counterparts in other countries at similar levels of education. Perhaps it's the strict control of information that is to blame, or their reticence. I do get the feeling I may have read too much into some of my brief conversations, though. One tends to form impressions too soon, and correct them at leisure.

Interestingly, a lot of rumours abounded about factories being closed and a lot of people being out of work as a result of the slowdown in the global economy. English newspapers talked about the whole situation as a problem, but with the strict control of information, one doesn't really get to know of the real size of the problem. If it were India, one would end up knowing way more than one needed.

One hopes to be back there more often. China will play a much more central role in the world economy going forward, and doing business in China will become more and more important. The Hatter is learning Mandarin, and hopes to be able to speak at least halting Mandarin by the end of the year - if for nothing else, to roam around Shanghai unassisted.

新年快乐 (xīn nián kuài lè) ! Happy New Year all!