And I remember Shanghai

How I wasn't sure just what was safe to eat
The chickens pecked and wandered at the barefoot ankles of the children hawking figurines of workers smiling
What's the Chinese word for cheese?

Thanks to Bishop Allen for the above lyrics. As it happened, I didn't see any live chickens, but I do, nevertheless, remember Shanghai.

In my previous Shanghai post, I mentioned the architecture downtown, which is radically different from that of Beijing, Seoul, and Busan. The guidebooks had made mention of this, however, so I wasn't completely unprepared. What I wasn't ready for was the traffic.

Oh, the traffic. The dizzying, exhilarating, anarchic traffic.

Shanghai!
A city where stoplights are suggestions at best.

Shanghai!
Where flocks of bicycles and scooters roam the streets.

Shanghai!
Where pedestrians defy death with every step off the sidewalk.

Springfield!
Where skateboard-riding youths urge you to eat their shorts.

Er, moving on.

Given my reputation, not as an expert economist, political theorist or even as a PhD. candidate in Sino-industrial history, but as someone who has spent more than eight days in China (four in Shanghai, five in Beijing), I feel particularly qualified to comment on the socio-political situation in contemporary China.

As I understand it, it's like this: China is still "communist" in much the same way that Stephen Harper is a "good prime minister." Between the condo developments and the Ferrari dealership, Shanghai does not show many signs of being a society in which property is shared equally. I think it's probably fair to say that communist China has never had such a society, but now there's isn't even any pretense of such a thing.

Historically speaking (or so we were told in Mrs. Findlay's Grade 13 Mod. West. Civ. class), revolutions have come from the middle class. When you're struggling to get enough food to feed your children, it can be hard to worry about more abstract issues such as voting. The reason Great Britain managed to avoid the equivalent of the French Revolution was that the nobility wasn't as rigidly hierarchical: those of sufficient wealth were able to buy their way into some form of power.

In China, the middle class is growing rapidly (though still dwarfed by those living day to day), but it's uncertain just how much power they have. At what point does one decide the Porsche isn't sufficient compensation for a lack of free speech? Is China's economic growth sustainable environmentally, economically, or socially?

I did enjoy the dumplings.