Shanghai Maelstrom

At the end of my first night in Shanghai, Glenn the Irish saved me from a butterfly while sipping at his Manhattan number nine. At the beginning of my second day, I woke up on my hotel bed, naked except for my boxers and a women’s sock on my left foot. How did I get to this point? Now, I could tell you some ego-flattering story that explains all of this as some sort of unlucky coincidence but I prefer not to mislead the reader this early in my report (though I hesitate to make a similar promise for the later parts). Truth to be told, it is really pretty simple. I believe one can trace the multiple reasons that caused my shirtless state of affairs back to one simple explanation - or better - person: I hold a convincing and pretty American woman who shall remain nameless in this report responsible.

You see, it is because of her that a long planned, ordinary business trip turned into an unusual report request regarding a particular feature of members of the female genre in China. Sounds sexist? I agree, it does not sound good when when I put it this bluntly but hear me out and you might change your mind at the end of my story afterall. It was a bet. Sort of. At least that is what I like to call it. I will not bore you with the details of our Saturday evening discussion that we shared over a few drinks and that lead up to the point at which she joyful proclaimed:

»You will have to try it out and see if this is really true and let me know! Tell me all about it afterwards will you?«

»Are you sure you really want me to report back to you on that?« I asked.

»Yes of course I am sure. I am a rather curious person, haven’t you noticed? In fact, write me about it while you are still there. Come on, it will be fun! You can gloss over some details if you want. But I want to hear about it. Promise, will you?« she beamed.

»Okay« I sighed reluctantly, realizing quickly how hard it was to deny her a favor when she smiled. »I promise. But only under certain conditions. One, you will have to read through all of it no matter how boring or badly written it will be.«

»Of course« she nodded.

»Two, you are not allowed to ask me if any parts of the story are made up or not. And three...«

»Not fair!« she interjected.

»And three, you will not think the worse of me afterwards and still go out for a another drink with me. Deal?«

»Fine« she moaned. »Deal!«

A promise given is a promised held my father used to teach me. So naturally I had no other choice than to engage on this particular endeavor. And while our real conversation and the reasons why our talk steered into this direction might have been slightly different in reality, this is my story and this is how I like to remember it. Besides, believe me, it makes for a better read when the story is told this way.

It is because of this conversation that I set out on my trip to Shanghai with two tightly defined objectives in my backpack: to attend a virology conference that judging to its clinically overloaded and packed three day program should be hard to survive; and to examine, record and write about a particular feature of Chinese women. Not really your everyday, run of the mill agenda. It is not that I minded. After all, I am a scientist at heart and all too often a thorough and exhaustive investigation lies at the core of every major observation. After a long and uneventful flight, it was precisely this scientific spirit and curiosity that made me disregard my jet-lagged body and impelled me to directly take the tube to Nanjing Road - the 2000 meter long major shopping pedestrian promenade in downtown Shanghai and the place to saunter, see and be seen. Stepping out of the tube into the Shanghai night illuminated by the myriad of multiple stories high billboards, I was struck by the masses of people strolling along the colored stone pavement, talking, laughing, buzzing from shop to shop. Old women advertising plush toys, teenagers piloting tiny helicopters that whizzed through the air, a young couple holding hands and kissing in front of a calligraphy store, a mother chastising her young child for dropping her ice cream cone and whining about it at the top of his lungs.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear at this point. The west won. For all the news stories on our TV channels about the immense monetary influence of industrial China, for all the water-cooler talk about the upcoming dominance of multiple billion Asians, for all our fear that the century long power grip of Europe and America over the world will come to an end - the west won. It is so easy to notice that I wonder whether any of the doomsayers have ever left their home countries or whether they are just too ignorant to perceive the subtle hints one can pick up when traveling to Shanghai. You see it right here on the main street of the main economical center in China. It is in the eyes of the people on Nanjing Road. Reflective of the heart of new Asia, their look and behavior is indistinguishable to the young people you will find walking along the streets of London, Paris or New York. Their clothing style is strictly western. The music you hear coming out of the shops is dominated by western Pop and Rock tunes. Every second building is decorated with Christmas lights and symbols. The most frequented shops carry western brands. And the way young couples interact with each other is reminiscent of young lovers sitting in New York cafes.

To avoid being misinterpreted, all this is not because this particular street caters to the desires of foreigners that visit the city. There were hardly any Caucasian, Brown or Black persons on the streets. No, this street is the street of the locals that either already take part or still dream of the new future of their nation. Maybe the western financial and military dominance will decline and an era will begin in which China, Southeast Asia and India are the new centers of world politics. In the grant scheme of things it is not really relevant. The desires that the western lifestyle and culture evoke as well as the promises they hold for the individual are already ingrained in the hearts and minds of this new Chinese generation. They will not give these promises up without a fight. Certainly, the majority of Chinese are not yet exposed to the westernized everyday customs nor could they afford this lifestyle. But it will come. After all not even one century ago, all of Europe nations were struck with an equal imbalance between a bourgeoisie city life with all its amenities and underdeveloped rural areas. With international travel on the rise, more and more successful Chinese who lived abroad for years returning to their motherland and the ever increasing connectivity of the world it will happen. Sooner than we think. For better or worse, our eastern neighbors will appear less and less foreign to us with time until it will only make a marginal difference in the end where in the world you plant your seed and call home. Just give it a bit of time.

But I digress.

My apologies for straying from the original point of my tale but you will understand once you visit Shanghai. Despite these similarities in lifestyle, the one thing that struck me indeed as different from walking the streets in western cities is the direct and obnoxious approach by all kinds of peddlers and dealers of illegal goods. With amazing regularity, like clockwork, I was confronted every ten meters by either a young man or a woman trying to engage me in a “business transaction”. Due to the equally repetitive nature of both discussions, allow me to quickly summarize the usual dialogue with men in the next paragraph.

»Want watch?« The classical start that no one ever deviated from.

»No thank you.« My initial response which morphed at later stages into a muted and demonstrative disregard of the peddler no matter the question asked.

»Want iPad, iPhone?« This appeared to be a mediating, optional dialogue option only available to the more experienced pushers as the more desperate ones jumped directly to the following:

»Want lady massage, lady, good ladies?« Normally only one of this wholly trifecta was mentioned though again the more experienced ones seemed to have perfected the merging of the whole package into one peculiar word which - with some interpretational skills - could be recognized as “ladygoodlikes”.

Only after refusing also this last offer, they would finally let you go. With a lesser but still surprisingly high frequency I was also approached by a plethora of girls, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups. To my surprise, those encounters were even more straightforward and ritualized in their nature. They always first inquired where I was going. While I initially felt flattered in my naivety when the first two girls asked me about my plans for the night, I quickly learned that my answer to this question had no real bearing on the future nature of the course of our conversation. Being already experienced enough after twenty minutes walking and an approximated ten offers I started answering with:

»To the moon.«

Fully ignoring the meaning of my answer, this always triggered the follow-up question from a girl with a surefire certainty:

»You cute. Together?«

»No, not together. Thank you.«, I replied and moved on.

Rest assured that I did not ignore all these requests to intentionally deprive the reader of the deeper insights into the reporting promise I made out of negligence. Let’s just say it did not feel right to gather the experience this way. I am still in the dark about whether these girls just wanted a supposedly wealthy western looking guy to take them out for dinner and pay for their evening, whether they were maybe hunting for a convenient husband material, whether these were all indirect offers from prostitutes or whether it was maybe a combination of all these things. I will have to read up on this once my head clears up but it is irrelevant for how the rest of my first night in Shanghai developed anyway. Besides, just a little later that evening, I met an Asian girl in a legitimate fashion in a small club I found after reading about it on a flyer on the streets.

Entering the venue, it became apparent that the place was mostly frequented by expats living in Shanghai. There was Tiny Doug, a large American working as a stationary pilot for Delta Air, Rosa from Mexico making a living as a Spanish teacher at an international school, Kim and Ann from England studying abroad and Shy Jonathan, a banker from Canada. And then there was Chara, a woman with Chinese heritage but born and raised in the Netherlands on a six months visit to her parent’s country. Getting to know all my temporary friends in a club like this turned out to be an easy endeavor. As outsiders and minorities in a big city, there was an overwhelming sense of togetherness in the room as if we were all alike, all sharing the same fate that brought us here, thousands of miles from home. Everyone automatically started talking with each other; eager to speak English and interested to share why one ended up in Shanghai. It was therefore only natural to come closer to each other once an initial sympathy in your dialogue partner was noticeable. This was the case between me and Chara.

She was normally working as an auditor for an international bank but was taking a prolonged sabbatical to travel through China. She had already spent a couple of months in the southern provinces where her parents originated from and was now on a relaxed trip along the coast line to travel up to Beijing. Chara currently stayed in Shanghai, visiting relatives of hers, one of them being her uncle who often frequented this club. He was also with her this night. She was pretty, smart, almost as tall as me (what do the dutch feed their children that they all become so giant?), with long black hair and a contagious smile that revealed her dimples. I think I was falling for her. I really was. That was before I had my first and only quick conversation with her uncle. He was standing in a corner of the club over the past hours, mostly drinking and smoking the night away. After I talked and danced with Chara for a few songs, she excused herself to get another drink. It was then when her uncle approached me with a smile.

»You think you can just come here and have fun with my niece? Take this« he held out his right hand. I instinctively grabbed hold of it and felt a paper crumbled between our palms. »And now go fuck yourself« he grinned and while still holding my hand in a firm grip, he gestured to the bouncer, took a drag on his cigarette, expelled the smoke slowly and pressed the glowing end hard against the back of my hand.

The pain was staggering. I gasped for air. Before I could muster a reply, I was caught in the neck and was pushed out of the club into a taxi. The bouncer exchanged some words with the driver and off we went.

Now, I would like to explain myself prior to continuing my story so that the reader does not get a false idea. The uncle had the wrong impression of my time with Chara. Did I mention that the bastard was not even her real uncle but instead the second cousin of her fathers uncle? Still apparently good enough for him to be overprotective of his visiting “niece” from Amsterdam. I genuinely liked Chara and never planned to explicitly end up in bed with her or take advantage of her. Yes, one might imply from the earlier paragraphs in this journal entry that this is what I went off to do originally. But nothing could be further from the truth in her case. In fact, after dancing together and talking to her for almost three hours I completely forgot about why I went out in the first place and just enjoyed my time with her. I did not anticipate anything to happen at this point in time. Plain and simple. We exchanged our contacts and wanted to meet up for a movie in the next days. And with her being regularly in the US for business, we even discussed meeting again when she would be around next summer. Maybe we still will. I do not know. This was all before the crazy distant relative of hers decided to mark his territory into my flesh. We will see. I need to sleep some more nights over it.

Still, there is no point in grieving about it. Twenty minutes later the taxi driver brought me to a white villa nestled in a careful arranged green garden, situated in the French Concession, the quarter characterized by a captivating architectural style with a mixture of old French and Chinese design elements. The house was home of a lounge-bar-setting for the upper-class. Interestingly I did not even have to pay for the ride. Apparently, Chara’s crazy uncle paid the fare in advance - an overreacting and sadistic but nevertheless generous guardian. Who would have thought?

After paying a hefty entrance fee, I went straight to the bar, ordered a Gin & Tonic for my throat and a glass full of ice cubes for my hand. It was then that I met Eric. Eric, a maniacal forty year potential old father of four and unambiguous alcoholic. Or as he preferred to be called: Glenn the Irish.

Glenn was already sitting next to me at the counter when he saw me pressing the iced glass against the back of my right hand.

»Fuck me mate, what happened to you?« he asked.

I looked up, grimacing from the pain caused by the contact of the glass with my wound.

»I am not really sure« I replied truthfully.

»Someone did not like you, huh?«

I laughed. »Yeah, that’s about the gist of it I assume.«

»Ah Shanghai! That’s my city. Name is Eric Healy - but call me Glenn. Everybody does. Let me tell you a thing about dealing with the locals here« he proclaimed and clinked our glasses together.

Glenn continued to tell me about his experiences gathered in his last four years living in Shanghai. He was a trader for a subsidiary to his home bank in Ireland thus earning good money which allowed him to afford a luxurious lifestyle with regular visits to the never-ending opportunities in Shanghai’s nightlife. He was of massive build with an uneven yet handsome face. His teary eyes were framed by dark bushy eyebrows that appeared to sit slightly too high on his forehead, giving his face an always questioning and puzzled expression. He talked about how he settled down here in the first place, how he began to enjoy the fast pulsed lifestyle of the booming city, how he gave up on his goal to find the best mixed Manhattan in Shanghai once he realized that new clubs were opening up at a faster rate than he could drink. I sat, sipped at my glasses and listened quietly until he began talking about his alleged children back in Ireland.

»Hold on! You are telling me you assume you have four children but are not sure about it?« I interrupted him astonished.

»Yessir. Before taking the job here, I was with three different women in a span of a few months. All of them became pregnant. One of them I know delivered twins. Don’t know what became of the other two. But see, here’s the thing - they slept around as well. I know this for a fact. Fuck me, even caught one of them red handed« he tipped the side of his nose with his index finger. »So what am I to do? Can’t be sure they’re mine, can I? Don’t even know if the other two kept theirs. And I ain’t ready to pay for four kids, let alone one, am I? Fuck me. No way. So I came here to try my luck. Out of sight, out of mind I tell you.«

»Don’t you want to know?«

»Yeah I want to know! Sure.«

He took another large sip from his drink

»Sometimes at least. I’m not an animal you know. But I tell you what mate. One day, when I have it made and have enough of Shanghai, I will go back to Ireland and see my kids. You’ll see!«

No Glenn, you will not. Shanghai will not allow you to get home, I thought.

»Best of luck mate!« I said instead.

»To kids!« he saluted me with his glass.

»To kids!« I saluted back.

»You’re a good man mate. Here let me buy the next one for you. Okay, I’m gonna take a piss«

Glenn gestured at the bartender, stood up and tottered to the restrooms. It was at this point that I saw my butterfly. It was the prettiest thing I have seen in years. It has been sitting behind Glenn at the counter the whole time, masked by his immense frame. She smiled at me and shifted one seat over to me. A mixture of oriental and Caucasian features gave her expression an unique, elf-like appearance. Blond hair framed an oval face with high cheekbones and dark blue eyes. We started to talk. I told her I came from the US. She told me she loved Americans. I told her I am only here for a few days. She told me what a shame that was. I told her I wanted to buy her a drink. She told me she would love to drink with me. I complemented her on her looks. She told me I was the most handsome guy in this place. In retrospect I should have catched on much earlier.

Her name was Sashia. Or was it Sasha? I assume it does not really matter as the chance of either of those being her real name is slim to none. I am also quite certain that she was not from Kazakhstan. Nor was she living in Shanghai to study Chinese. A tip from the heart: Whenever an incredible beautiful foreign woman in a Shanghai bar approaches you and tells you she is here to study Chinese, well my friend, you got yourself a chat with a prostitute. Sashia was a butterfly, the name given to the many thousands upper-class prostitutes imported mostly against their will from all over the world and awaiting business travelers in the Shanghai nightlife. While they do not spread their wings to get where they want, they are forced to spread other body parts to survive, hence the name. Of course, normally one should get suspicious when a stunningly good-looking woman is quick to approach you, starts chatting away and fixates you with those big eyes like one is the second coming of Jonny Depp. Then again of course, normally one might not enter such a club at the end of a long, jet-lagged night, with a cigarette mark burned into his right hand and an alcohol level that almost already extinguished the memory of the how and the why one reached this club in the first place. I have Glenn to thank for that I did not end up in her arms out of pure naivety that night and being afterwards surprised that she requested money - likely a large and non-negotiable sum enforced by a pimp.

Luckily after talking to her for a while, our conversation was interrupted by Glenn, who came back to the counter and gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder.

»She is a cute one, ain’t she?« he whispered in my ear.

»Very cute, yes.«

»How much do you think she wants?«

»What do you mean?«

»I think she will want at least two thousand for the regular stuff.«

»What regular stuff?«

Glenn looked at me with his puzzled eyes and started laughing.

»This is a pick-up place mate. A brothel. Haven’t you noticed?« he asked and slapped me again on my shoulder.

»No« I said stunned and began to look around for the first time since entering the club.

»You are a funny guy mate. Don’t worry I will take care of her.« He sat down next to Sashia and with one swift motion, he lifted her from her seat onto his lap and began to focus his full attention on her.

Appalled, I left the club in a hurry, stumbled around the park area surrounding the club trying to find the exit, violently protruded my stomach fluids against a palm tree and called for a taxi. Unfortunately, my recollections end here. I fear the rest of the evening will remain covered in an impenetrable haze.

So there you have it: my personal balance sheet of my first night in Shanghai - a burned hand, an ugly and repulsive insight look into the exploitation of women in China, a bruised ego and a pink sock on my left foot. How it got there and what I did after fleeing from the brothel, I do not recall. Not to mention why I had over sixty unanswered calls from an unknown number on my company phone.