2 Good Reasons to Live in Shanghai

Today has been a lovely day, and I just thought I should share it. Yes, it was bitter cold out again today, and windy too (just in case anyone got any smart ideas). Even the sun looked like it was freezing. Nonetheless, this intrepid couch jockey decided to go out and enjoy some of the day before the shimmering, shivering disc went away; you never know when it will come back. Besides, I didn't want to look up groggily from the computer and notice it was dark and late, and I'd missed the entire day. So I got up and did a few of my favorite Shanghai things.
I ended up seeing a few friends for lunch, and then we went over and had a meeting about some potential work (there's a lot of 'potential work' these days). Afterwards I decided to treat myself to a pummeling at Jade Massage on Zizhong Lu, only two blocks from apartment. Sitting in front of a computer for hours on end is never a smart idea, and doing it from command center SDOD (my couch) is downright dumb. The positioning is all wrong. First of all there's no back support, which is why it's so attractive to an old sloucher like me. I just start to melt down into the couch, lower and lower, until I realise I am practically in business class; the slippers are off, and my feet are up on the coffee table. Furthermore, as I adjust to the decline I have to crane my neck forward to keep the computer screen in view, adjusting my hollow, glassy eyes as I sink deeper into the mire. It's like reading in bed for the Y Generation (or have we reached Gen Z yet?). So the thought of an hour or two at the mercy of a nimble young masseuse was making my aching neck feel better already.
Jade Massage is on a funny little street called Zizhong Lu. Actually it's not so funny any more, since the entire block of row houses across the street was leveled to make room for a new condo complex called, wait for it...Rich Gate. I don't know where to start about Rich Gate, except that it sums up just about everything that 'new Shanghai' is all about: money, and the ostentatious need to impress. Actually Rich Gate may deserve its own separate post, so for now I'll just leave you with this: Rich Gate is the polar opposite of what was previously there. It's a big marble and glass monstrosity that has (spectacularly) Roman columns at the top of each of its four towers. So what, right? We're not in Italy...and at night the columns are heroically back lit, so from a distance it looks like four little coliseums - exactly how they wanted it to look. No, I'm definitely going to write a Rich Gate piece.
Anyway, across the street from Rich Gate used to be a humble little row of shops (in a humble little neighborhood) - everything from a great potter's shop, where I bought my hand made and painted tea pot, to a great CD store, to a few small clothes boutiques. But Rich Gate and Xintiandi's close proximity have bullied most of those places out with rent hikes, replaced by flashy boutiques that fairly scream out: 'I'm a bored society chick and I have to do something with my time (and my husband's money)'. It's a shame too, because that record store was really great. They had non-bootleg CD's for one, a rarity in China. And the pottery shop was so cool - I really loved her stuff because it was almost all in classic blue and white, which I love, but with updated styles. I don't know if she has relocated, but the store was called Blue Shanghai White. Anyway that's all gone now. In place of the record store is a multi-level boutique with silver mannequins (why not gold, I ask?) wearing tired, tacky, and most assuredly expensive clothes. I walked past one day as a petite, harried looking queen with a Flock of Seagulls haircut was dressing the metallic barbies, and I thought (I really did) 'there goes the neighborhood'.
For some reason Jade Massage has bucked the tide and stayed in its place, sandwiched between two more boring boutiques with names like Imagine. I'm trying. But Jade is really a wonderful place, and a bargain as well. An hour long Chinese massage is only 80 Yuan, and that's only ten bucks yo! That same massage in New York would be a hundred. By contrast, you'd get two hours and an even better massage in Bangkok for $5. It's in these ways (and only these ways) that I begin to understand economics. But I digress.
So I had an hour long massage, and man was it needed. The smiling cherubic ewok who led me upstairs was all of about 4'11" but her nickname must be 'Hands of Steel'. She destroyed me. She mashed me up. Totally, and unashamedly did I submit to her. Relentlessly, and methodically did she throw me a beating.
"Keyi ma?" she whispered into my ear. But I couldn't hear her just then, as she'd unlocked some muscle trauma near my shoulder blade and my ears were ringing. Regaining my senses a few seconds later I huffed, "Keyi, keyi". You can...it's all good.
When she was finished with me it was all I could do to sit upright. I looked around dazed, and sipped at the hot tea she set in front of me. I was a tenderized, beaten man. I felt wonderful. I looked around at the Moroccan tent I was in, with its candle shadows, its sashes and bunting. I listened to the ambient Chinese music playing softly and repetitively. As I gingerly slipped out of my cotton judo suit (they really need to get some bigger pants) I felt so mood altered I was tempted to call for another cup of cha. But I had dinner plans, and so I reluctantly got dressed and headed downstairs. My little tormentor was standing by the door holding my jacket and bag, as sweet as you like. Who could guess at the power she wields with those lovely little mitts? I paid the 80 Kuai and gave her 20 and a knowing smile and was out the door. The cold air felt wonderful on my face as I walked across the road to Xintiandi, and one of my favorite restaurants in Shanghai.
Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese establishment I'm told, and supposedly there's another one in Los Angeles. It has a large bronze placard of its (rather glowing) New York Times review by the door, and there are always, always people waiting for a table. The fact that it's inside the mall part of Xintiandi threw me at first, and I wouldn't try it. But as my health club, Alexander (another story, certainly) is also there, I eventually did. I don't know what it was that made me shy away at first - possibly the huge watercolor-esque murals of famous Hong Kong and Taiwanese film and music stars on the walls. Yes, there is Jackie Chan and Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung and Gong Li. Perplexingly, there is also Mel Gibson looking a bit out of place and bewildered, but flashing the million dollar smile nonetheless. Anyway, I guess that's what scared me when I first walked by the ceiling to floor glass windows; It is very L.A. actually. But the food. The food is to die for. Very clean (i.e. not oily) and healthy, but still delicious. I love Chinese food, but don't eat pork (I know, I know...it's like not eating tomatoes in Italy) so I have my work cut out generally when ordering in local restaurants. For example, if I tell them I don't want any pork, after they finish laughing they will always point to one, maybe two things on the menu and say 'mei you jiu ro'. No pork. I usually ask for fish to play it safe, but there are no guarantees. A little pork is essential flavoring to most East Asian dishes. Luckily I'm not hard core, and have looked the other way more than once in the name of harmony. Once, in Hong Kong I ordered some dumplings that said 'crab and vegetable'. I couldn't wait to try them, as these are two of my favorite foods. One bite told me there was an intruder in that dumpling, an uninvited guest. I called the boisterous, pidjin English speaking waiter over and pointed at the offending lump of cooling dough. 'That has pork in it. I asked for no pork!"
"Of cowse" he said incredulously, "Juss a little. Whassa matter wit you? It juss fo flava, no powk no goo!"
I tell you all this so you know the land mine that is ordering 'vegetable' dishes in China. in all of East Asia actually. But not Din Tai Fung. There menu is admittedly pork heavy, but those dishes that claim veggie status really are. And there is a wide selection of tofu based small dishes that are excellent. So it was with hearty appetite and clear conscience that I tucked into some warm tofu soaked in a delicate mushroom and soy sauce, and another one of chopped tofu and bean shoots with spring onion and a light vinegar sauce. Another staple (of mine) is the thin wheat noodles in peanut broth; just divine. The noodles are very firm until you twirl them around in the thick broth, then becoming soft and very much like soba. The sauce is very peanutty, with a hint of chillies (more than a hint after I dump clear hot chili oil on it). All of this I complimented with some fresh kale sauteed in garlic - very clean, flash cooked, and non oily - and some delicate chopped green vegetable dumplings from the bamboo steamer. I washed it down with hot Long Jin Cha, a variety of green tea. At the end of it all I couldn't resist ordering some steamed black sesame buns; moist and spongy outside, hot and sweet inside, with a perfect blend of sesame and sugar. That called for another pot of tea, and I sat there sipping and quietly burping for a while like a fat Ming emperor.
And that's what I got up to last Sunday. Another day in Shanghai. Another day happy to be alive and still at large.