Aftermath: Adrift in a Sea of Big Heart Players

I need to get out more. I really do, and today proved it. Of course I go out every day, but usually in the general direction of Huaihai Lu and Xintiandi, with its fashionable shops and restaurants, its happening hoi polloi. But today I decided to walk in the opposite direction. I was standing in my living room looking at a new skyscraper I like to call 'The Deodorant Stick' because of its rectangular shape and rounded green cap. It looks like a sixty story Speed Stick, seriously, and it's over across Zhao Jia Bang Lu in no-man's land. For some reason there is a sort of mental barrier (for me anyway) at Zhao Jia Bang Lu, and I have rarely crossed that road. I'm not sure why, except it's a big highway, and nothing has ever called me in that direction - no restaurant, party, store, or event. And yet I look over there every day, marveling at the high rise canyons with their fantastic shapes, colors, and designs (Spanish Art Deco Rococo anyone?)
It being the middle of Spring Festival now, most of the shops are still closed and very few people are working. Add some fantastic weather - warm, sunny, and balmy - and you have the makings of one big, happy Spring Festival love-in. I've never seen the people so relaxed and happy. Everyone is walking around in their best gear, smiling, laughing, spitting, yelling, and generally having a ball. This morning on Danshui Lu the usual card game had moved across to the sunny side of the street - a first. As I walked by I heard the usual deep guttural hocking up of unwanted phlegm, and looking down I saw a loosely defined, but definitely discernible semi-circle of spit that outlined three sides of the card table and its (two rows deep) ring of onlookers. I don't want to go on too much about the spitting because it's been beaten to death; my Chinese friends will probably give me a hard time about it, but if they are being honest with themselves they will be forced to admit loud hocking and spitting is common practice in Shanghai. It's funny, when I ask people about it I always get the same answer: if it's local people they will say "Those are country people, not Shanghainese people who spit" as they turn up their nose. Conversely, anyone from out of town will tell me, with a weary, disgusted look, "Shanghainese are nasty...people don't spit like that in X Province". So then nobody you talk to actually spits or approves of it. So naturally it must never happen, right? Welcome to China.
I'm all for cultural differences. I'm also for people expressing their ideas about those differences. I have long held the notion that if you want to travel the world you better get into the practice of embracing differences rather than criticizing them. For example, if I sat in a restaurant in Bangkok and picked my teeth without covering up, Thai people would be absolutely scandalised by my bad manners. They would have every right to go write in their blogs about it, too. But you can't be too one-sided. So while public spitting is universally reviled in the West (does The Bronx count?) it seems, like it or not my friends, perfectly acceptable in Shanghai. I've accepted it for the most part; I'm a bit of a sneaky old spitter myself, if I'm being totally honest. You know, the casual side of the mouth stealth style.
Anyway it was a glorious day, and as I was walking up Danshui Lu I decided, what the hell, let's just take a walk over into no-man's land and see what it looks like over by the Speedstick. One of the first things I noticed once I go to the other side was, it looks just like my side. Possibly less foreigners, but then unless I'm around Xintiandi I don't see many 'laowai' in my 'hood anyway. What I did notice was lots of 'sunday best' looking older guys squiring around much younger girls. Now, I've lived here long enough to know that they aren't their daughters either. This is the land of the KTV (karaoke television), and any self respecting guy with a bit of dough will get his main dose of entertainment there. It's actually an Asia-wide phenomenon, and it just goes by different names in each country (in Thailand they're called massage parlors). The official story is that guys go in there to relax and have a few drinks. Drinks being poured by very young girls, who for a fee will smile and flirt and laugh at their corny jokes (being on the payroll). Naturally This mixture of birds, bees, whiskey, and commerce can only end up one way (one way or the other) and so Thai cops, Japanese salary men, and Chinese Big Heart Players end up keeping these young cuties as girlfriends on the side. Big Heart Players you ask? Well I didn't make it up (although I wish I did). A few months ago, in a meeting with a major liquor brand we were working with, I was asked to come up with an idea for a party promotion that involved the color red, pretty girls (invariably), and their liquor brand. Lazily (I was dead bored) I flicked off something like 'Cupid's Revenge' or 'Get REDy' to a row of blank stares. OK, so I admit those are pretty lame, but imagine my shock (and glee) when they announced that we would stick with their national campaign: a super suave Chinese guy in a red tux holding the bottle of brand X with the tag line, 'Who is the big heart player?' Sort of like a national beefcake pageant, with different heats, playoffs, and finally a Big Heart Player champion.
I instantly started wondering, what does it take to be a Big Heart Player? Can I be one? Is it based solely on looks, or do other attributes come into play? After a solid couple months of asking around, taking notes, and generally observing Chinese culture, I have come to the conclusion that the real Big Heart Players are basically the guys I saw today squiring around their mistresses in the false Spring weather. Number one attribute? He has money. At least enough to buy drinks, eat in the private rooms of restaurants, and afford a honey or two on the side. After that everything else is an afterthought, because money rules without shame or ridicule in Shanghai, and so being a nice guy, or a good dresser, or even handsome will always lose out to having dough here. So even though the Big Heart Player poster boy was a handsome boyish fellow, I know what he really looks like: middle aged, chain smoking, boorish, and usually wearing a uniform that consists of (1) charcoal or black zip up sweater, (1) black suit of questionable cut and make, (1) bad haircut, possibly a buzz cut. You think I'm joking but these guys rule the world here. In night clubs where I've DJ'd they are sat happily on a Saturday night flagging inattentive waiters, barking orders for more champagne amidst a giggling gaggle of young chicks. Ordering champagne is always a big heart play here in Shanghai, and the stuff basically flows like a river. I've never seen so much champagne drunk anywhere in the world, and I've been to a few places. Just to let the whole bar know you're laying out plenty of Yuan for the bubbly they stick a sparkler the size of a roman candle in the bucket as they deliver it to your table. After that it's basically a 'swinging dick' comedy, with the bar being the ultimate winner as far as I can see. If one table orders champagne it's not at all uncommon to see the guy on the next table look longingly (often at the urging of the pretty young things) and snap his fingers (yes, they still do that here) and order two bottles damn it!
There are naturally different levels of Big Heart Playerdom - everything from a high ranking communist party member on down to a common laborer. The fat cat might own a few condos that he deposits his chicks in (just like the bank), while the laborer might save up his weekly pile of dirty bills for a night out treating his favorite girl from the neighborhood pink house (dodgy barber shop) to dinner at the local greasy spoon. But no matter what, they will both have to part with cash or there's no deal. I have seen sixty year old guys in Hip Hop clubs drinking whiskey in a private booth, looking vaguely bored, and surrounded by four or five extremely young, cute KTV girls, all dancing away and eyeballing (but never touching) younger guys. This guy is a serious BHP, because everyone in the club knows that even though he's an old shocker with a mug only a mother could love, he is taking these girls with him. He's paid for the privilege. On the other side of the scale I've seen a day worker gaily cruising down the street on an old bicycle with a chubby girl sitting side-saddle on the back - cigarette clamped between his teeth, screaming some no doubt charming anecdote to his young lovely as she laughs and smacks him on the back. An irascible rogue if ever there was one!
So there I was today, walking around hands in pockets, sunglasses on, taking it all in and loving every minute of it. The pictures are indelible. The guy on the bright red scooter with the orange (every bit of it) double breasted suit on. What style...what a cut! The color was somewhere between a basketball and a tangerine, and featured big boxy lapels flapping in the breeze. He finished this sartorial masterpiece off with white socks and black loafer-slippers. This devil may care fellow really had it going on; on the back of his scooter was a girl half his age wearing an electric green dress, yellow sunglasses, and pink heels. Well it was Sunday. Walking by the Hecto Coffee Shop on Xieto Lu I saw another BHP in the usual grey on black motif, who was performing an impressive feat (at least to my eyes) by simultaneously eating and holding chopsticks with his right hand, smoking with his left, and allowing a young nymph to pour beer down his greasy gullet. I don't care what anyone says, that's a big heart play.
And so I'll close this now...alas, the light is fading. What a wonderful day I had walking around Shanghai today, and with the promise of more to come. The weather is getting warmer, and that's sure to bring the big heart out in every one, maybe even me. Who knows? I can see myself in one of those zipper sweaters now, with a flat top cut and a scooter. You know what they say - when in Rome.