Sensual City Studio

DIRECTIONS

I had many opportunities and means to escape my high-rise compound. I could use the metro below my feet or I could go through one of the four doors embedded in the walls surrounding my compound and its garden and swimming pool, allowing me to head in any of the cardinal directions  to discover Shanghai and its ever-changing colours.

I might go towards the wall of a newly demolished lilong, adorned with an architect’s impression   of the forthcoming compound to be built in its place. Or towards a lively existing lilong, with its restaurants and clothes hanging out to dry, a park full of people singing and dancing, or a busy street with its cyclists and mopeds transporting goods across the city.

INAUGURATION

Happiness is not silent in Shanghai. When a boy is born, or when a happy couple gets married, or when a couple moves into the new home they have bought together , or when a shop opens its doors for the first time… all these events are good reasons to show one’s happiness to the entire neighbourhood and beyond. Rows of red firecrackers are set off, red ornaments adorn the street, and photographs galore are taken.

FEELING SPECIAL 2

I told my dad that he had better rest, so that we could go to the park at around 7 p.m. He didn’t know why I was so excited about showing him a park at that time of day. But he soon noticed me looking outside my window and taking pictures.
He joined me. He saw the sudden transformation of the very same street we had been walking along just few hours earlier.
The street corner, the footpath, the whole lilong was all lit up. I recall him saying that this was the “Cinderella time” of day. Seemingly out of the blue, there were four times as many people walking around as there were earlier that very same day. People were selling glowing objects, clothing, phones… every imaginable – and unimaginable – item.
The footpaths were full of people, looking for their favourite food stand. Everyone in the towers would come down into the street, into the lilong or to the park nearby, and the residents of the lilongs would come out on to the street and walk to the park.
My dad opened the door and asked me, “What are we waiting for?”

CONFUCIUS AND LEARNING

I came to a Confucius temple, and a school. I understood, then, the link between the roots of beliefs passed on from one generation to another, in the spatial sense: the inseparable link between Confucius and knowledge in China.
When a friend of mine arrived, she had many items with her: incense sticks, paper, red silk thread, and a wooden panel.
The transformation of these items then started to take place.
On the paper, she told me to write all my needs and hopes concerning my studies. Then, by adding the red string to them, they would become “gaokao [university entrance exam] wishes”.
The wooden panels became “prayer cards”, a tradition that is believed to have originated in this very temple in Shanghai.
Together we then hung them in a tree, where other students’ prayers already hung, so that they would be received by Confucius  .
Before that, though, we paid our respects by kneeling in front of Confucius and lighting three incense sticks each, which we then placed inside a huge vase made for this purpose.
After finishing our respective rituals, we went to one of the largest book markets in Shanghai, where an amazing array of rare books, manuscripts, comics, propaganda posters and other items from various Chinese eras were waiting to be discovered.

UNDERWEAR

Buying a bra was a conscious decision. Getting new clothes, shoes, going to the tailor, could all have happened to me at any moment, as spontaneous decisions. Going to buy a bra, somehow, was different.
I went with a friend of mine. We saw some amazing bra systems. Truly ingenious systems. Some seemed to attach to your back with just a single strap, while others featured elaborate patterns of straps that would transform into another, different pattern in order to support the breasts, almost like a piece of origami.
Others didn’t seem to need any breasts inside them, as they were already satisfied with the cotton, gel or water pads contained within them.
I decided to try one of the origami bras, which would subtly tattoo my back with a kind of butterfly motif. Inside the changing-room cubicle, however, I realized that trying on this bra would be more than a simple choice; it would be a major challenge.
I stood there, thinking I had understood the system, only for everything to fall apart when I opened it. I tried to put it back together in every way imaginable, recomposing its intricate form and attempting to fit myself into it, but things didn’t quite work out as I had hoped… and by this time, quite some time had passed. The woman in the shop decided to ask how I was doing. Hearing my answer in bad, breathless Chinese, she decided that she had to come into the cubicle to help me. She looked at me, and then, with a series of almost computational movements, she solved the problem, and I had the bra in place, with everything exactly where it should be. She looked at me and asked if I would like the bra; I simply couldn’t believe what had happened, that someone could just walk in and do that.
Once my friend and I had bought these masterpieces, we both came to the conclusion that this had been a perfect Shanghainese experience. Back in the West, no one would have ever dared to do this – to barge into your cubicle and dress you, essentially – and I wouldn’t ever have allowed it, not by a long chalk. But here, in a city where the borders between public and private aren’t really fixed, in a city whose inhabitants feel at ease everywhere they go, where pyjamas can be deemed the perfect outdoor attire for the day’s activities, where my kitchen is everyone’s kitchen, it seemed normal. The boundaries are drawn differently here.

ANCESTORS 2

Investing in a coffin is what many work their whole lives for. Some acquire it very early on; owing to its size, it tends to become part of the furniture, in some cases being used as a shelf, a bed, a table, or an armoire. It is typically painted and decorated, always ready to serve.
There are still some cemeteries, as in ancient Chinese times, where there are “tomb guards” – guardians who are paid to accompany the ancestor to his or her eternal bodily home. These are real human beings, in flesh and blood, who will talk to the ancestor, regale him or her with stories of those left behind, and, of course, eat with the ancestor, for whom a fresh bowl of rice is always provided, but with just one chopstick placed on top, as the other chopstick is in the world of the afterlife, with the ancestor.
The importance of this coffin, this house, is of indisputable importance for Chinese ancestors, as it is their perpetual home, as well as for their relatives, so that they are able to uphold the values of filial piety, passed on from generation to generation.

PERSONAL SQUARE METRE

When you   come from the West, many Chinese customs can seem shocking when you   first encounter them in Shanghai – actual culture shocks.
Food, religion, ways of crossing the street, ways of addressing men, women and foreigners, clothing rules and decorum at the table – everything is different. Many questions suddenly present themselves: what things can and can’t I talk about? Then there’s the tactile aspect, too: am I allowed to touch someone? Are they allowed to touch me?
One element that quickly emerges in guise of an answer to some of these questions is space.
When queuing, waiting, taking public transport, buying tickets for the train (or indeed tickets for anything at all), dancing, whatever, remember this: your space is everyone’s space; your square meter of “personal space” doesn’t belong to you alone.