Maybe I have been in Shanghai too long and have forgotten what it was like to be an exotic creature. Those years in Nanjing were spent as the object of curiosity, a strange and exotic fruit from foreign lands. People stared at me, they pushed their kids towards me telling them to speak English to me. They gave me a seat on the bus, they smiled at me, they liked me! In short in Nanjing I felt special.
In Shanghai we are just another foreigner, one in tens or hundreds of thousands. Only people from the countryside stare at you on the metro and it’s possible to fade into the background which to be honest is a bit of a relief after Nanjing.
However, this week I was reminded of how fascinating I actually am. I got on metro line 2 and there were no seats but not many people standing. I wasn’t expecting a seat but immediately a man leapt up and made me sit down. He was so eager and smiley and welcoming that I felt obliged to take the seat even though I wasn’t travelling very far.
It transpired that he was travelling with two of his colleagues (one man and a woman), between whom I was now sitting. Then the questions started, the usual ones, where are you from, what do you do, how old are you, do you have a husband/children, do you like Shanghai etc. The level of excitement among these three at speaking with a foreigner (albeit in Chinese) was something I had not experienced since I left Nanjing. It was charming – ok so they kept saying how pretty I was which helped my mood no end!
The fact that they were from Wenzhou rather than a tier 1 city explained their friendliness. They took pictures of me, firstly on my own, then with one of them with their arm around me, then another with another arm, then two of them and then another combination of two people, then all three of them with me. Then they wanted my Wechat QR code and as they disappeared at People’s Square I thought to myself what lovely people come from Wenzhou and I realised that I did in fact miss being thought fascinating.
However I’ll draw the line at moving out of Shanghai – I wouldn’t live anywhere else in China and I hope I never have to.