Are We There Yet?

SHANGHAI, China—As a native New Yorker, I joked to my friends and family that I wouldn’t get homesick in Shanghai since it’s China’s New York City.  Yet, I didn’t anticipate how true that would be.

It would be overly simplistic to say that Shanghai is a duplicate of New York City with Mandarin and smog.  My transition to Shanghai has not been seamless, but that was not due to culture shock but rather unexpected moments of recognition.

More than a few times I’ve stood at an intersection and realized that 75 percent of the pedestrians were”laowai”, or foreigners. I know how to say “You make my heart beat too fast” in Mandarin from watching a Chinese reality TV show that follows the exact format of “The Voice”. (Now, that’s a phrase which might be useful in certain circumstances.).  I even spotted a copy of “The Harvard Business Review” through the pane of Plexiglas between my desk and my co-worker’s.

I know that I am more attuned to Shanghai’s westernization because I am a Westerner myself.  And perhaps spending last summer in Beijing has made me less cognizant of how different life is here.  Nonetheless, I hope that when I return home, my most prominent memories aren’t of pristine streets lined with luxury Western brands, but instead of something uniquely Shanghai.