The 6 Best And Worst Things About Living In Shanghai

You can tell if someone's a veteran Shexpat by their love-hate relationship with Shanghai (call it 'Hai-polar'). The stuff we love, we really love. And the stuff we dislike, we really dislike. If you meet someone who waxes poetic about it every minute a la Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves or is conversely a walking encyclopedia of NY Times' China food scare/human rights articles, chances are they've been here about eight minutes. Here are the six best and worst things about the 'Hai. 

Best: The Food

Everywhere you look loom veritable high-rises of fatty pork, and RMB10 never bought you so many wontons. Before coming here, Chinese food was synonymous with high-octane crap that you eat drunk out of cartoons at 3am after not getting laid. Living in Shanghai, you realize everything from crispy roast duck to kebabs and naan falls under "Chinese food." Our favorites are the hearth-like wonton dens that materialize out of the back alleys, the fact that come fall almost ever dish is lathered in succulent hairy crab roe, and of course, xiaolongbao. We wish we could use them as IV bags. 

If you're not in the mood for Shanghainese, there are plenty of other decent options. And whereas cheap in New York means a McGriddle off the dollar menu; here it means four bamboo rings of silky, plump XLB hand-rolled by a granny that's been doing it since the rickshaw days. But we'll spare you the soliloquy. 

Worst: Gastronomic Gentrification

Far be it for expats to criticize Shanghai's cuisine scene. Heck, for someone who subsisted on millet in the Cultural Revolution, the idea of a food court full of eats from all over the world might seem a godsend. 

But as an entitled, ignorant expat, the fact that venerable food institutions are being bellied aside (RIP Sipailou Lu) by bloated malls, sucks. According to a report last year by CBRE, more than half of the world’s retail development is in China, with 3.3 million square meters currently under construction in Shanghai alone. 

Food streets, and historic neighborhoods for that matter, seem to be treated like blemishes to be removed rather than points of pride like they are in other places -- even sterile Singapore has whole complexes devoted to its hawker stalls. What do we get here? Chains, chains and more chains. Shanghai sometimes feels like a naturally stunning actor who gets plastic surgery to impress others, but ends up looking garish and artificial. Restaurants are also being affected with gangly, country style chickens being replaced by feedlot fodder, and dishes like snake hotpot being culled due to the anti-graft crackdown and shifting tastes. Says longtime restaurateur Mr. Hu, "Today’s youth are more interested in fried filets from KFC than offal. The older folks are the foodies." Our advice: hit up the endangered food streets before they fall to the bulldozer.

Best: The Metro

It's comprehensive, clean (for the most part), efficient, has glass barriers on the platform to prevent the crazies from shoving you on the tracks, and is constantly being improved. The Shanghai transit authorities recently unveiled new extensions for lines 11, 12 and 13 -- including a Disney metro station. Yeah, don't think its NY counterpart has been updated since its inception over 100 years ago. 

Worst: The Internet

Need we explain why? Start with the fact that you can draw this page on an Etch-A-Sketch faster than you can open it. Why does a city that's so efficient in every other arena have the web connection of some vine-choked control room from a Jurassic Park movie? Fortunately we've found some cracks in the Great Firewall; for instance, did you know you can use Netflix VPN-free? And Facebook might follow suit in the near future -- or so we hope....

Best: The friends you make

When you make a friend (especially older) here, you have a friend for life. You'll never be able to pick up the tab, you'll be invited over for CNY dinner and stuffed like a foie gras goose, and have your balls constantly busted about your weight, relationship status etc....especially after a few Tsing Taos. Just make sure to reciprocate every once in a while no matter how much they insist on treating you to dinner, sitting in the backseat so you can ride up front etc. 

Worst: The friends you don't

That being said, language and cultural barriers make finding friends easier said than done. Let's just say we haven't met our neighbors of five years. And we didn't realize until embarrassingly recently that 90% of the people who laughed at our jokes are doing so to diffuse awkwardness, not because they thought we were funny. For someone used to US southern hospitality, it can seem cold. But you have to realize that the Middle Kingdom (hence the name) has historically been hermetically sealed from outsiders. It takes a while to penetrate that cultural membrane. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. As cornball as it sounds, we find karaoke to be a great ice-breaker.

Best: The Cosmopolitanism 

Maybe cosmopolitanism isn't quite the right word. We like how Shanghai is exotic enough to keep you interested yet filled with enough creature comforts to keep you from turning into Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now if you stay here for too long. You can traipse through labyrinthine alleyways with dried pig faces hanging from laundry lines in the morning, and then buy Bellota Oro Iberico ham and a bag of Colombian dark roast at c!tysuper that afternoon. Or hit Jason Atherton's The Commune Social for some tapas, then pop over to Dahushedao across the street for cobra hotpot and a deer penis wine nightcap. 

Worst: Spitting, pushing, defecating in public, general hygiene etc

At this point, expats bellyaching about the spitting, pushing, smoking etc. actually grates on us more than the actions themselves. That being said, we can't pretend the sound of someone hacking up a raw oyster doesn't cause our stomach to knot up. Or that a gym trainer smoking in the bathroom under a "no smoking" sign doesn't irk us (especially on a bad China day). We're aware of the cultural/historical reasons behind this (something about the Cultural Revolution, ration lines, rural people moving to the city for the first time, right?) Veteran expats always told us we'd eventually get used to it. Well, we're waiting.....In fact, we probably more accepting of them the first month we arrived, treating them like cultural quirks. Now, the fog of whimsy has dissipated. But these aspects can only make you stronger, right?

Best: The Bargains

We don't care what the CIA World Factbook lists the government as; Shanghai is as capitalist as it gets -- from a Pentagon-shaped mall that's bigger than the actual Pentagon to those umbrella hawkers who materialize at metro stations at the first sign of rain. This makes it easy to land a deal, or find services you never knew you needed until now. Need a cashmere coat this winter? Have one tailored at the South Bund Fabric Market for only 600RMB. Need a cab? Didi Dache, China's more efficient answer to Uber. Need an electric blanket, gorilla costume, or new wife? Taobao. 

Worst: Opportunism at its worst

The flipside of this is getting fleeced at the electronics bazaar, not being reimbursed your rent deposit after your broken boiler floods the flat with carbon monoxide, and knockoff everything from watches to food to whole European cities. Wonder why those hover boards are so cheap at the fake market? Because they might kill you if they don't break first. And Taobao and certain chains are equally guilty of taking egregious shortcuts to earn a buck. Fortunately, here are some tips on navigating this money-grubbing minefield. 

Best: Low crime rate

You can be standing naked on any street corner in Shanghai at any hour of the morning and the most that's going to happen to you is a weird look and maybe a video on Shanghai Expat. How many other cities of 25 million people can say that? 

Worst: Smog

This past December, the AQI hit 315, forcing the city cancel to 100 flights, halt construction, and shut down school events. Yeah, it sucks. 

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