Contrast

The skyscraper above the posh Plaza 66 shopping center in Shanghai is the 44th tallest building in the world – it’s taller than any building in Boson or London, but in Shanghai, it looks a little like just another skyscraper. Less than three blocks from this luxury linchpin lay a stretch of two story tall brick and shingle buildings with no insulation, no central heat or air conditioning and no more than a single room serving as bed/living room and kitchen in one on each floor of these two family houses. Nowhere I have ever been has had a bigger divide between the haves and the have-nots, and nowhere has it been as obvious.

Sometimes I wander through the old town, ambling down narrow alleyways while life bustles around me; rich or poor, life never stops bustling in Shanghai. House doors are always open to let fresh air in, no matter how cold or warm, letting passer-bys sneak a peak into their world. With furtive glances I see a bed, a stove, perhaps a TV; everything they own seems visible from the street. Laundry strung across the passage high overhead blocks the smog-filled sunlight from ever touching down. It’s a life I cannot empathize with, and with some guilt accept that I am glad I never will.

Coming home from work each day, I emerge from the subway and pass the trendy import supermarket, Burberry and Rolex stores and a Pizza Hut, where a pizza costs more than most farmers make in a week. Old men push three-wheeled bicycles loaded with wares or garbage, or both, as sleek imported sports cars zip past. How the vehicles share the road, let alone Shanghai, without much further thought from either owner would strike me as curious, unique, shockingly different, were it not in Shanghai.

With full weight thrown on the throttle, China wants to race forward, has raced forward, but what that means to the poor, or even to the millions upon millions of people born without a silver spoon seems still undecided. The neighborhoods I have seen have been filled with the most fortunate poor in all the country, living in the downtown of the richest city in the land. I cannot say if they are even poor, but when I compare them to the glitz and the glamour of the shopping and the skyscrapers I wonder if they see the progress, if they see any of it as progress.