And you thought the Lion's stunk...

It's a warm August evening as I walk out of work, crossing the street to catch the subway with my co-workers. We're going to the bar for a few drinks, soaking in the evening summer air, cooled from the muggy heat of day into the refreshing warmth of summer nights. Suddenly we stumble upon an invisible assault so odoriferous I can only imagine cartoon flowers wilting. But yet, us happy teachers walk past, walk through, without taking any notice of it. You see, Shanghai is the worst smelling place I've ever lived.

The garbage smells worse here. I don't know how else to explain it. Back home there are small contained parcels of smell, usually dumpsters behind buildings hidden away from public nostrils, but here trash is everywhere, and it wreaks! Winter isn't so bad, but like the hundreds of cockroaches in my old apartment, summer brings out the worst of it! Perhaps it's the humidity, perhaps it's that rotting Chinese food smells worse than rotting Italian, I don't know. Whatever the reason, every street, every day will treat you to the uniquely horrible smells of the city.

I'm uncertain if I can say living here has dampened my sense of smell, but it has certainly shifted the needle of tolerance towards the intolerable. People here don't mention if something smells terrible on the street because it's so commonplace, and so obvious, that it would be like mentioning how hot it is... every thirty seconds. I'm struggling to remember the smells of Boston with it's pizza infused North End or floral scented parks, but I need to because I so desperately want to remember what it's like to enjoy the smells of a city. For now I can only forget the pungent smell of the city I live in.

In a few months the heat will subside and so will the smells, again masking the chink in Shanghai's glossy veneer as a modern city. In a city so superficially modern the sense of smell (along with hearing) is the most neglected. Maybe someday the smell of fried noodles will waft fresh from every corner, but the dream of a smart smelling Shanghai may be too much - after all Chinese food doesn't usually smell that great to begin with.