Shanghainese, After All

WHEN I RETURNED TO SHANGHAI a year ago, my first impression of the
Shanghainese from whom I had been separated for so long was that they were fair and plump. In Hong Kong, eight or nine of every ten Cantonese are dark and skinny. The East Indians are even darker, and the Malays even skinnier. Having grown accustomed to seeing them, each and every Shanghainese seemed as fat and white as a gourd, like the children in powdered milk advertisements.
The second thing that struck me about the Shanghainese was their knowingness. The popular literature of the Hong Kong masses is best rep-resented by the celebrated bus stop placard: "If the bus should stop, it would be here." Shanghai is of an entirely different order. When I first got back to Shanghai, I often found myself exclaiming: "They're Shanghainese, after all." I went to buy soap and heard a little shop apprentice explaining to his partner: "Hey, the character you want is the xun [merit] in the name Zhang Xun, or 'work of merit,' not the xun [fragrance] in the word `xunfeng' [pleasant breeze]." The News printed an advertisement for the grand opening of a department store that was written in a genuinely compelling mixture of parallel and free-style prose in the manner of the Qing dynasty Yanghu School.' On the dangers of selecting the wrong gift, the advertisement
'A school of prose writing pioneered by Zhang Huiyan and popular among literati during the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods- Yanghu prose was slightly less severe and more inclusive than the stripped-down and resolutely classicist Tongcheng school with which it was sometimes associated-
 had this to say: "When friendship hangs in the balance, how great the stakes?" Seemingly a parody, yet quite true nonetheless, and not at all over-stated.
The knowingness of the Shanghainese is not limited to their facility with language and proficiency in the ways of the world. One can also find specimens of spontaneously spirited and unaffected writing almost anywhere in the city. Last year, one of the tabloids printed a doggerel verse by an author whose name I have already forgotten, although I will never forget the poem itself. Two actresses had invited the author to share a meal, and the occasion prompted him to write: "At table with two of the greats / Miss Zhang and Miss Yun share lovely traits / After eating my fill I continue to sing their praise / Such an opportunity doesn't come every day." Such a lovably roundabout sort of self-deprecation! There is helplessness, magnanimity, and indulgence here— an indulgence born of exhaustion, when one looks down on others but also looks down on oneself and yet still retains a sense of intimacy with both oneself and others. I saw another couplet on a street-car that expressed the same sentiment with even greater clarity. The words had been scratched with a finger across the black coating on the window of the tram: "Grandpa and Grandma each have their reasons, men and women their equal rights." The saying has always been "Grandpa has his reasons, and Grandma says she's right," so why bother to ascertain who's really wrong? Both of them are in the right. And what with the years of trouble caused by the proposition that "men and women have equal rights," why not just let them be equal? Once again, this is a case of an indulgence that stems from sheer exhaustion. The grin stretched across a face covered in sweat and grime is emblematic of Chinese-style humor.
Shanghainese are traditional Chinese people tempered by the high pres-sure of modern life. The misshapen products of this fusion of old and new culture may not be entirely healthy, but they do embody a strange and distinctive sort of wisdom.
Everyone says Shanghainese people are mean, but their meanness is measured. Shanghainese know how to flatter and deceive, how to curry favor with those in power, how to fish in troubled waters. But because they also understand the arts of life, their practice of these arts never goes beyond the bounds of propriety. And as far as meanness goes, the only thing I know for certain is that every fiction needs a villain. Good people like to hear stories about mean people, but bad people most certainly do not enjoy stories about those who are good. This is why none of my stories has for its main character a saint. There is only one girl who might be said to approach the ideal, being kind, compassionate, and righteous, but if she
 weren't so pretty, I am afraid she might end up being more than a little annoying. Even with her beauty, many readers might well feel like telling her to go back to the fairy tale where she came from. She might have a place in a story like "Snow White" or "Cinderella." But Shanghainese people are not that naive.
I have written a book of Hong Kong romances for Shanghainese readers, including the seven stories "Aloeswood Ashes: The First Incense Brazier," "Aloeswood Ashes: The Second Incense Brazier," "Jasmine Tea," "Heart Sutra," "Glazed Roof Tiles," "Blockade," and "Love in a Fallen City."2 The entire time I was writing these stories, I was thinking of Shanghainese people, because I wanted to try to observe Hong Kong through Shanghainese eyes. Only people from Shanghai will be able truly to understand the parts where I wasn't able to make my meaning clear.
I like Shanghainese people, and I hope the Shanghainese will like my book.
2 These are all short stories and novellas Chang published in her 1944 collection Chuanqi (Romances).