It was a routine journey; the old airport, maglev 300kph magnetic train, taxi combo back to the apartment. Pretty standard and one that's been experienced for what at least feels like a ga-jillion times. My view of the evening Shanghai skyline looming over either side of the raised highway kept me distracted. Definitely a Blade Runner experience where all it needed was a couple of hover cars and we'd be done. So as I contemplated replicants running amok in the city (as we all know we do) my usually speeding taxi slowed down to a crawl.
This in itself is not an unusual experience as I have discovered that cars do tend to slow from time to time – they even do so on highways built for speediness. This of course allowed me to indulge in a bit of a treat I like to call 'peek inside people's cars and see if they're up to anything more interesting than simply peeking into other people's cars'.
There were the usual suspects, the lone travellers dressed so normally inoffensive that they could just as well be heading home from a spot of overtime in the office as journeying out to a S&M gathering (as I would assume one would drive with the rubber outfit cloaked under a veneer of ordinariness – at least that's how I do it). There were the families: parents looking blankly out at the sea of twinkling red break lights in front of them while their children did the same with the screens before their faces. There were the taxis with their myriad of back seat passengers in ones and twos that no matter who they were or where they were going tended to look bored. And there were the workers: usually male, usually packed in a cabin of a van or truck and usually staring out back at me, as I suspected they liked playing the same game.
Then I saw it. It was a rear window crammed with stuffed toys of varying sizes and shapes, with the only thing in common being their supposed cute factor. Every centimetre was taken, almost as if allowing for each of the stuffed puppies, rabbits and what-have-yous a clear view of the road behind. As I was in the slightly less crawling lane my taxi was able to slowly pass this wonderful playroom of a car and as it did I was hoping I could at least catch a glimpse of the person behind the wheel. I mean, who would be proudly displaying their fuzzy friends? My money was that there was a five-year-old behind the wheel.
They were a young couple. Old enough to drive, possess a car and be on their way to somewhere but young enough to make it unlikely the posse of stuffed fabric riding with them were for children's use. And as the David Attenborough in me kicked in to dissect and document the minutiae of this habitat I couldn't help but notice the predominantly feminine nature of the creatures and their pinkish dominated colour hue.
Basically, it was a chick's car and her boyfriend was driving. Happily driving mind you. He had the look of a man who had come to terms with his role in this mobile female world and was there to drive little miss Daisy and her friends wherever she so desired. Perhaps these directions were given in a voice pitched just a little too high beyond the normal range, giving it a faux-child sound. Just like the countless radio commercials you tend to hear when trapped in these highway jams where the role of children are usually played by women. It may have been some sort of regulation once upon a time perhaps but they're not fooling anyone into believing anything but that they're an adult playing a child. Regardless of the pitch, his response would most likely be, "Yes."
Welcome to Shanghai man. He is legendary in the annuals of Chinese pop and traditional culture as being the forever henpecked. The man who only qualifies as one due to the fact he stands when he pees. He is the other half to the fairer sex. Where 'fair' tends to mean: I'm the boss mofo, so what are you going to do about it?
This Shanghai couple dynamic has done the rounds of stories from ancient tales of yore (a lovely little spot off the road to Beijing) all the way to the interweb. The folks up north are particular scathing, as to them the men are men and the women do as their told. Nobody has really said that openly to any woman up there for fear of receiving a smack in the mouth for their trouble. Mr. Mao once said that chicks held up the sky. You don't want to mess with that, that's important business this sky holding but now that I think about it he may have been referring to baby chickens.
Anyway, the good peeps of China's other provinces reckon Shanghainese dudes are wimps. And the way they decide to fight this cultural equivalent of a gloved slap before a duel is to defend their wimpy ways. Perhaps it's in order to not upset their wives. Apparently the most vocal advocates claim to love doing the cooking and washing. They may or may not have stated that fact while casting nervous glances to their other, and most definitely better, half who would stare back at them with piercing laser eyes.
It all comes down to history they say. And in a land simply dripping in, they tend to say that a lot. Due to the foreign influence (or was that domination? I get those two confused) of the early 20th century, service industry jobs were in greater demand so women became breadwinners. The roles cast, this dynamic was copied by their children, and so on... and voila! But apparently a fair bit now has to do with the overemphasis of education and a fondness for sedentary pursuits like computer games, watching bootleg DVDs and the rather macho collecting of anime figurines. So at the end of it all, you may have a masters at applied accountancy, a working knowledge of the 'Transformers' movie series and an inability to wear pants. Even ones with a low-riding crotch. Lederhosen, perhaps.
Now Shanghai man sees it a little differently and that he was simply man enough to step into a role that was left over and needed to be filled. And as a result he simply sees the rest of his fellow Chinese fellows as cavemen incapably of pleasing their cavegirls.
Well, it seems that now these guys are having the final laugh as they're in demand like a good xiaolongbao. There's increasingly good press on their gentle, giving nature (like a tame deer perhaps) that some women from different parts actually seek them out.
And why wouldn't they? First you have your basic good behaviour on display such as door opening and a lot of "After you" or "You first" at social occasions. Then there's the simple consideration of another's well-being, which is becoming a rarer commodity in the land that's supposed to be taking over the world in the coming years. But then it becomes more interesting with the common sight of hand bag carrying – which allows the girlfriend/wife to conduct her business of walking down the street hands-free. And there's the paying of bills at a very, very early stage in the relationship – that is, when she hasn't taken possession of his cards all together.
I had one friend who would look forward to getting his hands on a new piece of technology –usually with a prefix of an 'i' – but not for himself, for his girlfriend so then he can get her older phone. Then I learned it was not uncommon for girlfriends to have control of a guy's social media profiles so she can keep a virtual eye on his virtual goings on. Not really sure if it worked both ways but I always thought that was bringing the generally disliked censorship culture just a little too close to home but whatever rocks your pink Hello Kitty socks I suppose.
These are thoughtful men. Perhaps little bastions of light in an increasingly darkening society of self-centredness. They have to do what they can to secure a woman in a outnumberedly male society and these girls certainly know their value. So it's piggybank, pack mule, driving my toys duty for you young man.
