Shanghaiers

For this week's response, I wrote four very short stories or long vignettes, that I think capture a small portion of the city I love so much: Shanghai. I stole the idea from the novel Dubliners by James Joyce, in which Joyce attempted to capture the source of "paralysis" in Dublin society, and attempt to copy some of the stylist points of James Joyce, such as using a third person narrator that gravitates towards the natural voice of the subject it is narrating. I am not looking for paralysis in Shanghai, but the idea is similar.

I

The boiling sun struck the white villa like a drum, and sunlight oozed through the Victorian window shades of Silvia Alean’s bedroom. While the rest of the Alean household awoke, Silvia dozed on, appearing for the moment uninterested in the new day. Her room was a mixture of the sophisticated and the superficial: An empty gold picture frame was visible on a cluttered desk. A white closet tattooed in black swirls and ellipses stood against the wall. Through an open door, a collection of expensive cocktail dresses and silk stockings was visible. In the center of the room was the bed. The double mattress appeared tyrannical next to a vanity desk pilled high with books and a spectrum of cosmetics. However, the bed sheets were soft and white like the rest of the room.

Silvia jumped out of her silk blankets in a wave of excitement that comes only in the summer, and ran to the bathroom. The hardwood floor—cool from air conditioning—memorized a trail of footprints in warm condensation that glowed softy in the morning light.

She rested her eighteen-year-old elbows on the sink, nostrils full of moist lavender from the lotion on her smooth thighs. Silvia gazed into the mirror and thought herself very beautiful that morning. Her sleek brown hair was charmed into a neat French braid. Her intelligent green eyes gazed back inquisitively at her body.

“I should be a queen,” she whispered.

The brief reverie was interrupted when her mother poked her head into the room.

“I’m putting the laundry on your bed Silvy,” her mother said.

“Thanks, Mom!” Silvia yelled.

On her way out, her mother glanced in the bathroom.

“Did you change the way you tie your hair?”

“It’s a French braid. I saw Angelina Jolie doing this at the Golden Globes, so I thought I would try it. Do you like it?”

Her mother thought for a second—“I liked it better before”—and walked out the door.

Her mother had never liked change. Yet, so much had changed. Two years ago, Silvia’s father was offered the job of Regional Director of General Motors in Asia. He took it, and moved the family from Groton, Connecticut to Shanghai, China.

“We’re only going to stay for two years,” he promised.

But, Silvia threw a fit.

“We’re moving to China?” she demanded, “We can’t speak Chinese. Why would we move to China?”

“Well, I am taking introductory classes right now. And, I’m sure they will teach you that in school.”

“I’m going to a Chinese school?” Silvia looked pale as death.

“No, darling. You are going to an international school called Concordia. I’ve heard great things about it, and the best part is that all of your teachers and peers are foreigners just like you.”

“What about food? I can’t just eat Chinese food all the time.”

“I’ve asked about that as well, and apparently the foreigners in Shanghai eat better than the Donald Trumps of New York. Shanghai has a dish called Xiao Long Bao,” Mr. Alean gave his best Chinese impression, “which is like a bun, but the skin is thin as paper and the meat is delicate as china.” He chuckled at his own pun.

“That sounds stupid.”

“Hey, you’re not the only one who has to sacrifice. Mom is giving up her job!”

Silvia did not reply. She was close to tears now, and pouted her lips in a way that only daughters could, and fathers could not resist.

Mr. Alean softened up, and knelt down beside his daughter. He held her face in his warm hands, and kissed her head.

“You’re going to love it, darling.”

Silvia wished he were wrong.

They arrived in a similarly torrid August summer. Jetlagged, and heartbroken, Silvia cried for three days straight. It wasn’t until her anguish ceased, that she could begin to notice that she wasn’t such a stranger in this part of Shanghai. While her parents were busy unpacking, she wandered outside the house.

Beside the driveway was a beautiful garden where an old man meticulously trimmed and weeded. Red and brown stone tiles formed the sidewalk that bordered the neat lawns of each house, not at all like the dull concrete of Groton.

From the freshly paved road, two Caucasian girls approached her on pink bicycles, gold hair fluttering in the wind. They appeared to be twins.

“Hi, you just moved in right?”

“Yeah, my name is Silvia.”

“I’m Yeona, that’s Sally,” the gold one pointed to the other. “Where are you from?”

“Connecticut.”

“Wahhh, the United States,” they whispered mysteriously. “We’re from Belgium.” There was a pause. Silvia wondered what two Belgian girls were doing in Shanghai.

“Do you want to come to the spa with us?”

“There’s a spa?” Silvia cried.

“Yes! Come, we’ll show you,” Yeona squealed. “Sally can you call Ding Shi Fu.”

“Who is that?” Sally asked.

“Our driver.”

“You have a driver?” Sally cried again.

It was then that Silvia smiled for the first time in this new country.

As they waited for Ding Shi Fu, Yeona and Sally told her many things. They had lived here for four years already.

Sally listened, mesmerized. The world that Yeona and sally promptly described was one that Silvia could never have imagined for herself before. It was a fantastical world aborted from a Fitzgerald novel. The buildings covered the sky. The people covered the land. Food, and music gushed through the streets—and, the parties. Sally described the dazzling parties so vividly that Silvia could hear the music and the laughter, the sputtering of red Volkswagen taxis pulling up on the side of the road, the vibrating bass. She could smell the pungent perfumes and sweet sweat and see strobe lights dancing obtrusively in the darkness. The world painted before her was one of gleaming intentions, unmatched heights, and infinite variety; it was an exotic garden; it was a place where the moon is the dullest thing in the sky.

This illusion was interrupted only by Ding Shi Fu’s honk. The three girls climbed into the Buick and soon arrived at the Dragonfly Massage Parlor. During the sixty minutes of heaven the masseuse gave her, Silvia could only think of one thing. She wanted to experience all of the things she had already heard about. She wanted in to this new world. No longer did she resist—she had fallen head over heels for this new city—no, her city.

After the massage, Silvia bid good-bye to her new friends and went home. When her mother greeted her at the door, Silvia smiled.

“I’m so glad to see you outside, darling. Are you feeling better?”

The smiled again—bright and radiant—unique to young girls who have not smiled in a long time.

“I think I can live here, Mama.”

Her mother returned the smile.

“That’s wonderful, baby.” Mother and daughter embraced. “Now, come inside and look at the food Xiao Fang made for us.”

“Who is Xiao Fang?”

“Our maid.”

Silvia almost hugged her.

The sound her mother calling her to breakfast brought Silvia back to reality from her recollections of three years past by. She quickly slipped into a tiny skirt, uniform polo and bounced downstairs. Fang Xiao had left her breakfast, a bowl of rice noodles, on the table. Pieces of neatly cut apple and orange were sitting in a bowl. A cup of steaming coffee sat neatly in a white saucer. She finished quickly, and went out the door. A wave of heat hit her as she exited her cool home.

Her driver, Mr. Chen, stepped out of his car and opened the door for her.

“Good morning Silvia,” he said politely.

At 7:45, Silvia headed off to school.

II

At 8:00 AM, Zhang Yu was firmly packed into the back of a Shanghai subway pen. Travellers were hot and sweaty from the summer heat, and the rush hour soon became disgusting. When he finally arrived at the office, his back was drenched with sweat. Wiping perspiration from his temples, he sat down. Cringing from the coolness of the chair that invaded his wet back, he turned on his old Dell computer. A large stack of test cases was already on his desk. With a sigh, Zhang Yu logged into a computer system based in the United States and began his work.

“Zhang Yu, you are fifteen minutes late.”

Zhang Yu turned around and saw his supervisor standing behind him.

“I’m very sorry Cai Laoban. The subway was very slow this morning.”

“I know Zhang Yu; I was on it.” The man stared at Zhang Yu behind square glasses. He was in his early forties, but already had a head peppered with white hair. He often thought to himself that his white hairs were there because of the wisdom he gained from his experiences. People like Zhang Yu of the younger generation do not value wisdom as much, he thought with contempt.

“Anyways. I need people to work over time tonight. Can I sign you up?”

“I would love to, sir. However, I promised my mother I would eat with her tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sorry, sir. My mother is—I’m hope you understand.”

Cai Laoban walked around Zhang Yu’s chair, and sat down on the desk. He wore a patronizing look.

“Zhang Yu, I know you are new so I will explain to you how things work here. There is no such thing as overtime. There are so many recently graduated university students I could replace you like a pencil. Everybody works overtime. Look around the room.”

Zhang Yu followed his boss’ index finger as it traced around the room.

“All of these programmers work twelve hours every single day. Do you know why?”

Zhang Yu shook his head.

“It is the only way to get promoted. It is the only way to move up. Nobody cares about the money. The most productive get promoted—end of story. It is how I got to where I am today, and how you will get here—if you ever do. So what I am really asking you is: Where do you want to be in five years?”

Zhang Yu said nothing.

“Do you want me to sign you up for the overtime shift tonight?”

Many things flashed through Zhang Yu’s mind in this instant; he thought about how expensive the rent was in Shanghai; he thought about rising food prices, his new expensive coffee dependence, and how sexy that Mercedes Coupe he saw at the Auto Shanghai was; he thought about his girlfriend pressuring him to make more money; he thought about impressing his university friend Liu Shi, who was now a flashy businessman; he thought about how he owed his mother who had supported him, raised him alone, loved him, and now needed him. He thought about what her doctor had said.

Zhang Yu looked up from his daze.

“Yes, please sir. I would love the opportunity.”

Cai LaoBan scribbled something on his notepad.

“Wonderful. I’m buying dinner. Does KFC sound good?”

“Perfect.”

“Excellent, I’ll see you tonight then.” Cai LaoBan gave Zhang Yu a wink and walked away.

Zhang Yu put his head down and continued to work. At 11:45 AM, his cell phone rang. Zhang Yu slowly swiped to answer.

“Mother. I have something to tell you…”

III

At 12:45 PM that day, a corpulent glutton walked into the Tang Dynasty restaurant. An explosion of gold and red assaulted his vision. The room split into two sections. One side had a glittering panoramic view of the Shanghai Bund. The floor alternated chestnut and white marble slabs, and was decorated with black squares frames that engineered a modernist style. The opposite side of the room was carpeted in a beige canvas strewn with abstract lines that looked like clouds in Chinese watercolor paintings. The tables were covered with white tablecloth. The chairs were red. Massive chandeliers that hung from the ceilings spouted golden light, and illuminated the enormous water lilies that grew on the enormous expanse of the silk tapestry on the back wall.

His stomach bulged out of a cruel body. A greasy forehead sat atop of a checkered black suit. A waitress uniformed in a clean red blouse, and knee-length skirt with traditional patterns on it greeted him.

“Good afternoon Mr. Zhu. Mr. Dai is waiting for you?”

The waitress led the way towards a small square table in the corner of the room where an older man in a new tuxedo awaited. She left three leather-bound menus on the table, and smiled.

“Please give us a moment,” said the man in the tuxedo.

The chair creaked rudely as the Mr. Zhu sat down at the table. The seams at the back of his suit protested. Mr. Zhu stared greedily at the menu but the other man had no intentions of eating.

“Why is the land no purchased yet?” The man in the tuxedo demanded.

“My apologies. The villagers protested the demolition—as you know many of them have lived there for decades.”

“Look at this face,” he said with an expressionless face. “Does it say I care? Everyday of delay is costing me money. I need to buy this land while prices are low. You’re a government official. Just demand them to move. I am offering compensation already.”

“But, they don’t want the money. They just want to go on living.”

“Then force them to move.”

“How?”

The man gave his a flat look.

“Listen. I’m a government official, not a dictator. I can’t in good conscience leave these people homeless.”

“Again, I don’t care about your conscience. Just get it done. Or perhaps I will stop giving you those wonderful gifts: The BMW from New Years? Or the unknown transfers to your bank account. What will your little girlfriend say to that?”

Mr. Zhu paled considerably. After much deliberation, he said, “Fine.”

“I knew you would see it my way. Now, we can enjoy this meal happily.”

“Waitress,” he yelled. “Can we have two shark fin soup, your best steak, today’s fish, creamy scallops, the Hong Kong fried rice, and a bottle of Bordeaux red wine, please.”

“Will others be joining you, sir?” She asked.

“No, it’s just us. We’re celebrating,” he winked.

IV

If the Jinmao is the king of Shanghai, then the Bund is surely its princess. Stretching a kilometer along the west bank of the Huangpu River, she is never more beautiful than at night. It was a scene taken from Van Gogh: The western bank glittered in the golden brilliance of millions of lights that illuminated the old European architecture from the 1920’s. This brilliance was reflected by the dark river and rippled all the way to the eastern end. There, two students from New York University walked on the broad esplanade in profound serenity and the dark of evening.

“James, you all right?” said the taller one.

“Yeah, Edward. Just thinking.”

“Me too.”

A few moments later, James turned to Edward and said, “I just love it, you know? I just love this,” he waved his hands before them.
“We’ve only been here two months, but I just feel so captivated by this city. But, I’m not sure what it is.”

“I know what you mean, man. Ever since I’ve been here I’ve felt so energized, you know? There are 30 million people in the city, and they all want to get to the top. It’s a rat race—sort of like New York back in the twenties.”

“But, humbled too. You talk to all of the high school kids here and they work so hard to get into university. All they care about are numbers, but they kind of have to in such a big country. And all of the migrants from the provinces come here and live eight in a room, just to make money and send it home. Makes me feel so fortunate.”

“And, the glamour. Shanghai is flashy.”

“Oh, yes.”

“And so many foreigners live here, and love it. Nobody misses home, living here.”

“It’s amazing how one city can be so diverse and bring so many people together—I mean—it’s just a unbelievable. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s so beautiful, and so ugly—it’s like a thousand paradoxes.”

They walked for a few minutes in silence. The golden lights of the city fluttered in moments of brilliance that seemed would last forever.

“It’s a mystery,” said Edward.

“A mystery,” agreed James, “Maybe, that’s why it stays with you.”

And, without looking at each other, they both smiled.

Works Cited

Joyce, James, and Margot Norris. Dubliners: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print. 

Only all Palaver: Class and Gender in "The Dead"

In Joyce's Dubliners short story "The Dead", what resonated with me most strongly was the role of men in this text, particularly conveyed through the character of Gabriel. “The Dead” puts Gabriel under an intense spotlight, because his actions and also the way he is treated by others is that of more than just dominance, but of complete control over the women in his life. 

In the moments where Gabriel is one-upped by women, it is clear that he crumbles psychologically, and this occurs in two crucial points in the text. The first is his encounter with Lily, the maid in the Morkan house. Rather than coyly (and in a stereotypical feminine way) accepting his compliments and even his money, Lily protests, telling Gabriel that “the men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you” (154). Gabriel, seeing this as an outlandish statement coming from not only a woman, but a maid at that, is completely out of place. Instead of behaving gentlemanly, he takes a coin and “thrusting it into her hand”, purposefully conveys a tone of “depreciation” (155). His interest is gone, and thus he is rejecting a challenging, progressive woman. As we’ll later learn, his negativity toward women in control grows exponentially in accordance with the scope of the audience as well as the class status of the woman in question. 

In a very similar way, he detests Miss Ivors when she challenges him in a different way, patronizing not his manhood but more his heritage and thoughts about his “own land”, his “own language”, his “own people” (164-165). The language Joyce uses here is different than that in the beginning with Lily—rather than being irked and slightly insulted, with Miss Ivors he is “heated”, “agitated” (165). Because she’s attacking him more personally than Lily, and in a more severe, intelligent way, Gabriel’s distaste toward her is far clearer and more extensive than the moodiness caused by Lily in the beginning of the story. Additionally, I think that class and publicity—together the idea of “keeping a good public image” – also play a role here. What Gabriel dotes on more than the insult itself, internally, is that she had “tried to make him ridiculous before people, heckling at him and staring at him with her rabbit’s eyes” (165). He is, of course, insulted about what she was calling him (a “West Brinton”), but he is more concerned and ashamed of the crowd, where she was calling him these things, undoubtedly judging him as she heckled (165). 

What I’ve gleaned from this is that class undoubtedly is intertwined with the roles of men and women in this text—different communities have different ideas pertaining to the behavior and interaction between the sexes, and I think that fact is eminent here. The crossings of classes in this scenario indicates to me that the role of men in this microcosm is more than just a dominance, it’s a psychology revolved around total and complete control over the women around them.

The Dead versus The Living

“The Dead” is the last story in the collection of short stories in the book ‘Dubliners’ by James Joyce. The story takes place over the course of a night, more specifically, during an annual dinner party hosted by the three Misses Morkans. The story centers around the Morkan’s favorite nephew Gabriel Conroy and his social interaction and insecurities.

Joyce explores a number of themes in “The Dead”- like class distinction, the Irish nationality, betrayal, paralysis etc—however, the main theme is one that explores the question of mortality and the relationship between the living and the dead and therefore the past and the present.

One can say that in “The Dead” the relationship between the living and the dead is analogous to the two sides of a coin, or to put it in a slightly different way, its an intimate relationship in the sense that it is very fluid—and reversible. The difference between the living and the dead is life and the lack of life, however, if one were to go deeper into that difference, death can also be seen as paralysis—whereas life is characterized by constant change. This is why the relationship between the dead and the living is reversible in the story, because the characters are in a state of paralysis in the book (which is also one of the themes that Joyce explores). The Morkans host the same dinner party every year, where the same people come, where Freddie Malins always comes under influence—the characters are stuck in a rut of inaction and numbness where nothing ever changes- and so though they are not literally dead, the inaction in their life is as close to dying without the actual act of death. On the other hand, the dead in the story—Michael Furey, Mrs. Conroy’s past romantic interest, lives through her memory of him. In fact, in a epiphany, Gabriel Conroy comes to the rather painful realization that Michael Furey had been more alive than he ever was because, “he [Gabriel] had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love” and hence it was “better  [to] pass boldly into that other world, in full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age” (Joyce, 152). The idea behind this realization is that life is short and its even shorter when one thinks about the dangers of falling into a rut.

Joyce was able to explore this theme very well, due to the fact that the story was written in third person narrative. So, though majority of the story focused on Gabriel Conroy, Joyce was still able to step away from the protagonist—for example, the story begins with Lilly (the help), “Lilly the caretakers daughter, was literally run off her feet,” (Joyce, 119)— for long enough so that the reader could read between the lines and explore the theme himself.

Therefore what I took from my reading of “The Dead” was that the technique one uses (first, second or third person) has a strong influence on the narrative, and on translating the idea or the theme behind the piece for the reader.

-Smriti Bansal

Works Cited

Joyce, James. "The Dead." Dubliners. New York: Dover Publications, n.d. 119-52. Print.

Death: Our Universal Heritage

Death is one of the few things all humans have in common. And yet, just as we are all biologically different, we all seem to have a different perception of death, and its inevitability seems to hang over us in multiple ways. James Joyce sheds an interesting light on death in his short story “The Dead,” one of several pieces in his book Dubliners, published in 1914. 

Joyce unexpectedly uses the much-cherished and lighthearted event of a Christmas dinner, wealthy in Irish custom and tradition, as a sharp contrast to the morbid and brooding remembrance of “the dead.” I found it interesting how Joyce seemed to sprinkle the concept of death throughout his piece, going from low intensity to high as the story line progressed. Death doesn’t become a commitment to Joyce’s work until more than halfway through the plot. The first mention of the deceased is a fleeting one; as part of a background character description, the brother of the two women hosting the dinner is said to have passed away quite a while ago. Later on, over carved goose and ham, the dinner guests engage in conversation of musicians of times past, reveling in their glory, and plaintively observing that such remarkable artists are not as prevalent in their present time. 

The most striking portrayal of death, however, is disclosed near the story’s very end. Gabriel, the main character, notices at the dinner party that his wife, Gretta, is left in a mysterious, deep stupor after another dinner guest showcases the melodies of The Lass of Aughrim, a song that we later learn reminds Gretta of a childhood sweetheart who used to sing it to her, but died of a disease that could have been tuberculosis at the age of seventeen. We see that Joyce has again juxtaposed the image of death to a livelier subject, this time the warmth of love. 

The author leaves his audience with a memorable ending line: “[Gabriel’s] soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead” (Joyce 194). I’m sure many could relate to this type of pondering wonder concerning the finality of the end, especially when thinking of one’s own. Gabriel does this, thinking that “the time had come for him to set out on his journey westward,” ‘westward’ here meaning towards death (194). To be honest I scarcely think of death, the non-ceasing onslaught of events, deadlines, dreams, and relationships in my life keeping me immortally occupied, stressed, in pursuit, and ambivalent, or so it seems to me. But when I think of those who have already gone, especially those much younger than me, I am forced to realize that I must never forget to step back from all the broo-haha of life, and see to it that what I have lived is deep and satisfying enough to take with me into the afterlife, because, as Joyce reminds me, I could go at any moment.

The singular element of Joyce’s contrast between opposite themes is one I might find useful in my own writing. Though in this response I did center my attention on his theme of death, he did beautifully incorporate many other themes in his work, including the discrepancy between members of the higher classes and those of the lower classes who have moved into higher spheres, the concept of the “self” insofar as origin is concerned, and the worry of the degeneration of values as new generations emerge, among other splendidly woven ideas. Joyce successfully submerges his readers in a world of higher thought, all in the span of one documented day.