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Jay Mark Caplan is a freelance copywriter, market researcher, and sugar water shill. He's lived in Shanghai for two years and now he's going away.
Friday morning I land back in Shanghai. It's my last weekend in town and I've seen the light: Shanghai is amazing.
You see, I hate Shanghai. I hated it since the moment I arrived in Xujiahui, the Dark Heart of Mordor. Everybody's here because of greed! Or laziness! Our culture is ersatz! We're living in Pinocchio's Pleasure Island, only the traffic is worse!
Shanghai is a filthy whoring playground financed by the most corrupt and destructive form of capitalism.
But after a while I started loving to hate it.
Shanghai gave me a creative career, a perpetual adolescence of playing games. And it gave me great friends, the most motley and twisted group of first worlders one could hope for. Shanghai refined my sense of the absurd, to the point where I can have a good laugh about a DJ stealing a baby.
And after ten days in Beijing, wandering up and down wide Soviet avenues and going to mediocre rock shows, it dawned on me that no matter how vapid or evil, Shanghai is really, really fun.
It's time to stop kvetching and make the most of it.
Friday I'll go down to Taikang Lu, weather permitting, and shoulder my way through the hordes of fianc¨¦s and photographers to Kommune for a Victoria Bitters with my friend Andrew. Most likely we'll get into another argument about Vegemite.
Then it's dinner at home with my roommates, some form of delivery, and we're off to an event at Chinatown for a shot of burlesque action.
Burlesque! Yeah man, I'm gonna wear spats. Why can't we have a little more pizzazz in this town? Enough Skittles- colored sneakers and T-shirts, we should dress up nice, go all out boom-town decadent, with trumpets and pasties and everything.
Saturday begins with bathing our cats in SWISS Eau organic water. Yes, cats actually do like to be bathed, but only with SWISS Eau organic water. What part of the water is organic? The BEST part.
Then I'm off -- tra la la -- to buy DVDs for all my friends and family on Dagu Lu. One DVD store has a rich selection of nunsploitation films, an oft- neglected subgenre of Japanese pink cinema. I'll pickup a half dozen saucy nun flicks for my little cousins and a House box set or whatever and then eat hummus.
While watching a copy of Nuna's Confession and stroking the wet cats, I'll think about my next move. I don't have time for tailored suits, or energy for Qipu Lu, so I'll probably walk across the street to the antique market and browse through Mao memorabilia and haggle over Shanghai watches.
Saturday night I'm having a farewell party at Kevin's Thai Restaurant, which is apparently gay-friendly according to SmartShanghai. What does that entail, exactly, for a Thai restaurant? Extra coriander?
When the spring rolls run out at Kevin's, we're off to Digital Love with Resist Resist and Ben Houge at Not Me. That's going to be a wicked awesome event and most certainly attended by plenty of hip people, as well as frat boys and spillover from the girlie bars.
Sunday at approximately 7:45 am, I'll wake up in a dehydrated panic, search my bedroom for wallet and camera, drink the tepid glass of water on my bedside table, and go back to sleep until noon. Then it's time for that perennial Shanghai pastime, brunch. Probably Mesa and Manifesto. I'll invite my wittiest friends, and we'll have a glorious laugh at the expense of whatever over Bloody Mary's and cappuccino.
Sunday night it's filter coffee and video editing into the wee hours. That's it Shanghai. I¡¯ve still hate you. You're such a bitch! But you do me so right. I think about your dark pleasures even when I¡¯m with another city.
I'll probably be back.
