Barbarian Lost (17 page)

When I emerge from my hotel but a few moments later, the city has undergone yet another transformation. The streets in the hotel's neighbourhood have grown surprisingly quiet. Occasionally, a taxi passes but not one is available. The concierge is also unhelpful. He tells me that over the past hour he has called for cabs twice and neither has shown up.

With only twenty minutes remaining before the game starts and knowing that the wait at the hotel would drive me crazy, I decide to begin the long journey toward the park on foot, hoping to hail a cab along the way. As I move westward, it dawns on me that I might well have erred by setting out on foot. I suddenly realize how big the city is—and I need to get from the southeast corner of it to a southwesterly point. I cross a large swath of residential neighbourhood, then walk beneath a couple of elevated highways. A few times I raise my hand upon seeing a taxi only to have it pass me by, already occupied.

Eventually, I enter an area that has recently been flattened. Billboards and plastic fencing enclose an unlit and inactive construction site. Although the traffic flow beside me is steady and thick, I know my prospects for a taxi have plummeted. No driver will be circulating here looking for a fare. A glance at my map and cell phone reveal that I have covered but a third of the distance in twenty-five minutes. My comrades will start without me.

I grow anxious and frustrated. I try to laugh at the thought that Deryk, ever competitive and trying to foment energy and
enthusiasm, has already made jokes about people wimping out of the match. All would conclude that I was among those unwilling to accept a challenge and test my skills. Meanwhile, here I am crossing a Shanghai wasteland on foot in my new Pelé sneakers.

The sky is getting darker. I am faced with the choice of diverting north toward an area with a couple of major hotels or staying the course toward brighter lights on the horizon. As I ponder my options, a slick new city bus pulls up beside me and opens its doors. Inside, a driver sits without expression. The bus is bright and clean. Outside, the air is thick and gloomy. Clearly, I must board this bus.

As I fumble with my money to pay the fare, the driver curtly ushers me on with an impatient wave of the hand. He doesn't want my money. The bus is full but not overly so. I even spot an empty seat. As I walk toward it, people barely lift their heads to notice me. The bus travels westward. I begin to chart its course on my map. Like a missile, the bus burns through the wasteland and emerges into a neighbourhood more suited to it and its passengers, a well-lit and modern area. The bus begins to drop off its passengers and pick up new ones. My impatience has vanished; I'm enjoying the ride.

As they come and go, people barely look at each other. They all carry themselves with a quiet and humble dignity. Even the elderly wear their clothes well; the items fit and were obviously chosen for their gracious properties. When in pairs, the elderly share in muffled conversations full of smiles and pauses. The young people are fresh-faced and energetic. They carry trendy shopping bags and sport white earbuds. Most tap away at their smartphones, likely texting their friends about holiday plans.

I'm now forty minutes late, but at least the bus has travelled
in precisely the right direction. As it arrives at the park, I prepare myself to run the kilometre or so north to the playing field.

Soon, the field comes into sight. I see people embracing, some sportsmanlike handshakes and high-fives. I've missed the match. With my new shoes pointless, silly even, I march onto the field to greet my friends. A young Chinese player comes forth to shake my hand in congratulation. He must think that I played. Or perhaps he's applauding me for my support.

I pass a clique of English players whose celebrations have resoundingly aggressive undertones. One particular gent, ruddy, balding and full of posture, scowls. “If they'd played that way in England, they'd have been fouled off the pitch!” he says.

Confused, I find Deryk and ask how the match went.

“We won,” he says, “but some people were taking the game more seriously than others.” He turns to James, the groom, and with a lowered voice asks, “What do you say, they let us win?”

“I think so,” James admits, “but you never know.”

Just then, Allen appears, looking fresh and happy. He exchanges a friendly nod with Deryk, who thanks him for making the match happen. The other Chinese players whom Allen assembled have by now collected their belongings on the sidelines and are heading toward their vehicles or being picked up by friends or girlfriends. Allen refers to them as young business associates. They, like Allen, drive shiny new white sedans and have slick cell phones and fancy watches. They radiate optimism, health and confidence.

The humidity and haze brought the night early upon Shanghai. But the dying sun breaks through on the horizon and momentarily paints the grass and trees with gold. On all sides, the city rises above the park. Its buildings cut a jagged contour against the
ashen sky. The soccer field's lights come on, creating a luminous halo in the thick air that envelops the city. I watch one of the white cars leave the park and merge into a stream of vehicles. The city is still humming and spinning, people moving in all directions. The purpose in the air is overwhelming.

Saturday is wedding day. But first Viv and I meet an acquaintance of mine, Min, for lunch. Min is an intellectual that I had met once before through friends. We talked only briefly through a translator, but he had a perspective on history and Mao that was unique. He suggested we meet at a restaurant near his work. Viv is curious why he's near his office, in the old centre by the river, on the first day of the autumn holiday.

We head down there early to visit the Bund first. The Bund was the premier boulevard of old Shanghai. Like the Malecón, the seawall that connects all Havana, the Bund has been a defining feature of development in Shanghai. The word
bund
comes from India by way of English seamen; it means embankment. Old Shanghai lined up against it. All things and all people showed up on the Bund at some point.

It was on the Bund that Sassoon and Kadoorie set up shop. They were both of Middle Eastern extraction, from Jewish merchant families who had built clever alliances with British imperial traders throughout Mesopotamia and up and down the Arabian and Indian shores. They were men who could get you what you wanted. Moving east with Britain as it expanded its empire and interests, these men gravitated toward Shanghai, which was fast becoming the most important trade city of the Orient.

From their stone fortresses on the Bund, Shanghai's merchant
houses commanded trade networks connecting London and San Francisco to every port between Basra and Bali. The world's greatest banks also opened branches in Shanghai, to bankroll increasingly ambitious enterprises in the East. These too stood on the Bund.

Shanghai of the Bund era was a central node of a global community of capitalists. An original special economic zone, Shanghai was in China, yet Chinese law did not apply to foreigners here. Excepting the brief Japanese reign during the Second World War, no single power could claim absolute authority over Shanghai. It belonged to everyone and to no one. It was the kind of place great entrepreneurs loved: booming and loosely regulated.

A few old buildings of the Bund still stand, and some of the old hotels continue to operate. What was once grand now seems cramped and crummy. But the Bund is undergoing a facelift, with prestigious new buildings arising to replace what has grown soiled and inefficient. The new Bund has nothing to do with the area's jazz-era glitz. New China has set up shop here now. Those who walk the Bund or glance at the buildings and the river are not the free operators once essential to Shanghai. Those who come here now do so at the pleasure of the people of China as represented by the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese have also dwarfed the Bund with a city built all around it that commands attention far more than this old strip.

When we arrive on the Bund, it's overrun with peoples from the north and west of China. They come as families or groups of old men or women. They wear the utilitarian clothing not worn by the cosmopolitan Shanghainese, a robust or even military accoutrement, clothing meant to survive the dust and wind. They merrily emerge from tour buses and subway stations, cross the
Bund at a hurried pace to the river and stand there with their backs to the gloomy stone palaces. They're not here for the emblems of a foreign past. They gaze at the Pudong skyline across the oil slick. Filled with wonder, they look upward toward the ball and spire, and at the massive new towers of metal and glass that touch the skies. There, it is bright and clean, powerful and promising, unlike the quarter of the city's heyday.

Off the Bund, old Shanghai is even less captivating. Many of the quarter's old buildings now seem prosaic and small-time. There's little glory left in addresses in the old quarter. Min's work in the old quarter is not at the cutting edge of anything either. His trade is old, stiff, conservative and reliable. And no one gets rich in his field. We arrive at the restaurant of his choosing. It's upstairs, huge and empty. We take seats and wait for Min to arrive.

He's medium tall and skinny. His almond-shaped eyes and receding, wavy hair give him a slightly foreign appearance. He comes in carrying a light raincoat and umbrella. He wears the attire of the middle manager: dark slacks and a pale polyester button-down. The burgundy sweater-vest must be his concession to the weekend. He immediately asks what I have been up to in China. I tell him that I have been going to different kinds of places and meeting different sorts of people in an effort to understand China. I can't help but smile bashfully at my vague yet pretentious answer. Min, however, is generous-natured and urges me on.

He wants to know precisely where I've been and where I'm going. I list off my itinerary quickly. I admit that it is but a small picture of China and a short window for observation. I tell him that I'm investigating a few key themes: China's relationship with its past and its relationship with the West, Chinese values—family, urban, rural, traditional and modern—the economy, the environ
ment, food, religion and sex. Again, we share a laugh at the scope of my ambitions.

I remind Min that when we last met he had talked about modern China's attempts to grapple with its recent past—how for many years under Mao, China tried to escape its past. And how now it's again reshaping it. I ask him to continue his thoughts, to explain what the shape of this past might be.

Min's reflections, translated by Vivien, are nuanced. Viv must work hard, and I pay close attention to Min's expressions and gestures to track when he is switching from exposition to synthesis.

Min deals in historical perceptions. He starts by explaining that the initial enthusiasm for Communism in China was not well-thought-out; it was first and foremost a visceral reaction to the constant instability existing in China. He admits that it was also widely thought that China had become bankrupt and morally corrupt, that the class system was broken and oppressive.

In any case, fear of violence is a powerful motivator, he explains, and China was full of violence a hundred years ago: the ghastly Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Uprising, foreign aggressions, warlordism and tyranny big and small. The people were suffering and confused. They had a growing desire to see things change fundamentally.

Two new elements also combined to enhance revolutionary sentiment: the arrival of the outside world in China and the liberalized media. The former brought in powerful new ideas, both political and economic, but also brought violence and helped the Chinese focus their frustrations on clear culprits as bad things happened to them. The free media gave acute suffering a broad and even intellectual resonance—something not missed by anyone who could read.

Perhaps these circumstances gave the people a stronger than usual willingness to embrace chaos and risk, to make great sacrifices, to bring about some kind of deep change, Min says with a smile as he waits for Vivien to convey his argument.

“Rage is a tool,” he then says, “something to be used.” He goes on to tell us that the only thing that gave the movement any unity was the collective desire for change. Among early revolutionary leaders, the ideas for change ranged across a broad spectrum: all the types of socialism—Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist—industrial worker–based or peasant-based movements; a handful of anarchist sects; various liberal reform ideologies; neo-traditionalists; cultish spiritualist movements like the Taiping; and many more.

Necessarily, the first task of the revolution was to order and harmonize this cacophony of ideals. This was Mao Zedong's speciality, Min says. By 1949, Mao commanded the national narrative. He had made himself seem to be at the centre of change, the galvanizing element.

Min takes an aside to mention the Korean War. He describes how, in his opinion, many people miss just how much the war helped Mao. The war came at just the right moment to help the chairman solidify his command, despite the heavy losses incurred by China. Once more a great power was threatening invasion. It was widely perceived that only a terrific show of unity, with Mao at the helm, could break this foreign advance.

So the chairman's authority became sacrosanct. But it's critical to understand, Min emphasizes, that Mao himself wavered between contradictory ideals about the magnitude of change necessary. He swung between seeing change as a reorganization of material forces and seeing change as something far more radical—a fundamental reshaping of the human being, the New Man theory. It's in this ten
sion that one has to understand the official relationship with the past, Min explains. For the past really is the shape of all material forces. If one endeavours to go beyond these forces, one has to set new terms for the past or, sometimes, erase it altogether. This is the background of the Cultural Revolution, his own historical specialty, Min concludes.