New York Times Finds Crass Elitism in Shanghai
Authentic Chinese Housing
Perhaps after several days of looking at squalid apartments in Beijing (see yesterday’s post) I’m slightly sensitive on this subject, but I just read a New York Times article about a Shanghai apartment that may very well win “most annoying journalism” honors for the entire summer. You’ve probably already glanced at the photo of the apartment in question, so you can clearly see that we are not dealing with your average living conditions.
But let’s take a step back here. The article is in the New York Times “Great Homes & Destinations” section, which I assume is some sort of showcase for obscenely rich people to show off the product of their filthy lucre. The section itself is such a cliched journey of East Coast liberal elitism that I almost feel compelled to catch a few hours of Glenn Beck to wash off the pretentious stink.
It would be bad enough if this article was the usual “Lives of the Rich and Famous” kind of crap, but the New York Times had to go one step further in framing the piece from the “Living in China” angle. Consider these two headlines:
(web version): In Shanghai, in Search of Authenticity
(RSS version): In Shanghai, an Expatriate’s Hunt for a Traditional Apartment
I saw the RSS headline first and decided to click through, thinking that I was going to get a feel good story about a well-meaning, Sinophilic expat who came to Shanghai for the “China experience” and ended up living in scary housing with migrant workers or something. That at least would have been vaguely amusing, assuming that it contained entertaining anecdotes of the expat attempting to secure hot water and going to the local market to buy veggies, accompanied by action photos of her squatting on the ground slurping a bowl of noodles or having an altercation with the ?????, etc.1
Judging by the first paragraph of the article, my assumptions seemed to be right on target:
Many Americans who move here end up in high-rise buildings surrounded by other expatriates. But Bradford Nichols wanted a more authentic experience. “I wasn’t moving halfway around the world, leaving everything I knew and everyone I loved, to play it safe,” said Ms. Nichols, 38, a video game executive who relocated from Los Angeles in 2008. “I certainly wasn’t going to live in a building that could have been in any other city.”2
Local Neighborhood Store in China
Sounds like the prelude to a heart-warming personal interest story. You just know she’s going to fall in love with the local community and its eccentric characters. She’ll end up befriending some local kid who suffers from a prolapsed amygdala (normally an anatomical impossibility) or doing volunteer work on the weekends at the home for retired victims of foreign criticism.
Turns out I was mistaken. Ms. Nichols was not looking for authenticity at all, just a swanky crib. She didn’t want to end up like all the other expats, apparently, because we live like peasants. Claiming that she wanted to live in “a real neighborhood, with Chinese people,” she then proceeded to plunk down $2,000/month on rent for a large room in the Huaihai Lu shopping district and spent $15,000 more to furnish it, with the helpful assistance of an interior decorator who “did my negotiating in Mandarin.” No shit, really? As opposed to Hungarian?
It’s good that this decorator had good language skills, though, so he could translate this sort of pretentious bullshit:
[The decorator] helped her transform the space into a mix of Hollywood retro, Asian deco and haute bohemian. Mr. Lam, a former advertising executive, calls the style “fem glam.”
Seriously, that meaningless jargon almost rivals MBA discourse. Almost.
Part of the problem here is that Ms. Nichols is from LA. As a native myself, I can tell you that anything older than 1945 is considered “traditional” and age equates to “authentic.” She must have been pleased to read this colorful sentence:
Ms. Nichols’s building, called the Young apartments, was designed in 1933.
Well, 1933. Must be both traditional and authentic, then. I am a little confused, though. Kind of hard to tell when the building was actually constructed. We only know it was designed in 1933.
No, I’m messing with you. Using “designed” instead of “built” or “constructed” is just another example of execrable, grandiose language we can do without. God forbid Ms. Nichols lives in a place that was “built” (this suggests sweaty working people). I wonder if the writer of this article learned this sort of pompous diction in J-school or if the Times provided in-house training?
In a country where, on a daily basis, 316 migrant workers are mowed down by rich bastards driving Audis, this kind of article is the last thing we need.
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- “?????” is a derogatory term for “????,” those old folks with the armbands you see running around the neighborhood with ambiguous “security” responsibilities and a penchant for gossip. I think “the neighborhood busybody” conveys the right idea.[↩]
- Apologies for the ad hominem attack, but who names their daughter “Bradford”? Whatever she does or says is going to sound pretentious with a name like that.[↩]
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This cracked me up. Good job. After living in China, it’s amazing how stupid some of the shit NYT prints about this country is
http://urbanatomy.com/index.php/i-ahearts-shanghai/daily-blog/3830-authentic-shanghai-experience
Stan,
Yes, Yes Yes. After living in China for 5 years and on-off for 21 years I applaud your honest and down-to-earth assessment. I recently went to a meeting in BJ where people were discussing how “difficult” it was to get used to the “disorderliness” and “unsanitary conditions” in this environment. I said that it must be really “difficult” for them to come to China. I asked them where this “difficult” environment was and they said parts of San litun and by the LIdo Hotel. I suggested that they take an adventurous journey to “the other side” of BJ and maybe even visit the university where I work and then they could see “difficult life conditions” first-hand. That is classrooms where there is no functional toilet on the same floor; of course no fawcett with running water, the stall doors all broken and yes- no working air conditioner so that students sometimes have to sit through 3 hour sessions in intense heat! And the students do it because they want to learn. I won’t even go into what their living quarters are like – this would be too mind-boggling. Although I teach only part-time in the univesity I do it because I realize I would rather be the teacher than some smug, ass—- transplant from LA or New York who comes to gawk and “feel” the downtrodden, sad conditions of peasants in a developing country. After their transient stay in this “difficult” country they will go home and write a book about their adventures in the “wild” and difficult Middle Kingdom and name it “Out of the Middle Kingdom” or some such bulls—, I don’t believe in Darwinism because these type of people somehow survive and propogate the earth!
I’m lucky. My FDI Law class doesn’t start until end of September. No heat problems. On the other hand, by December, I’ll be teaching in a parka and snow boots.
What is prolapsed amygdala? And BTW, $2000/ month on Huaihai Rd.? Not so bad really.
I see. So as long as it’s a good deal, then you’ll excuse everything else? Ha ha.
BTW a prolapsed amygdala doesn’t mean anything. If something is “prolapsed” it has fallen down (i.e. out of place). A uterus can be prolapsed, but an amygdala (part of the brain in the temporal lobe responsible for fear/aggression) cannot. If you had a prolapsed amygdala, you’d be seriously messed up.
The New York Times NEVER fails to surprise me with how tone-deaf it is *with regard to feature stories*, and not only on China. I think it’s because of the writers they tend to select. They are liberal, Ivy-educated and culturally rather similar. Even if they hold seriously the journalist’s duty to be objective in news stories, which I think they do, you really see the writers’ background in feature stories like the above and any of the human-interest stories about the economy and the legal profession. Sometimes I almost think they are intentionally satirizing people like Ms. Nichols, but that just can’t be true.
The thing is that a $2,000/month apartment in one of the world’s big cities isn’t really that extravagant on the face of it for a Blizzard Activision executive. (It puzzles me that she is an executive for that particular company – can such a liberal elitist really relate to WoW-playing Chinese kids? I know that’s often irrelevant, but it’s still pretty dissonant.) But the thought process for choosing that apartment is truly laughable.
By the way, China Hearsay is the best blog ever. It is funny and nuanced in all the right ways, AND you have daily updates, AND you actually reply to comments.
“home for retired victims of foreign criticism”
I LOLed so hard.
Thanks, dude, glad you enjoyed it. I’ve got nothing against Ms. Nichols, by the way. She can spend whatever she wants on an apartment. And although I think it’s in poor taste, having stories about fancy homes is OK too. Some people enjoy that sort of thing. However, to dress it up as a “roughing it in the ‘real’ China” type of article, that’s just laughable.
That article is sickening. I saw your tweet about the article, and thought by “silly” you meant it was amusingly written. Like you, the headline made me think of a search for non-rich businessman, non-corrupt government official, genuine Chinese peasant-style housing. And she doesn’t even speak Mandarin…
That’s the problem with Twitter. Upon reflection, “silly” does not adequately convey my disdain. Oh well.
‘…Asian deco and haute bohemian. Mr. Lam, a former advertising executive, calls the style “fem glam.”’
this line says it all…
I wonder if Mr. Lam has a name for the smell in a taxi that has just started its shift at 5am and the driver’s scent still fermenting when you get in at 630am
Mmm. I feel like eating something with garlic now, and I don’t know why.
Glad to see other people feel the same way. I saw the article and wrote about it too, you’ve articulated the point really well.
Come on guys. The article is not so bad. As another commenter noted, that rent for that location is not so bad — there are many Chinese who live like that in Shanghai, so so in some respects it is an authentic Chinese lifestyle. Many Chinese live in much more expensive places. There are varying extremes — I lived about 4 blocks from this location for a few years and only paid USD600/month for a similar sized place, so it also depends on how savvy that Mandarin-speaking (e.g. me) negotiator is in finding a good place for a good price.
I read that section of the NYTimes often, and they have apartments from around the world. It is a good window into how and where ppl are living. Don’t knock it.
Seeing as how you are a filthy rich New Yorker yourself, I’m going to ignore your comment.
If I ever get rich, remind me not to brag about it. heh heh.
I don’t like to judge but I can’t avoid speculating. What kind of person wants to live inside a wedding cake like that?
Definitely a chick place. Where’s the big screen TV and the XBox?
Oddly enough I visited a penthouse apartment in the same building. About the same size going for RMB9k; although the landlord had opted for the barren look in lieu of femglam’.
The most outrageous I’ve seen during my apt hunt was one housed in an 1939 French Concession building that was Miami Vice era club-esque with pitch black walls, full-length mirrors in the kitchen and accent lighting embedded in the frosted glass kitchen cabinets. The form of furniture other than the bed was a fire-engine red velour feinting couch. All it needed was a couple of big-haired Boy Toys dancing to Flock of Seagulls to complete the ambiance. Oh, and it had a shoeshelf (not bookshelf) that wrapped around one of the inner walls but unfortunately they had removed the red carpet leading from the doorway to the living room before I had arrived.