Distinct Civic Character

Cramped.  No arm room in the middle seat of four.  Last night at dinner, introducing another person to Shanghai.  Is it possible to do this in an original way?  Is it possible to say something sui generis about this city that anyone would care to listen to?  

What is it I usually want to say?  I want to point out that it isn’t what it seems.  What is?  I want to point out that it wasn’t always this way.  What was?  I need to clarify that my own thoughts on the city have changed over time.  I used to think this.  Perhaps you are thinking something like this?  Well, twenty-four years on, I don’t think that way any more. 

Sitting at a lovely dinner, one more time, overlooking the bend in the Huangpu, I feel myself rifling through my stock epiphanies:  “The Cantonese people are the risk takers, fShanghai is the classic ‘second mover.’  When they know it is safe, they come in twice as strong.”  Is that really true?  True for whom?  I can confirm this stereotype with an anecdote or two.  I can certainly find people who agree with me.  But these days, with 20+ million people in Beijing and 20+ million people in Shanghai and 60+ million people in the Pearl River Delta, only a small fraction of whom were born there, to parents who were also born there, to what extent is there much of any distinct civic character left to any of these places?

Reading about Donald Trump and his latest ranting about banning Muslims entry to the country.  Having to sift through more than one front page article that labors to explain why this is properly defined as demagoguery, which once again points out that Ted Cruz is cravenly drafting off of Trump’s tailwind, having to rifle through the obligatory quotes of other elected officials who point out the obvious fact that this is all well beneath what the country is supposed to stand for.  Our Berlusconi, our rich blowhard, who channels so many people’s unfiltered fears, loudly, indefensibly.  Hate rising.  Craving a playground tough to go and deflate this blowhard and leave him embarrassed, finally, without any clothing.