My Evolving Thoughts on Gentrification
I thought I would write a post on my evolving feelings about gentrification.
Gentrification is undeniably a good thing. But it will come as no surprise to many people reading this that it’s undeniably a bad thing too. When I moved to this area of Shanghai ten years ago, it was full of “useful” shops: little supermarkets, dry cleaners, hardware suppliers. But now all the practical shops are being priced out, replaced by flashy fashion boutiques, expensive coffee shops, and quirky speciality stores designed to appeal to the browsing Chinese tourist. What used to feel like living in a special community can sometimes feel like living in Times Square. I now need to walk a good few blocks to find my nearest key-cutter or greengrocer, and I just lost another local shop to an upcoming… Pingu store.
I guess it’s better than watching your local high street empty out and fall into disrepair, we all know plenty of neighbourhoods like that. But I’m starting to understand the feelings of the outpriced and the overlooked - the original resident who feels outpaced by the March of the Penguins - opinions I might previously have discounted as retrograde. It’s taken living in one place for a decade for me to realise this.
So let this post be my public apology for being so late to the game with this sentiment. And a public lament for all the lost little cafés, jianbing stalls and boba tea shops. The secret’s out about our cute little neighbourhood in Shanghai.
🐧🐧🐧
For the Instagram version, see here.
For the LinkedIn version, see here.
Surly Teenagers in a Mall
I’m posing like a surly teenager whose parents have allowed them to go to the local mall. Because that’s exactly how it feels like to be in Shanghai right now. We’ve been granted more freedom, but we still don’t have any agency, and there still isn’t much to do. So you end up mainly shuffling around like listless teenagers, bemoaning authority figures and their stupid rules. Some of our friends keep getting ‘grounded’ at home, and the same might happen to us, for reasons our teenage brains can’t process. It’s, like, so unfair.
So when people ask me how I’m doing, I usually find myself answering just like a teenager. I mumble something about being ‘OK’, while it’s quite clear that I’m being antisocial, short-tempered and petulant. But putting one foot after the other and ‘getting on with it’ is how I survived my teenage years, and that’s what I’m doing now. It’s an awkward phase I’m going through.
For the Instagram version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
For the LinkedIn version, see here.
Retail Therapy
I’m feeling crap about the state of the world right now. So the only antidote I know to momentarily ease this existential angst is to post photos of the latest trend in China retail: brand names that sound like someone clearing their throat. 😷
For the Instagram version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
Coffeeshop Flags
In case you STILL didn’t think I was a nerd... I spent twenty minutes in Costa Coffee testing myself on the identity of these flags. And I got them all correct. 🤓🤓🤓 (Answers below.)
Answers from front to back:
Niger, Bahrain, Lesotho, Micronesia, United Nations, Cape Verde, Cuba, Turkmenistan, Marshall Islands, Bangladesh, Guyana, Panama, Macedonia, Maldives, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Finland, North Korea, Guinea, Austria, Djibouti, Sao Tome e Principe, Cook Islands, Mongolia, Bhutan, Mali, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Liechtenstein, Scotland, Somalia, Sweden, Bahamas, Andorra, Australia, United Kingdom, Afghanistan, France, Brunei, Morocco, China, Germany, Chile, Kenya, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Ireland, Samoa, United Arab Emirates, Ghana, Chad, Fiji, Greece, South Korea, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Slovenia, Spain, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, El Salvador, Singapore, Bulgaria, Canada, United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Liberia, South Africa, Argentina, Uruguay, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Dominican Republic, Burundi.
And here are the flags that I always find most difficult to differentiate:
🇸🇳🇲🇱🇬🇳 (Senegal vs. Mali vs. Guinea),
🇲🇩🇦🇩🇹🇩🇷🇴 (Moldova vs. Andorra vs. Chad vs. Romania, I don’t even know the difference between Chad and Romania),
🇵🇱🇮🇩🇲🇨 (Poland vs Indonesia vs. Monaco. Monaco is longer than Indonesia.)
🇮🇪🇨🇮 (Ireland vs. Ivory Coast)
🇻🇪🇪🇨🇨🇴(Venezuela vs. Ecuador vs. Colombia)
🇱🇺🇳🇱 (Luxembourg vs. Netherlands. NL blue is darker.)
🇸🇮🇸🇰 (Slovenia vs. Slovakia)
For the Instagram version, see here.