A few months back I received via e-mail a humorous map depicting how Shanghainese regard the rest of China. In the illustration, Henan is the realm of liars, Beijing the place where the sandstorms sweep the land, Hong Kong the mecca of new years’ discounts, Guangdong the perilous terrain where people speak a strange language, and Hainan is but a tropical vacation hotspot. The amusing list goes on. This portrayal of the Shanghainese mindset echoes a prevailing perception in China, making the Shanghainese out to be quite the snobbish and arrogant lot.

“The Shanghainese don’t like outsiders,” I was warned before I made the move to the city. “They are stuck up! They think they are the best.” After spending a number of months in Shanghai, I have found myself reflecting on these remarks. The Shanghainese don’t like outsiders? But who are the Shanghainese? For every local Shanghainese in Shanghai there must be at least five non-Shanghainese living and toiling in this melting pot of a city. Yes, the word “outsider” is an everyday component of local conversation, but that reflects the rapid, multi-faceted growth of the city, which depends on the presence of thousands of migrant workers from across the country and around the world.

Shanghai is a city of outsiders, many of whom come with dreams and ambitions of bettering their chances for a brighter economic future, from the Shandong farmers cum fruit vendors, to construction workers from Anhui, to university graduates from Wuhan and Nanjing, to the countless young foreigners escaping the wrath of the global financial crisis. It is a genuine clash of cultures. Even many local Shanghainese belong to families with roots in the surrounding towns and cities.

Having lived both in Beijing and Shanghai, it seems to me that the Shanghainese do not simply dislike outsiders, they just practice a slightly more elaborate process reconciling a shock of cultural variety.

Shanghai, like in many other international cities, is a city where networking is a sport performed over cocktails and karaoke. I have reconciled that the locals may lack Beijing’s northern hospitality and vigorous friendliness. Instead I have learned to appreciate a break from the stares, and I have learned to cherish my new-found anonymity. It may be true that in Shanghai nobody looks at you twice unless you’re driving a fancy car or carrying a brand name bag. But, if you make regular appearances in your neighborhood grocery store, dry cleaner or local shop, it is no difficult feat to gradually construct relationships with the local Shanghainese and acclimatized “outsiders” alike.

“The Shanghainese worship all things foreign,” some Chinese friends have cautioned me in the past. In Chinese popular culture, we are encouraged to be skeptical of Shanghai’s modern history. Shanghai’s ports were initially forced open to foreign infiltration by the opium wars, marking an era of unequal treaties, international concessions, and foreign extraterritoriality, with the Shanghainese sub-citizens in their own country.

Strangely, the legacies of this foreign history endow Shanghai with its haunting charm. European architecture flanks the Bund, arching trees shade the winding streets of the French concession, and older gentlemen in newly pressed shirts and neatly combed hair stroll through the parks on weekend afternoons.
 
Undeniably, modern Shanghai offers many of the most decadent pleasures you would find in any other world class city such as luxury goods and fine dining, English is widely spoken, and nightlife is a 24/7 affair. But beyond the bright lights of the Bund, and in the alleyways between People’s Square and Xintiandi lurk images of a China that could easily be identified as snapshots of any other Chinese city, where people don’t eat Western food, or drive Maseratis or carry LV bags. These Shanghainese have likely never travelled very far beyond Shanghai’s city limits, if not to a neighbouring province, and they are all proud to be Shanghainese, simply because this is the city where they have made their lives, and where they have invested their hopes and dreams. Shanghai is their home.

The author is a Shanghai-based freelance writer