Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Aside from its being chaotic and timeworn, what troubled Wang Qiyao about this era of Weiwei and her friends was its vulgarity. The streets are suddenly flooded with people spouting profanities and spitting everywhere. On Sunday the deafening noise and the surging crowds inundating the shopping districts are terrifying. You feel afraid that if you made one wrong move, you would be drowned in this ocean of humanity. With bicycles and cars zigzagging every which way, it is frightening to cross the street, each step is a challenge. All the elegance of old Shanghai seems to have been wiped out by a violent storm. Everything has become a challenge — taking a bus, going shopping, getting a shower, having one’s hair cut — all involve doing battle with the crowds. The arguments and fights that break out on the streets make the environment even more unsettling. Only a few quiet streets remain in the whole city, but even when you are strolling there under the shade of the trees, quietude seems elusive.

Food served in Western-style restaurants has also deteriorated. The plates and cups are all chipped, stained and crusted with bits of caked-on food, and seem not to have been washed in twenty years. The chef’s apron, spattered with grease, likewise looks as if it has not been washed for at least twenty years. The cream was made the day before and the potato salad is already spoiled. At the tables, the old leather seats have been replaced by manmade material, and fresh flowers with plastic ones. Secret recipes for Western-style pastries are disclosed, and suddenly you can buy them everywhere, but none are authentic. Chinese restaurants rely on lard and MSG to season their dishes — the flavor is strong enough to take the hair off your eyebrows. Eateries jack up their prices for giving out hot washcloths, and even more for service with a smile. The vegetable-and-lard fried rice at Ronghua House is either watery or burnt; the soup dumplings at the Qiao Family Restaurant either leak or else are short of stuffing. The varieties of mooncakes sold during Mid-Autumn Festival have expanded many times over, but if you were to break open one of the most standard variety, you would find that no one has even bothered to remove the shells from the beans before making the paste filling.

The shoulders and back on Western-style suits no longer drape properly; neckties are worn all over the streets, but the fabric from which they are made is mediocre and even the facing is third rate. Young girls wear their hair long, and it is disheveled for lack of proper care. The heels of their shoes have been jacked up in defiance of the principles of physics, so nine out of ten heels are crooked and the girls wobble around perilously as if walking on stilts. Nothing could escape the prevailing crudeness and mediocrity in the general rush to produce instant results. Looking back, Wang Qiyao felt that people were much better off during the Cultural Revolution, when they had to wear the same blue cloth jackets rather than these outlandish outfits that did not fit them. At least back then they had the elegance of simplicity.

One could barely stand to look at the street scenes of Shanghai, which, having been suppressed, now erupted in a fiery ball of noise and clamor. They say that everything has returned to its former condition. But what comes back is not what was once there but something else. You can make out only the faintest outline of what it used to be. The neon lights are flashing again, but the night has changed; the old store signs are back up, but the stores are not what they once were; the street names have been changed back, but the pedestrians on those streets bear no resemblance to the people who once walked there.

Even so, Weiwei had a deep fondness for her era. After all, who doesn’t like the era in which they live? It is not a matter of choice; even if you don’t like it, you’d better learn to, because once it is gone, there is nothing left. Weiwei was not exposed to any radical ideas — her every move was in pace with the times. Virtually everyone in Shanghai was in step with the era, sometimes even driving it on. The tide was overpowering. Who could tell what kinds of crazy things Weiwei would have done if she didn’t have Wang Qiyao to pick on from time to time? As she walked along the crowded streets, her heart swelled with joy for having been born during this glorious time. When she saw her own blurry image reflected in the storefront windows, that was the shape of modernity. She was always in a good mood because she was able to project all of her unhappiness onto her mother. If she was upset at home, the moment she stepped out the door she would be all smiles. The streets were hers and she had the right to say anything she wanted. What she hated seeing most were provincial people from outside Shanghai; she always gave them dirty looks. As far as she was concerned, being one of those people must have been the cruelest fate one could endure. So besides the satisfaction she got from being born to her generation, she was also very proud of her city. Her lips bubbled over with all the latest hip expressions; when she spoke like that at home Wang Qiyao could not understand a word of what she said, but the vulgarity disgusted her. Out in the streets Weiwei was always full of spunk. Anyone who might happen to step on her foot was in for a scene — and heaven forbid if that person happened to be from out-of-town. Most people don’t dare mess with girls her age — cocky, supercilious, sarcastic, and full of themselves. But if they were to cross paths with a few hooligans looking for trouble, that would be another story. That is why they always traveled in groups of four or five. And if one of them happened to have a boyfriend, their haughtiness would know no bounds — what you would call “fearing nothing and no one.”

Weiwei and the other girls of her generation who own the streets of Shanghai have one quality never displayed by previous generations — gluttony. Looking carefully, you will see that, virtually without exception, they are always chewing on something with a look of pleasure etched on their faces. Their lips and teeth are abnormally nimble, adept at separating sunflower seeds from their shells. Their sensitive tongues can discriminate an endless palette of flavors. Their strong stomachs are able to handle a variety of snacks in addition to the usual three meals a day. Actually, girls from past generations were gluttons too, they just had better sense than to show it; but not anymore. This generation’s gluttony actually endears them to us — they are almost cute. In the movie theaters those noises of mice nibbling in the night are today’s modern girls munching away. They don’t pretend to have good manners, for theirs is a bold new attitude. If you can leave your ego aside and put up with their unforthcoming demeanor, you will be able to make friends with them before long, and then you will have someone with whom to exchange all of your thoughts about modernity.

Another characteristic of these modern girls is their propensity for making a scene. Wherever they go, they like to announce their presence with nonstop chattering, like a nestful of magpies. Most of them have clear, high-pitched voices and take special pleasure in laughing out loud. They don’t like to reveal their deepest thoughts at home, saving that for when they are out in the open, and half of what they say ends up being overheard by someone else. Their agile mouths are good not only for eating, but also for talking. Even those gossipy old amahs are no match for them, munching away in between their chitchat. One marvels how their tongues can keep up with all that talking and eating. But most of what they say is of little consequence; scarcely a word of all their prattle remains when they are done. But the girls of today have simple, sincere hearts; with the obstinacy of peasants, they set their sights on the road to modernity, and nothing will stop them.