Teaching Shanghai Manners

I think I already made a few references to the fact that a lot of the people in Shanghai are really rude. To be fair, in Shanghai they just have a different set of cultural norms than at home but it just seems unpleasant from an American perspective.

They throw garbage everywhere. They scream and fight with each other in the supermarket because someone bumped someone else. The shove their way in front of a crowded elevator so the people inside can’t get out. They don’t consider it poor manners to pick their noses, spit, burp or urinate in public.

I saw an elderly guy peeing in the bushes the other day in broad daylight while I waited for a bus. In New York sometimes it happens at 2 am when people are drunk but not in broad daylight when people are around. Some people from work have had taxi drivers who told them to wait a minute while they got out to pee on the street by their car.

Yesterday one of my Chinese co-workers was picking her nose during a meeting and she noticed me looking at her and kept right on going. Even if the etiquette rules are just different here, I’m skeeved out a lot of the time.

Shanghai is filthy in a lot of ways as a result of the people’s habits. The stores and supermarkets (except the fancy ones marketed to expats) are filthy. And the drivers here are frightening… way worse than New York.

For some bizarre reason Danny is sure he can teach drivers proper manners. As we are walking along if a car cuts us off Danny will smack their car as they drive past to let them know what a jerk they are being. I’ve seen him do it in Philly and New York two or three times. Here it seems to occur once or twice per ten minute walk. It always makes me nervous when he does it and I worry he’ll piss someone off.

Last night he proved it was a bad idea when he tapped the car of this guy who nearly ran us over. The guy stopped abruptly on the side of the road and began chasing Danny yelling in Chinese and trying to punch him. Danny held him off with one hand (cause he wasn’t a very big guy) and Danny was fine. I, on the other hand, was completely freaked out and made Danny promise never to do that to a car ever again.

I think it is incidents like this that cause a lot of expats I have met to talk about Shanghai locals in a way that is quite disparaging. At times it really borders on sounding racist. I don't know about other parts of Asia but the culture of America and other western nations just leads to a better quality of life than in Shanghai. In the states and Europe things just feel cleaner and safer. Try as Danny might, you just can’t teach Shanghai manners.