Filed under: Comment
Shanghai is a fascinating place.
Not just for the culture and the energy, but for the people who walk around the streets.
The W+K office is in the French Concession part of town.
It’s a mad, bustling area … where poncey cafes and overpriced hairdressers rub shoulders with frog soup restaurants, dodgy bars and street sellers flogging everything from insects, pirate DVD’s and the cheapest [financially and metaphorically] fake products you’ve ever seen in your life.
Maybe that’s why the pavements around are offices are littered with colourful characters.
In just the last week I have seen the following:
1. People walking around in their pyjamas.
2. A man in surgeon’s gear, on a bike, smoking with a cape flapping behind him.
3. A man having a coffee outside at a cafe, with a real, live hawk attached to his arm.
4. A crowd of people gathered around a tortoise that was wearing a bow.
5. Three elderly women walking backwards flapping their arms around.
6. A woman pulling a huge and heavy cart with a man fast asleep in the back of it.
And you know what’s weird, only the man with the bird on his arm made me raise my eyebrows!!!
Seriously, the sort of human behaviour that result in most cities in the World calling their Armed Response Police Squads to sort out, has become my normality in just over a year.
Now the thing is, I love it.
I love the madness, the craziness, the unexpected … I love it all … but it still sort of peeves me when some pyjama wearing pensioner, walking backwards with a bird of prey on one arm and a tortoise in a bow on the other – while pulling a heavy wooden cart with a load of drunken men in it – looks at me like I’M the one who has escaped the lunatic asylum just because I’m still wearing Birkenstocks when the weather is no longer so hot that even your sweat, sweats.
Hell, I know this city will make me wear shoes at some point – even if it’s [hopefully] for just a couple of days – so I just hope that till then, we can come to some sort of truce where I won’t mention their FUCKINGINSANEOUTDOORCLOTHINGANDBEHAVIOURALHABITS and they turn a blind eye to my FUCKINGINSANEOUTDOORCHOICEOFSHOES.
Thank you, I feel much better now.
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is that weird shit china or you campbell? hadnt fucking thought about that had you.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 6:35 amsomeone somewhere in commieland is writing about some fucked up white guy wearing fucking peasant sandals in the fucking cold rain.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 6:37 amand his fucked up robot collection.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 6:37 amand shit clothes including tshirts with the word “queen” on them which must mean “twat” in english.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 6:39 amHow sweet … you’ve written a story about me over 3 separate tweets. It’s a shit and insulting story – which is to be expected – but it’s nice you’ve taken the effort to write something everyone can enjoy.
Except me. And my Mum.
Comment by Rob October 25, 2011 @ 8:19 amreread point 6. are you describing china or fucking man heaven? sounds fucking great to me so stop your fucking whining planner boy.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 6:40 amYou’ve just explained why you have been keeping divorce lawyers and ex-wives in the style they don’t deserve to be accustomed to.
Comment by Rob October 25, 2011 @ 8:20 amand fucking planners who conned me to go in to fucking business with them. at least the exes made me happy for a few fucking weeks.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 8:30 ammake that days.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 8:31 amin #2s case, make that fucking hours.
still, more happiness from her than you campbell so well done on winning something in your fucking life.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 8:32 amyou in shoes freaks the fuck out of me. thats how much youve fucking fucked with my mind. not enough for me to fucking rate you or planners though. no one is that fucking good.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 6:42 amMy job here is nearly done then. Best bit of planning/manipulation I’ve ever pulled off.
Comment by Rob October 25, 2011 @ 8:22 amnot the only fucking thing youve pulled off campbell. how else could you be some big swinging twat at w+k?
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 8:29 amI know whose side I’m on.
Comment by DH October 25, 2011 @ 6:45 amSorry Rob, but they got me at “hawk”.
Comment by DH October 25, 2011 @ 6:47 amand i thought billy was the only twisted fuck that fancied birds of the feathered kind. fucking pervert.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 6:50 amI only like looking at them, I don’t fuck them. Anymore.
Comment by Billy Whizz October 25, 2011 @ 6:56 amonly because they said no.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 8:29 amI’ve never been to china but I’ve been to nottingham and that weird shit sounds exactly like nottingham.
Comment by Billy Whizz October 25, 2011 @ 6:55 amnottingham doesnt have anything as fucking good as hawk fuckers and the only people pulling a cart would be cart thieves.
Comment by andy@cynic October 25, 2011 @ 7:05 amCart thieves. I hate to say this, but that’s genius.
Comment by Rob October 25, 2011 @ 8:22 amSounds most Beckettian.
Comment by Carol October 25, 2011 @ 7:36 amhttp://accidentalchinesehipsters.tumblr.com/
Comment by niko October 25, 2011 @ 7:36 amYes Niko … and every one of them on there lives around me and points, stares and sniggers at my feet.
Comment by Rob October 25, 2011 @ 8:23 amThey do have a point about your footwear.
Comment by Marcus October 25, 2011 @ 3:47 pmJesus, not only are you not being loyal to me, you’re not being loyal to Germany!!!
Comment by Rob October 25, 2011 @ 5:06 pmYep. In Shaoguan the old ladies in pyjamas were constantly giving me evil eyes…
Also the comedy moment when a lift porter was so surprised to see me he literally exclaimed “Gwei Lo!”
Comment by Rob Mortimer October 27, 2011 @ 4:59 pm