A Night in Shanghai

 

 

In the 1990s, before my mother had Alzheimer’s disease, one of my mother’s friends built a factory in Shanghai. My mother was invited to the opening ceremony of the factory. I went with her.

After the ceremony, I was free to do whatever I wanted. In Japan, there are many movies and songs about Shanghai. I thought it was a wonderful place. Roaming around a wonderful city might be great! I thought. I started to walk from the hotel.

As soon as I came out of the hotel, many people looked at me and said in Japanese, “Watch! Watch! DVD! DVD!”

I was surrounded by sellers. I thought they could tell I was a Japanese traveler because I had come from a hotel. If I had mingled with the crowd, no one could have guessed that I was a Japanese traveler.

Then I started to run, but when I stopped at a different block of the town, more sellers screamed at me in Japanese, “Watch! Watch!” or “DVD! DVD!”

I couldn’t escape from the sellers. I couldn’t roam around the city. I returned to the hotel. How can these sellers tell that I am Japanese? I thought.

A few years later, I started to study Chinese. I asked my Chinese teacher about the incident.

She answered, “It’s because of your clothes and motions.”

These days, there are many people from China in Japan, but I can’t tell who’s Japanese and who’s Chinese based on their clothes and motions. If a person starts to speak in Chinese, then I can tell that the person is Chinese. Can people really guess others’ nationalities based on their clothes and motions?

I live in the Aichi prefecture in Japan. I have met a person who insisted that she could tell between people from the west or east side of Aichi. I find it hard to believe that.

I talked with a man who had traveled to India for a few months. His story went like this. In the beginning of his trip, people in India treated him as a Japanese traveler. He ate the local food, wore local clothes, and talked with local people. He really mingled with the people in India. At the end of his trip, people at the hotel or airport didn’t believe that he was Japanese.

If I could, I would want to travel with a long-range plan.

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Picture by Glowonconcept