Western Culture (1)

8/31/06 – Today I attended a coffee morning organized by the American Women’s Club of Shanghai at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Xintiandi. Xiantiandi is the upscale tourist area of Shanghai. It is neat and pleasant and old-looking, with upscale shops and restaurants, as well as a mall containing designer shops, nice restaurants and a cinema that shows American films. It is just down the street from the site of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, shown with a red star on all the maps. I knew that I needed to meet more people, and this was the obvious place to start – I’m an American woman, after all. The membership year starts September 1, and the dues are only $25, so what could I lose? At the very least I’d have some conversations in English with people whose goal was to do the same.

I had suspected that these would for the most part be wives of multinational executives, and I wasn’t wrong, but they aren’t all wealthy stay-at-homes. Some are retired, some have given up their jobs to live in Shanghai, some are working here, and yes, some are globetrotting moms who move whenever hubby’s career demands it. They aren’t even all American – I met a Swedish woman, a Danish woman, and a Hong Kong Chinese woman who moved here from the bay area and attended UC Berkeley. It does seem as if the families with children live in the suburbs, while those with no kids or grown kids live in town. There was a suggestion, agreed to by the group, that we meet at Starbucks, an American company, on future Thursdays – apparently only people from California know that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is based in Los Angeles – since we all have Starbucks stock in our portfolios, don’t we? But hey – I’m from Berkeley and I don’t expect to be like anyone else. And actually I think Starbucks coffee is better.