a city in metamorphosis

i bet very few people are aware that to "shanghai" someone is to take that person against his will into compulsory service. Well in a way the city of Shanghai in China is kind of like a city that is infusing economic prosperity and modernity into its veins and yet the place's will to preserve its faithfulness to their traditional roots continue to coagulate the domination of the red blood cells of modernization eventhough much of the city has become very Westernized...

There are many beautiful places in the most Westernized city of China so they say and yet there continues to be some areas that need improvement here...not that I'm saying that the Philippines is extremely perfect hahaha!!! For example some of the facilities of their restaurants and establishments are still a bit crude and perhaps maybe trespass many sanitary fences. For a modern city there is a pervading atmosphere to simply let things be as they are, even if it means risk of mediocrity or lack of sophistication...

Many young people in this city can speak very decent English, and most if not all stores have Western brands on their shelves now and yet probably close to a dozen to one is the ratio of poor-English speakers to those who can use the universal tongue. The Western brand products on a closer examination will bear frustratingly indecipherable hieroglyphic-esque Chinese letters which to my frustration do not indicate whether they are hypo-allergenic or 20% non-fat or 30%more calcium LOL. Again this is also a subtle sign of the pervading resistance to the adaptation of a new language (well in my view at least of which I may be wrong as some Chinese people may be simply lacking motivation to study English or the resources to go to good schools) ...

If there is a biologically symbolic description I can make of the city of Shanghai it is that of a caterpillar surging slowly with a wing, and an antennae half out of its cocoon and yet the remaining body parts left in the shapeless sac of its traditional existence. Some of its organs have embraced the total transformation afforded it by the economic processes governing the financial world these days. But not all of its physical systems have accepted the forces of change though . The rather weird reality may be that these remaining appendages and parts choose and want to remain in the fetal safety of their silk envelope instead of desiring to transfigure to complete the whole metamorphosis.

(Pictures to follow in the next entry.... Love you guys!!!! )