A good way to see how a place changes is to go there once every two or three years and stay two or three weeks at a time. I always tell people that Shanghai is wildly different each time I visit; on past trips I’ve been aware of the country playing catch-up to the US both technologically and pop-culturally. I’ve estimated in my head the number of years I felt China was “behind” when it came to stream services, online shopping, blockbuster films, craft breweries and third-wave coffee shops, the memeiness of its social media.
This trip, however, was the first time I felt China had not only caught up but surpassed the States in ways – the first time I felt that by being there, I was legitimately glimpsing the future. Here are some things I noticed:
- Delivery services. The boom in and sheer scale of delivery services seems like what Amazon is aspiring to do in the States. My mom orders fish on JD.com late at night for a friend’s elderly parent and it gets delivered fresh the next morning, at very little cost. On a different day I see a group of silver-and-blue-uniformed couriers checking their phones on the stoop of a dumpling shop, their insulation-crated electric scooters parked like savannah creatures around a watering hole.
- Mobile payments. Almost everyone was using their phones to pay for the Metro (whereas a majority on my last visit were still using their transit cards). According to my parents, some local vendors have stopped accepting cash altogether. Ever time we go out to eat I hear asked, “Do I scan you or do you scan me?” I even see two beggars walking up and down the subway cars, phones in hand, holding up their WeChat payment codes asking people to zap them money.
- Fast homegoods (as opposed to fast fashion ). At pretty much every mall or retail venue there’s at least one Miniso -or-similar store. These are China-made products, designed by Japanese(Miniso), South Korean(Mumuso), or Swedish(Nōme) designers. It’s like if you took the stationery and cosmetics from Muji, the underwear from Uniqlo, small kitchen items from IKEA, slapped on a couple branded partnerships like Pantone or Peppa Pig, and housed everything in a small-ish retail space at dollar store prices. It’s kind of what Amazon Basics and Brandless are doing here, but in physical retail instead of only online. (I am, by the way, now in possession of a Jake-from-Adventure-Time car-vent-clipped scent diffuser that smells of white peach.)
- Security cameras. Are everywhere, and even greater in number than I remember. It’s not just the municipal, government-run ones; my parents’ apartment complex and ones nearby now have active cameras at the main gate that photograph you and use facial recognition software to make sure you’re a resident. I’d see their flash bulbs going off as I walked to the apartment (and would then just use the unmonitored side gate).
