Found: One Shanghai slum

MAY 10, 2008: For a time, i remember arrogantly thinking that where we live is as bad as Shanghai gets.

There's a bridge about 3 minutes walk away, down where the canal over our back fence runs into the Dingpu ("Sediment Beach" according to my chosen interpretation of two multi-meaningful characters) River. I walked down there today to take some photos. On the opposite side of the bridge is a green, tree-lined boulvard with spanking new 25-storey apartment towers. The smooth, new concrete surface of the boulevard continues across the bridge, and stops abruptly at my side of the bridge. On this side, it's muddy, rock-strewn and bumpy.

That's not to say this is what the roads are like on "my side" of the canal - they're mostly quite good - it's just that the good roads on this side don't link up with the good bridge. This little corner has been wholly left to fester.


In the corner bordered by the canal and the river, there's a guy arranging his scrap wood into large stacks in the corner formed by the waterways. Past him there are more piles of scrap wood leading down to some kind of factory. And some of these piles of scrap wood, i discovered as i walked through, are actually people's houses. Houses made from plywood, chipboard, cardboard and tree branches, with curtains for doors. Oily carpet lies submerged in the mud. Not a window to be seen.

Two women in jeans and t-shirts chatted outside their shanties. Loud conversation in some dialect emanated from a pile next to the canal. I asked a couple of blokes if i could get through to the other side. Beaming, and insisting my Chinese was perfect, he gave me directions.

Despite this friendliness (no different to anywhere else) i just couldn't pull out the camera. Sure the scene was poignant to me, and perhaps to others of a similar persuasion, but the people already have so little privacy without me poking around, let along taking pictures. Am i projecting my own opinion of their houses onto them? Perhaps, but i have to think they'd be all too aware of their predicament, given the high-rise towers all around which close to the whole population of the city, not just the rich people, live in. It's not so much that i think they should feel ashamed of anything - hell i think poverty's virtue in many ways i won't go into - but that in China's vicious Darwinistic society, i have every reason to think they themselves would feel ashamed.

This is compounded by the fact most Chinese people can't see why anyone would take a picture of anything "not beautiful".


I'm sure there are plenty of worthy photographers and journalists out there - far more worthy than the waste of space that's me - who would just barge right in, grill people about the abominable state of things, and snap away with the camera in the name of the greater good. But for me, to do slum photos/stories right is to know the background of the area first, not to talk to people purely because they're the only ones who have to shit outside.

In the countryside, where everyone shits outside, it was different: the photos i took out there were of normal daily life, rather than an enclave of deprivation in a city of relative wealth. Even in the most backwards of places, peasants, i don't think, would feel as put down or scrutinised when a foreigner takes photos as they travel around seeing the land.

Now sure, compared to the next-worst kind of dwelling - our kind pretty much - the slum is horrific. But in truth, with 200 million or more migrant workers it's quite a miracle there aren't more of them in China. If i can find out the reasons for this one's existence i'll go back and talk to the residents about the place. It's most likely the lack of low-cost housing...hmmm i guess that would make me responsible, according to my instinctive pissweak liberal way of seeing things. Grrrrrrrgh get some China into ya son! Obviously i haven't been in here long enough.