"Better city, better life" by the numbers.

Between leaving one job, starting a new one, leaving one city and moving back to another, the past month has been a bit of a whirlwind. And I realize it’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted, so I’m going to try to start May off right with a few more postings. So far, the new job has been going well. I’m staying busy for the most part editing (they prefer the term “polishing”) and rewriting Chinesey English stories for the Expo.

What is this Expo you ask? Well, it’s the newer, hipper way of calling it a World’s Fair... And yes, there are still World’s Fairs. Of course, this Expo has been the talk of China ever since the Beijing Olympics. The Chinese in Shanghai love it, while the rest don’t really know what it is. And the foreigners here take it for what it is: multibillion dollar PR scheme.

I can’t really bash the Expo, seeings how my move back to Shanghai and new job were centered around Shanghai’s shinning six-month shindig. But this venture is costing China from $4 billion to 45 billion dollars. Reports vary depending on the inclusion of infrastructure costs in and around Shanghai. CS Monitor did a helpful break down here. Yet, China still faces a lot of other problems. They’re not spending billions of dollars on the drought, food safety and control, education initiatives or implementing proper building codes.

What has been even more shocking to me reading all these news reports about this expo is that of the 70 million expected to come to the Expo, less than 10 percent are from outside of China. So the vast majority of these visitors will be from China. I have a hard time understanding why all this money has been pumped into Shanghai when its just going to be all these people from cities here in China going to the event. Most cities, even second tier cities, are not even close to being as developed as Shanghai. Case and point, Nanjing’s second subway line just recently opened while Shanghai has 13 and counting. When these people from these other Chinese cities come to Shanghai to see just how developed it is, wouldn’t you think that they would be a little upset that this money was spent on frivolities (like brand new taxis with leather seats for one)?

Sure, not all the money spent on the Expo covered extravagances. With 18+ million people, infrastructure needed to be improved. And I will concede that I don’t know where the money to pay for this Expo has come from. Maybe its been from the municipal government, in which case they have no obligation to spend that money on anyone but themselves. But I’m not sure the city of Shanghai is making $40 billion in profits to afford this new kind of luxury.

I guess I just find this whole idea of spending billions on the Expo as really backward. It seems as if China has spent all this money just to show off to its own people its arrival into the “developed world.” Wouldn’t improving water quality so that people can actually drink tap water be a better sign of a “better life?” Wouldn’t improved and enforced building codes in cities be a sign of real economic development? And wouldn’t being able to go to a restaurant without the fear of tainted chopsticks, recycled cooking oil or cardboard meat be a real draw for tourists to China?

Don't get me wrong - I think there are some positive things with this Expo (which I will address in the next post). And maybe the Chinese who make their way to the Expo will leave hoping that their city may one day be as developed as Shanghai. I would certainly like to know, and I hope I get a chance to find out. But while Shanghai may now be a “better city,” for the rest of China, it’s not really a “better life.”