Text mad...

          Today my flaneurial duties have drawn me to the luxurious and highly impressive surrounds of a brand new Mall of four floors standing on the edge of the main junction into Chang An. It seems very salubrious and swanky, decorated tastefully with hanging sculptures dangling from the type of roof one that would have made Frank Lloyd Wright proud. Indeed, the whole design of the mall reminds one of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. No doubt this particular architect owes much of his inspiration to the genius of Mr Wright. So close are the features to Wright's design that one could be excused for imagining that the designer in question simply copied the ideas...perish the thought!

          Circumstances dictate a limited choice of watering holes in this monument to commerce, so I find myself taking an Americano and a glass of water in a franchise of a particularly global, tax-dodging American enterprise. Oddly, when I asked for 'yi bai shui' (a cup of water) the waitress proceeded, as per normal, to put ice cubes in the cup, followed, as is usual here, with hot water (the Chinese rarely drink their water cold). Very strange....

          Fortunately, this particular shopping mall seems to be equipped with a very efficient air cleaning system as normally, on this particular junction, one does well if one can refrain from coughing for more than three minutes. I have had the misfortune of having had to wait for buses on several occasions at this particular environmental black-spot. It could not be defined as a pleasant experience.

          Getting to the bus stop in the first place is a life threatening experience in itself involving, as it does, the crossing of eight lanes of traffic. The traffic is 'controlled', and I use the word in the loosest possible sense, by traffic lights. For many drivers the prohibition of the red light seems to be merely optional, for taxi drivers it is like a red rag to a bull. They are more likely to accelerate than slow down in response to such a provocation. Added to this, it would seem that no law at all applies to the bicyclists (many electric powered these days, silent assassins ...) and motorised rickshaw wallahs who quite happily proceed in the opposite direction to the main stream of traffic – quite comical at times... if it wasn't quite so terrifying. This trepidatious pedestrian feels himself in mortal peril each and every time he has the misfortune to have to cross that particular road.

          Inside the café, I sit and chat with a friend whilst observing a group of five youngsters, probably around 15 years of age, sitting around a table together. None of them though is actually talking to another but all are absorbed in the process of texting on their smart phones. This is a very common sight in China and, to be fair, almost everywhere else one goes in the World these days where these devices are readily available and affordable. By the look of things, these youngsters seem to be involved in earnest text conversations with friends not currently present. I often wonder in such circumstances if, when they finally meet up with the friend they are texting, they will then spend that time texting the friends they are currently with!?

          Apparently a whole new form of etiquette has formed around the question of the answering of text messages,  American youngsters in particular being prone to its demands. It seems to receive one and not to respond is considered the height of rudeness. The fear of being accused of such a social faux pas has lead youngsters to going to bed with their phones next to the pillows, ever ready to answer such profound enquiries as 'Are you  still awake?'

          Once more, it seems that the thing we think we own somehow ends up owning us...

          It is a decidedly odd paradox in modern life that seems to occur with alarming regularity: devices described as 'labour saving' or 'time saving' commonly have the opposite effect. Mobile phones were touted as saving us time and the need to be near a static phone – the reality has been that there is now nowhere to escape to if you have such a device (I often leave mine turned off ...).
 The wealthiest societies around the world are equipped with many such 'time saving' devices and yet the more they own the less time people actually seem to have. The opposite is also true, if you look at the 'poorer' societies in the World, the lack of such devices as phones, cars, computers, washing up machines, etc., etc., actually seems to magically leave them with more time. A very curious state of affairs.

          This paradox also applies to town and country. The places where most time saving devices are concentrated, i.e. cities, are at one and the same time the most frenetic and often least pleasant places, where people seem to be in a headlong rush to get ... where exactly?

          I take another sip of coffee and observe one of the youngsters now staring at the screen of his device whilst swishing his thumbs back and forth across the surface as it makes little beeps and whistles. He is strangely absorbed and yet at the same time agitated, gradually getting more and more animated in his reactions, his lips curling into agonised grimaces, limbs occasionally jerking to one side or the other in an attempt to control some process or another. One feels like telling him, if my Mandarin were good enough (which it is not) that he is looking at flashing lights on a tiny screen which is making rather silly little noises ... it really doesn't matter that much. I would guess the reaction would not be a pleasant one!

Wiser to keep my counsel methinks...

          This coffee shop is quietly efficient but could be located anywhere on the planet. Indeed, much the same could be said of the shopping centre itself. A mall, is a mall, is a mall – this one a particularly fine example of the flattening effect of the globalisation. It is clean, anonymous and ... completely without character, other than at the most banal and superficial level.  The idea of 'Globalisation' itself has become one of the sacred cows, much like such erroneous and socially damaging ideas as subjecting every aspect of life to 'market forces'. Its effects have created a world wherein, once one finds oneself in such a mall, one could be anywhere on the planet.

          As someone who considers himself something of a nomad, I tend to treasure the differences between places, peoples and cultures. In this way, it is sad to see the world getting smaller and smaller and less and less diverse. The whole planet appears to be settling into a globalised culture that is increasingly fast but equally, increasingly shallow and terribly anonymising. People reduced to being mere consumers, forever rushing around, whipped into a frenzy by manipulative and ruthless advertising, fearful that they will lose out on the latest 'bargain'. There seems (fortunately, only seems ... ) to be but one game in town, and much like the computer game that is obsessing my fellow customer, it is a pretty superficial and banal game at best.

          My young fellow customer has finally finished swishing away at his screen and now has returned to his texting duties. I have been writing for quite some time now but scarcely have any words have passed between the group of youngsters sitting at the nearby table.

          Ah, the joys of the dizzy social world of modern youth...