“Go to the Bund at 7am! Watch the people do exercises on the riverbanks! Or in the leafy parks! So lovely and tranquil!”
Yeah, no. I work for a living and on my days off the last thing I want to do is get up and go out that early to gawp at people doing their morning exercises in a very touristy location where hawkers will try to sell me fruit on a stick as I watch the elderly stretch.
I will admit to being a paparazzo of the mundane at the best of times, but I am also selfishly lazy. And besides, people exercise everywhere in Shanghai. I’ve seen clusters of middle aged women doing aerobics in front of the All Days convenience store down the street at 8pm, lit by street lights and the glare from inside the shop. As well, my job has me up and out of the house at 6:30am three times a week.
On my walk through the former French Concession en route to the metro station, I pass by a half dozen octogenerians doing light stretches against the sidewalk railings or indulging in spurts of speedwalking or swinging and slapping their arms in qi-positive ways.
T'ai Chi outside Zhongshanbeilu metro station
When I emerge from the metro in North Shanghai at 7:15am, in a neighbourhood populated by older high rises, hundreds of tiny shops and street vendors, a very imposing elevated expressway and its many arms, and very little greenery or gringos in sight (except me), there is always a group of people doing their exercises at the exit.
Sometimes the group is so large that some do their exercises in the entrance, on the top landing of the exit staircase, alongside the umbrella vendors and motorcycle taxi hustlers.
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