Last week, my article on one of Shanghai’s last handcrafted wok makers came out in CNNGo. My foreigner friends in China reacted with enthusiasm. Many e-mailed me to say they were going to buy one before Cen Rong Gen closes shop, sometime next year. For them, the old iron woks were an important relic of the city’s past, a handcrafted item to be treasured. “What a shame!” they’d exclaim.
It was quite a contrast from the reaction of my 50-something Shanghainese neighbor. When I had proudly brought home two of the woks I’d purchased, she looked at me blankly, obviously confused.
“Why would you want that?” she asked. “Don’t you already have a nice new one?”
Sure, I explained, I had one of the $50 glossy, Teflon-coated ones I bought at the international grocery. But this was something special, something you couldn’t find at Carrefour or Wal-Mart, or any of the other massive chains sweeping Shanghai.
“But you have to take so much extra care of it,” she persisted. “It rusts easily. You have to season it. I just don’t understand why you’d want that.”
When she was younger, she explained, those were the only kind of woks you could find in Shanghai. But, now there are so many more convenient options. It didn’t make sense for people of her generation. Now that you could choose new, why would you retreat into the past?
Our differing opinions on old vs. new is something you see a lot in China. There’s a gap of sorts between the older Chinese who value anything new and the foreigners and some younger Chinese who are eager to savor pieces of the rapidly changing city’s past. We lament the demolition of old buildings. They celebrate the glory of modernity.
When I moved into a restored 1930s old house, many of my Chinese friends were surprised: Why would you live in a lao fangzi when you can afford a shiny new high rise?
For now, most of China is content plowing forward to the future. They’re not interested in clinging to a relic of the past, even if it’s something as impressive to foreigners as a wok completely crafted by hand.
Photo by Augapfel
