During one of my last days in Shanghai, I went for a photography walk through some of the last remaining Shikumen of the city. One, the famous Xintiandi, has been restored and, as we all know, is one of the more popular shopping, dining and drinking places of Shanghai.
The Shikumen were not originally meant to be watering holes. They were housing styles that emerged in the 1860s, combining elements of Chinese and Western architectural styles. The Shikumen were — are — row houses that are interconnected by narrow alleys. The entrance to each alley is a stylized stone archway. What you see above, is one such alley way.
Of course, in the Chinese social style, the shikumen areas had their central courtyard, to allow for small, local social gatherings.stylized
The picture below, is that of a lady who lives in one of these 'apartments' in one of the shikumen. Her cooking vessels, her stove are in the landing on the staircase. In her case, all the dwellers on her floor have their cooking systems neatly laid out next to each other on the same landing. It would appear that they cook together at times, but keep their gas connections, vegetable stocks, vessels in clearly demarcated areas to avoid conflict.
In a different sense of sharing, when I was looking at the basins in the alley way, and the water pipes leading to each basin, I noticed that each water pipe had its own colour marking. The family to whom the blue colour coded pipe (for example) belonged would only use the basin connected to the blue colour coded pipe.
What impressed me a lot were the elaborate systems that were adopted by the people living in the Shikumen, to ensure that they continue to live in harmony, and do not infringe upon each other's territories. This is important, I would assume, for people who are living in crowded places.
The Chinese, by their nature, believe in harmony. I have often heard expressions of 'the harmonious society', when I was in China. To that extent, we Indians are a lot more individualistic, and we do tend to resemble pirates, to some extent. Every man for himself is a much stronger creed in India than it is in China. This may not have been the case in ancient India, but I could hazard a guess that, with years of external threat in our history, I can only assume that we developed a highly evolved survival instinct in our genes.
However, while I have never been into a Bombay chawl, which is similar in concept, but not in style, I have been told that the residents have evolved systems and practises that allow them to live in harmony with each other.
If I were a sociologist, I would postulate that, as we start to live together, especially in crowded places, we evolve social practises that allows the group to work and live well with each other. When crowding passes a threshold limit, then crime rates increase, homosexuality increases, and we see the emergence of various social evils that are characteristic of crowding.
Is this a case for population control? Or, population management?
Fine post Rajiv. Chandramouli
Posted by: Chandramouli | March 20, 2011 at 02:27 PM