Energy of Shanghai

Two overseas Chinese discuss moving back to mainland China.

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Tsai: What’s your favorite city?

Mao: City, uh? For living or visiting?

Tsai: Both. Place where you might visit and like so much that you are tempted to fantasize about quitting your job, and relocating there.

Mao: Reinvent myself, reschedule my life?

Tsai: Place where you live and work is the anchor to your life, it defines how you think and behave.

Mao: How about Shanghai? Tell you why. It’s got a colorful history, it’s always changing, there’s variety in the culture, it’s got energy. It embraces technology, it has a green consciousness. It’s got a future.

Voice-over

Making a decision as important as where to live comes down to the questions you must ask yourself. What are you looking for? Is it the traditions, or the future? Is it the ambience or the drive? Safety or intrigue? The nature, the culture? The sights, the sounds, the tastes, the smells?

How does the metropolitan character mesh with personal identity?

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Cultural identity, personal identity

Cockpit social chat touches on issues of identity.

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Chuck: Where you say you were from?

Graham: Auckland, originally.

Chuck: Oakland? I flown in there. California, right?

Graham: Auckland, New Zealand. Auck, as in awk!

Chuck: Place with all the sheep?

Graham: 50 million sheep, 4 million people, yeah, yeah.

Chuck: So, you’re a New Zealander?

Graham: Originally, yes. Haven’t lived there for 30 years. I have difficulty being called a New Zealander. If someone asks me, "What are you?" I can answer, "I fly, I'm a pilot." That's part of my personal identity. But my cultural identity is not Maori. My father was English but I've never lived there so I'm not British.

Chuck: So what are you? Culturally, I mean?

Graham: Been asking myself that for years. Sort of mid-Pacific?

Chuck: Easter Island?

Graham: Closer to Pitcairn.

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Voiceover

Graham is one of an increasing number of migrants who have left behind an uncertain cultural identity and not found another.

His personal identity being related to his work might mean that we see strong elements of professionalism in his persona, but fewer enthusiasms for food, music, literature, or other cultural traditions.

The cultural stereotype of New Zealand equaling sheep is one which traveling New Zealanders need to have a ready answer to at any time.

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