Jing' An Temple Park & The Amorous Park Officer

Its not often that a whistle-blowing power-mad Park Officer comes up to you and tells you...

"Bye bye! You are beautiful & I love you!"

This all came about when Lin & I decided not to waste the glorious Saturday that was presented to us yesterday. Lin proposed that we go to Jing' An Temple Park (nestled inbetween Nanjing Xi Lu, Changshou Lu and Yan'an Lu) to have a mid-afternoon drink whilst enjoying the park's surroundings.

We found a nice bar/restaurant, the Laguna Bali, which is perched overlooking an artificial pond surrounded by a fabulous Chinese garden setting. We were joined by DaDan & Lozza, and with a few cool drinks and good company, we talked about Dadan & Lozza's recent holiday/work in Malaysia & Singapore, life in Shanghai, career direct, what we wanted to do, and many other serious things (and yes, monkeys).

However, our conversation was drawn at times to the slightly askew Park Officer, his propensity to blow his whistle (when shooing people away from the grassed areas), and his saluting and hat-tipping of us as he passed. We all thought he was a little odd, but hey, its nice to stand out in a population of 1 billion plus.

So as we were leaving, he's trundled over to us to say stuff in Yingwen... "Bye bye, Goodbye". Nice. We talked back in Zhongwen... "Zaijen, Ni Yingwen shuode hen hao!", and then he revealed his inner bag of butterflies to me and professed his love. As we were leaving, I didn't need to invoke a chant to produce a protective ring of lesbians (Toina will recognise the power of this circle), but rather smiled, waved, pulled Linda close, and asked our group whether I had just been propositioned. The collective answer was yes. I graciously declined in my cowardly way as I didn't want to invoke his wrath. The man had power and a whistle, and this was his turf.

Coming from a Western culture, and indeed Australia, where anything a little prissy would get you labelled as a 'insert gay insult here', Shanghai is a little refreshing to be isolated from that. The Shanghainese man is immune to the connection of prissy acts that would label you a bag of butterflies. Yes, you do see guys walking around town with their arms draped across each others shoulders, men giving men shoulder rubs, the odd manly pat on the shoulder that lingers uncomfortably long by western standards, chatting in the men's room (including urinal staring). But from what I can discern, none of this would label you as a homosexual. Homosexuality is not cool by Shanghainese male standards. Owning a man-purse is ok, but no man-man action.

It must be a lonely place for our Park Officer.

Shanghai - it will always surprise you. I love this place, but unfortunately, not the Park Officer.

Technorati Tags: China, expat, Jing'An, Shanghai