There’s a conspiracy. As I heaved my mass through a taxi door frame intended for lighter and nimbler bodies than mine I sensed it. Negotiating the revolving doors before bursting in to the Equatorial’s lobby there it was again. If this were a movie the camera would crane up left for an aerial shot of man crossing polished marble floor. It’d have to be slo-motion as I look back over my right shoulder to glimpse the sharp suited hotel porter [cut to: close up] glancing his silk top hat with an index finger whilst offering a nod of recognition.
My room is on the 14th floor. The lift doors open and instinctively I step out. They’ve slid silently shut before there’s time to realise I don’t recognise the space I’ve walked into. And still there’s that conspiratorial air.
I’d sensed it earlier in the afternoon after visiting Nicola and Victoria at our Shanghai office ‘down town’. It was half past three and raining heavily as I nudged the glass office doors to face the weather on Henan Zhong Lu. The prospect of browsing Gibson and Fender guitars (all genuine ‘made in Korea’) at a fleet of music shops on the Juijiang Lu compensated for the wet. Resisting taunts from umbrella salesman I weaved down sodden, bicycle laden streets, in and out of music stores and back in the vague direction of the hotel. There it was again. A conspiratorial air this time manifest in its distinct aroma instantly transporting me to London and last Friday….
I’d been invited to Tate Modern. It was the opening of Chris Meigh-Andrews exhibition ‘Analogue’, a fitting obituary to a decade or so when technology and the relationships it afforded was somehow simpler. Wandering along the South Bank of the Thames towards the old power station, Tower Bridge bobbing on the horizon with each step, I caught a whiff of roast chestnuts. The street vendor nonchalantly stirred the hissing splitting chocolate brown conkers rattling round the wok as he pushed them to and fro. I grinned at the ‘disclaimer’ in crayon by his stall. ‘Warning – this product is extremely hot and contains nuts”. I can’t read the characters daubed on the epoxy sheets next to the chestnut man on Juijiang Lu in Shanghai, but it’s a fair bet they’re not offering such helpful customer focussed advice.
Back at the place I don’t recognise, just outside the lift doors on the fourth floor of the Equatorial hotel I can hear music. The sound is muted and thumping. Casually I push a door marked ‘Blue Moon’. The tone of the music sharpens as the door swings revealing two girls in blue and a man playing an electric keyboard complete with sequencers and accompaniment. Before I’ve time to survey the completely empty bar the girl with the microphone has welcomed her first guest of the evening. I frantically survey the Blue Moon. There is no one else. I am captive. I hate myself for being too English to turn tail and run. Too embarrassed to back track I awkwardly traverse the darkened room sliding onto an empty bar stool, far away from the cruel intentions of my captor.
Now it’s clear. The conspiracy is Christmas. The singers are performing Hark The Herald Angels Sing’ to an unlikely euro pop soundtrack. The repertoire of carols is extensive and their medley includes Jingle Bells, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem and stirring rendition of Silent Night. And I remember. The smell of roasted chestnuts and the knowing smile from the hotel porter in recognition of my connection with the new accoutrements adorning the lobby. Beautiful red poinsettias. Fake fir trees. Baubles and plastic snow. It’s an American Christmas in Shanghai. Yet again, my hosts have gone beyond the extra mile to welcome me to their corner of the globe.
I feel totally at home. These are Christmas decorations and it’s only November.
