Can a city, or a place, be defined by a single object that a person carries in his arms — conspicuously, if not ostentatiously? Or at least, can you name an object like that that would tell you something unique about the city?
In Paris, it has to be the baguette. Zac was making garlic bread out of one today, which brought me back to some night not too long ago in Paris when someone chuckled that it was so like the stereotypical French person to be carrying around a baguette — on your way somewhere with a piece of bread. Because you have to be on your way somewhere, and because having a baguette under your arm while walking inevitably conveys the notion that you are going somewhere to do something with a very large piece of bread. And so we did it too, and we did something with the bread. I’m fairly certain we ate it. And for one evening, we were stereotypically, wonderfully, faux French.
In Shanghai, it was oversized plush animals. Not that it occurred at a rate anywhere approaching stereotypical, or characteristic of Shanghainese. But it happened enough that it seemed like a trend, if a weird one. The burden of a man-sized plushie on Shanghai’s crowded transit system just seemed too great — and yet there they were. Young to middle-aged women going somewhere to do something with a large, pink bear.
That was the point, I think. To show everyone on the bus how much you cared for someone. Enough to get them a large, pink bear at least. And enough to shoulder the burden of knowing everyone’s watching you. But you kind of want them to. Because in the poor but upwardly mobile world of Shanghai, it had to be a kind of exhibitionism. I can afford something useless and ostentatious like a large pink bear. Can you?
So what about us, Americans? Angelenos, or New Yorkers, or San Franciscans? It occurs to me that in this country, where the car isn’t just a vehicle that promotes individuality but is just as often a proxy for our individual identities, that we’re not going to find many arm-toted objects that could say something illuminating about ourselves. Instead, we’ll find them — bigger and better — secured to the back of a car on a trailer. Like a monstrous Eddie Murphy head on a roadshow, for example. The more disturbing question is: But what does something like that say about us?
Besides the fact that we’re going somewhere, to do something with an Eddie Murphy head.
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