The second coming of Shanghai

---

Still adjusting to being solo again, I was hoping that Shanghai would sweep me up and fill my days with activities. Touching down on the runway apparently only milliseconds after still flying over row upon row of lawn-topped apartment blocks helped create a first impression of great population density, which was only reinforced by the wide busy streets and plentiful skyscrapers. Further evidence came in the cost of my hostel accommodation - for more than I'd paid anywhere else in mainland China, I had a windowless cell furnished with a bed whose polyester "linen" meant that slipping into bed had an unexpectedly literal aspect. A strange smell pervaded the whole establishment - I was unsure if it was mould or something drifting up from the wet market close by.

Shanghai is undergoing a renaissance which should enable it to recapture its status as one of the true major mercantile centres of Asia. Its first boom period occurred in the hundred years leading up to the revolution. Having been an important port for many centuries, it wasn't surprising when the major European trading powers started to take an interest in it from the 17th century onwards. Unfortunately for Shanghai, the Chinese imperial court underestimated the resources and persistence of bodies such as the British East India company, and refused to enter alliances with them, viewing them as inferior foreigners - the underhand result was the British East India company creating an enormous demand for opium within China, a state of affairs leading to the Opium Wars and ultimately the Treaty of Nanjing, which among other things forced the Chinese to open up to overseas trade. The establishment of foreign concessions within Shanghai, first a British one and then a French, soon followed.

The city's influence only grew from then on but it was hardly a partnership of equals. The concessions were policed by each "owner" country according to that country's laws, and local Chinese (except servants) could not wander in without a permit, and even then they needed to be well-dressed. Attracted by news of the city's prosperity, vast numbers of rural people flocked to Shanghai where they proceeded to live in squalour.

As such a symbol of foreign imperialism, it was to be expected that the city would not survive in that form post-revolution, and that proved to be the case. Overseas influence was gradually weakened and Beijing siphoned off chunks of the city's wealth (dealt a major blow immediately prior to the Communists gaining power by Chiang Kaishek spiriting away the Bank of China's gold reserves to Taiwan).

Despite this fall from grace, it would appear that nothing can keep the Shanghainese down. The city has provided more than its fair share of the modernisers in the Communist Party, and indeed a significant influence on Hong Kong's rise to trading prominence was the many Shanghainese who emigrated there post-revolution. As the version of communism followed by the government has been watered down over the years, the city has taken advantage of the weakening economic constraints and set itself a course to international significance again.

This tale of present and past glories is reflected best by the buildings on either side of the river, the colonial splendour of the Bund's variety of European architectural styles facing off against the superlative-based modernity of Pudong. The Bund (sounds German but is actually derived from an Anglo-Indian word meaning "to build up a muddy embankment") is one of the most popular stretches of real estate in the city with locals and tourists alike. Art Deco, Gothic, and French Renaissance are all styles represented along its length. The Pudong area is where the city's boom can most graphically be seen, with the Oriental Pearl TV Tower (3rd highest tower in the world) and the Jinmao Building (4th highest building in the world) lording it (currently) over a selection of completed and under-construction shiny skyscrapers.

The other major attraction in Shanghai is Yu Yuan, an example of a traditional Chinese garden replete with rocks, bridges, and water features laid out in accordance with feng shui-like principles. If you get to Yu Yuan for when it opens, you'll be able to enjoy 15 or 20 minutes of solitude before the tour groups descend and clog the narrow paths and walkways up. The surrounding area is a tourist circus par excellence, with enough density of tat to draw you in to an ill-considered Mao T-shirt purchase if you're not careful. The nearby city of Suzhou is supposedly THE place to see quality gardens but, with the weather being dull, I figured I may as well have an unsatisfactory viewing experience on my doorstep rather than travel to have one somewhere else.

Shanghai provided further evidence that, somewhere in the country, there is a firm of completely bilingual English/Mandarin speakers whose job is to generate Engrish of the highest order. A cafe offered both a "light repast" (nicely posh) and a "belly-wash" (not so). Another tried to tempt punters with "tailor-made kimchi". A clothing company was clearly trying to escape trademark infringement by calling itself the "French crocodilian shirt group". A further reptile rendition came courtesy of "Clio Coddle", a shop with a crocodile as its logo (which reminded me of the woodpecker-themed "Wood Pocket" in Kunming). Finally, a sign on a bus declaring "Risk of pinching hand" was not to warn against pickpockets or gropers but instead to prevent you trapping your fingers in the door.

I stayed in Shanghai for a week, probably twice as long as it needed from a tourism point of view but inevitable as it was the only place in mainland China where I could apply for a Russian visa. Using the expedited service would have cost over twice as much for the sake of saving 2 days, so I went with the standard 1 week processing. Unfortunately Shanghai was the first place in China I've been where Internet cafe usage is only possible if you show your passport - with only photocopies of the relevant pages, I was rejected more often than not, which was a major irritation from a research point of view. However my application was successful and the visa shows that transcribing my name into Cyrillic renders it almost unrecognisable.

Despite the 16 million people reputedly floating around within the city limits, Shanghai is walkable ... just (this is coming from someone who loathes public transport). However the quantity of traffic (2, 3, and 4-wheeled) means that crossing any given road (or even a pavement) is not to be undertaken lightly. It seems weird to me that traffic going through pedestrian crossings when the green man is showing is acceptable, yet when I tried to jaywalk with no vehicle within 100m of me and the only alternative route beeing an enormous underground detour, I was given such a belligerent and sustained burst on whistles by 2 traffic wardens that passers-by were looking round to see what the commotion was about. Similarly, it appears that smoking in taxis and teahouses was banned in Shanghai over 10 years ago yet I doubt that has been enforced in even 1 case. The choice of what to forbid seems a little arbitrary, but no more so than what to enforce.

Walking also enables you to fall prey to the many men and women offering watches, DVDs, bags, shoes, and "massages" at regular intervals. The latter was especially surprising given how free of sex industry-related hassle China has generally been (though no doubt LA Woman had something to do with that). Even more dubious are the many "barbershops", complete with rotating red and white poles outside, staffed by young women dressed in clothes I've yet to see on any of my barbers but no doubt well-acquainted with the idea of a wash and blow (or vice versa).

Pacing the pavements further provides the opportunity to watch the passing cars and think "That looks like a BMW" (say) whereas in fact it turns out to be made by a firm such as the Great Wall car company. I originally thought these must be joint ventures with foreign firms but it turns out that quite a lot of them really are ripped-off designs no different to a French crocodilian shirt group product. BMW, Mercedes, Fiat, and Honda are among the car companies that have brought lawsuits against Chinese firms that they claim are stealing their designs.

Continuing on a transport theme, the Metro is an efficient way to get around town, having all the advantages of the Hong Kong system - which was built by the same company. However by using the Metro you won't be able to take advantage of the toilet maps that you can find above ground - these are necessary in Shanghai as, unlike in other parts of China, you can't locate toilets by scent alone.

But the pride of Shanghai's transport system has to be its maglev train. Plying the 30km from its city terminal to Pudong airport in 8 minutes, the train makes use of magnetic levitation technology to provide a smooth ride with a peak speed of 431 km/h, hovering several millimetres above the guide rail via the principles of magnetic repulsion. It could go faster but the track is too short to enable it then to decelerate in time. Even at a mere 431 km/h, we blew past cars on the neighbouring highway that were apparently crawling. A quick visit to the Maglev Museum after the ride informed me that the train is fitted with "decelerating glass" to make the view out of the windows a little less unnerving at such high speeds. And all this when using an electromagnetic field about one fifth of the strength of that of a colour TV.

My hostel was close to Yunnan Road, one of the main eating areas in Shanghai. With fresh seafood being a staple of Shanghainese cuisine, many of the restaurants had the day's catch lying on ice outside their establishments for customers to choose from. In fact, just outside my hostel seemed to be a favoured spot for crab salespeople, who sat with mesh bags crammed with their despondent pincered charges. It was normal for one (even more) unfortunate crab to have the shell ripped off its back in order to show potential buyers the quality of the batch's insides.

I read in the local paper of the first national hairy crab contest being held in Shanghai, to determine the best specimens of a species of crab that's popular in Shanghai and just coming into season now. The winners, 1 male and 1 female, were decided by some "professional crab-quality evaluation software" (apparently the only such code in the country - as if that needed stating) into which weight, measurements, colour, etc were input. If that sounds a bit over the top, then consider that the winning crabs were worth just short of $700 each.

Continuing my theme of meeting up with ex-colleagues on my travels, Adam (who I'd worked with in New York on a project whose levels of mind-blowing boredom and unnecessarily tight management-imposed deadlines had been the first ring of a wake-up call for me) and his wife generously took me out to dinner to sample some traditional Shanghainese food (as well as some German beer) and catch up on news. He confirmed that Shanghai wasn't really somewhere in which a tourist could happily spend a week but, as a resident, it had business opportunities due to the immaturity and speed of growth of the economy. Despite me looking scruffy and (apparently) thin to the point of being ill, Adam kindly offered me sleeping space in their apartment, an act of generosity that I could only turn down due to not wanting to ruin their reputation with the neighbours.

I didn't have much exposure to the Shanghai bar scene, with most drinking areas being inconveniently situated and/or ludicrously expensive, but one place I visited did play Colonel Abrams "Trapped", which brought back memories. An Irish bar I went to on a Saturday night had a worryingly devoted set of football supporters catching some live Premier League on TV (e.g. they applauded the screen when there were substitutions). A local guy provided an amusing moment during the Man Utd-Boro game when, on Owen Hargreaves being substituted, he ran in front of the screen and pointed to his own Owen Hargreaves replica shirt - apparently neither realising that "his" player was coming off the pitch due to being ineffective, nor that many (even Man Utd supporters) might wonder why on earth anyone would bother getting the shirt of a player with the excitement value of Owen Hargreaves in the first place.

I also tried out a bar that the RG, in a rare opinionated burst, had described as (and I quote) "Popular with the bottom of the Shanghai foreigner food chain - students, teachers, and backpackers - and those who'll deign to talk to them. No posing, no attitude, no class." This sounded like a personal invitation. In fact the place contained a predominantly local crowd taking advantage of cheap beer and some danceable R&B, which by no means constituted the worst crime against evenings out that I've encountered this year.

---

Photos

How to annoy a wedding photographer
Waibaidu Bridge

Imperial Bank of China
Gothic Revival style

Bank of Bangkok
Previously the Great Northern Telegraph Corporation, built in a French late Renaissance style

Russian consulate
My favourite queuing location

An intimate moment among the girders
Waibaidu Bridge

Comments

[deleted_15735]

Hey mate, very cool blog on Shanghai. I recently spent 3 weeks their on some summer course as well, your blog brought back good memories! Pretty crazy city, right?

[Moonbaby]

Monster Muscles McCabe
Hello there, nice to read your blogs old friend. If you ever return home, get in touch. "The Meaties - Monster Muscles McCabe, Beastie Bakes, Puny Parks" "The Meaties - Thier middle name is danger, apart from one, whose is Joseph"