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Published: August 10th 2007
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The Oriental Pearl TV Tower in Shanghai
This is the largest of 3 bubbles build into the tower, representing a large clam, dropping one of its pearls below. World cities have unique displays of architectual icons and landmarks, that identify and suggest the character and reason for their existence, where one is associated with the other: Be it the Eifel Tower and Paris, the Brandenburg Gate and Berlin, the Capitol Building and Washington D.C., the Temple of Heaven and Beijing, New York and (once-again) the Empire State Building, the Acrapolis and Athens, the Pyramids and Cairo, and now the Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai.
Shanghai's awesome and dynamic, futuristic landmark captures the imagination of every visitor to this immense city of 20 million. The Oriental Pearl Tower displays itself as a beacon to China's new vision, and it has become a striking monument to China's openess to the world.
The tower stands magnificent and proud, inviting the world to take note of China's recent and dynamic accomplishments, and beckons the world to visit.
It is one thing to experience Shanghai via photos and TV, but it is a "true" adventure to walk among its architectual creations, its groomed streets and promenades, in amazement and often in silence.
Strolling the crowded, land-scaped avenues of the new Shanghai takes getting-used-to. The heart beats faster in awe, seeing
The Pearl Tower in all of its majesty
Visible are the two largest bubbles, and a third smaller one above the second. Three pearls shine in the lower section of Shanghai's new icon. and feeling oneself surrounded by some of man's most grandious creations, having been constructed to endure and to inspire pride as great monuments for future generations.
Gone are the traditional peasant homes of the city's "Hutongs" with their chaotic streets, that once fringed the Huangpu River along the Pudong side of city. From their rubble rises Shanghai's most luring and most enduring icon, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, at 1,500 feet (457m), completed only in 1994.
For a serious entrance fee, viewing platforms at various heights can be reached by crowded express elevators, once patience in the long lines has been tested. The trip to the top is less an "adventure" in the early morning-hours, when the queues through security, and the lines waiting for the speedy lifts into the tower's 3 massive glass-bubbles are the shortest and more pleasant.
Rotating restaurants provide buffet-style dining in a relaxed setting. In one hour, a guest will have been gently "whisked and transported" 360 degrees within the tower in the comfort of a lounge-style dining-chair, fork or chop-sticks in hand, enjoying some of China's delicacies.
On the clearer days, the view from the Oriental Pearl Tower, in every
As if to say, "I am here to stay".
Shanghai's new icon looms from every direction. direction, is nothing short of mesmorizing. The Huangpu River and its flotillas of ships, the Boulevard along the Bund parallel to the river, and the neighboring sky-scrapers seem to dwarf, as visitors enjoy views, usually only reserved for the birds.
Almost monthly, artfully designed and inspiring new monuments to China's recent wealth are rising in the same area of Pudung, as well as throughout the city, all flexing their muscles in tribute to capitalism??
Only blocks from the Oriental Pearl Tower beckons another wonder of architecture, the skyscraping, silvery, pagoda-like form of the Jinmao Tower. It is the tallest building in China and one of the tallest in the world, for the moment. Rising 88 stories, 1,379 foot (421 m), it is one of the most beautiful buildings I have seen.
The first 44 floors are offices, while the 53rd to 87th make up the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The 88th floor is occupied by an enclosed viewing area, one I could not visit "this time". Conceived by several prominent American architects, the Jinmao Tower was constructed at a cost of $550 million. During the day, but most especially in the late afternoons, the tower seems wrapped in
"Hello from Shanghai"
Let me take you on a little tour of one of the world's famed structures and location. a silvery exterior.
Yet by early 2008, the Jinmao Tower will be surpassed in height by its new neighbor, the Shanghai World Financial Center at 1,509 feet (460-m). This new office and hotel complex will be completed in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the 2010 World Expo hosted by the city of Shanghai. Future sky-scraping-creations are already at various stages of development.
Opposite the Pearl Tower and the Jinmao Tower, on the other side of the Huangpu River, stretches a boulevard and its buildings called, "The Bund". The two sides of the river are connected with some high-tech tunnels and modern bridges, but the better view for either side is provided by a ferry.
Western colonial and commercial power forced China's weakening Qing-dynasty to make trade concessions, resulting in a number of ports along China's eastern seaboard, including Shangai.
Before China's capitulation to the British, the French, the Americans, and the Germans, the city of Shanghai was only a minor Chinese river port. These colonial powers made the areas into European Outposts, where foreign residents were only answerable to the laws of their own country, with their own police forces and judiciary. It attracted
not only entrepreneurs and glamor, but also gangsters and criminals.
With claims of "free trade" and by the force of western armies, Opium was trafficed by the British to the Chinese population. It became the foundation of Shanghai's prosperity, where opium-dens by the thousands dotted the city.
There was a time when opium became the more popular currency of Shanghai. With a new wealth of drug-money, the colonial powers build grandiose banks, offices, hotels, and clubs. Their massive western architecture and their fasades became the symbols of western commercial power and occupation, and their location along the river promenade is known as "The Bund".
Most of the old and massive buildings along "The Bund" are still in place, only now in Chinese hands. Each displays proudly several large, fluttering Chinese flags, to remind the world, that Shanghai is now and will continue to be in the hands of the Chinese.
The buildings continue to stand as a reminder, if not as monuments to the fact, that almost every stone for their massive construction was bought on the backs and with the lifes of millions of opium addicts, militarely encouraged by the British Empire.
It is
The Pudong District of Shanghai
Not so long ago, Hutongs along the river housed the locals. It has now been re-claimed to house Shanghai's new trophies of wealth. a legacy not much spoken about by the Chinese I meet, but I sense that few have forgotten the injury done to their country by the importation and exploitation of opium by the Colonial Powers to its population.
But the planet is ever-changing, in some corners of the world for the worse, but in Shanghai there is an open sense of optimism. The "megalopolis" sees itself a rose and first among China's "blooming"-cities. It is a city of commerce and commercialism, once greatly influenced by the West, and now re-inventing itself.
What impressed greatly, and left much to contemplate was the Huangpu-river cruise. The Huangpu River seperates old colonial Shanghai, from the "re-claimed" Pudong District. This river has always been the neutral-witness to Shanghai's historical development.
As the boat left "The Bund" side of the older Shanghai, the side of colonial occupation, I had a better view of the length and beauty of the pedestrian- boulevard and its adjacent structures left by them. Only now, these buildings proudly hoist, in "quantities", China's national flag.
A visitor cannot help but understand the implication of their fluttering-display on the roofs of these former colonial hotels, banks, offices, clubs,
By the Huangpu River to the banks of Pudong
The Huangpu River has been witness to the changes of Shanghai, where floating and thriving commerce has not changed for centuries. and bastions of power, while quantities of ships from around the world sail past them into Shanghai's mega-ports.
When the sightseeing-boat reaches the middle of the Huangpu, China's new monoments to power, begin to boast and display themselves on the Pudong banks of the river. They do so in sharp contrast to the architecture of "the Bund on the opposite side.
Reaching to heaven, these new super-structures surpass in hight and stature, in beauty and effect, with steel and glass, the colder and older, their former concrete-counterparts, as if to say to history, "thank you, but not thanks, we have our own vision for our future."
(For greater detail and better observation, I encourage you to enlarge the 47 photos on the 3 pages).
(Your comments are always a great encouragement, thank you)
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Sandra C.
non-member comment
man, it really doesn't look like the China one picutures in their minds. :(