Shanghai

This summer, I had the chance to take a trip to China for the first time. My work took me to Shanghai, and on the first evening, took our client out for a drink on the Bund, which offers a great view of the skyline.

Shanghai skyline from the Bund

It's a beautiful skyline, and was made more dramatic by the gathering clouds, eventually obscuring the tops of the tallest buildings. As the rain came in, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for 2 days of solid presentations.

I spent the following evening taking a walk away from the hotel during rush hour. The traffic was crazy, and the streets glistened with the persistent drizzle. I walked right down to the river and then, having failed to master the subway system, decided to take the long walk back to the hotel. Thankfully, I was rewarded with the discovery of a small side-street market, only perhaps a dozen stalls, but alive with colour and the Shanghai locals.

Shanghai street market

The following day, after a full day of presentations, I jumped in a taxi to the other side of the river, and took a walk up Nanjing Road. That was quite an experience. If I'd stopped to talk to everyone who tried to talk to me, I'd have come back with about 3 dozen mobile phones, 10 fake Rolex's and countless 'lady massages'. Having run the gauntlet down there, I eventually made it to the restaurant I'd been aiming for all along. The meal was good, if a little expensive, and once I'd finished eating, I made my way back to the hotel for the night.

The following day was Saturday, and after breakfast, I met up with an old family friend, who had moved to Shanghai a few years ago. He arrived with his girlfriend, a local girl, who had lived and studied in Shanghai, and was the perfect person to show me around a few more interesting aspects of the city. I'd asked to see some of the more traditional areas of the city, and we set off to a market which certainly had more of the traditional architecture, but had been converted into a tourist trap, with a German beer bar, and many a cheap souvenir shop. 

That said, the area was surrounded by locals. The market itself was walled, and venturing outside was very much discouraged. Not that I'd have know, unless I'd had this sign translated for me by my guide:

Something like "tourists don't come this way and don't take any photos"

We moved on to Xintiandi, walking through the heat and humidity to the home of the designer shops and good restaurants. We had lunch in one of those restaurants, and I sampled some things that I'd never eaten before, but the most interesting was lotus flower roots, cooked in honey - one of the sweetest things I've tasted, but good all the same.

Once we'd finished, we moved along to one of the few historical sites left in Shanghai - the site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China. I say one of the few - many historical areas have been overrun by the CPC, not allowing the people to dwell on the past or have associations with anything that is outside the Party guidelines.

For all the contradictions that I struggled with during my visit, it was still quite an experience to know that I stood in the room where Mao Zedong gathered his comrades around the table and founded the party that still rules the country today.

The site of the First National Congress of the CPC

From here, we moved back to the hotel, spending as much time underground as possible as the humidity burned away to be replaced by the searing heat of mid-afternoon. We called briefly by People's Square (more of that later), and then returned to the hotel for a drink. I turned in relatively early - it had been a long day, and I had plans for a lot more walking on Sunday.

I got up relatively early on Sunday morning, and made my way towards the old town, to see some of the more traditional architecture, and to visit a Ming Dynasty garden. Walking through some of the old town, it started to bring to life the inherent contradiction between an ideology that preaches the sharing of wealth and communal living, and the seemingly enthusiastic embracing of capitalism, embodied by the skyscrapers of the financial district, which provide the backdrop to Yuyuan.

Yuyuan, with Pudong's towers in the background

I wandered around the Yuyuan Gardens, an example of classical Chinese gardening architecture, built in 1559. It contains some examples of large naturally hollowed jade stones and pieces of traditional Chinese art. It provided a rare oasis of tranquility in a city that was seemingly always on the go. The pace slowed noticeably, and it was easy to stroll around the gardens and forget the hustle, the street hawkers and the crowds of tourists who come into the area.

Yuyuan Gardens

From here, I moved deeper into this area, and again, it brought home the crippling poverty that some people endure in Shanghai, while towards the Bund and across the river, people like me enjoyed the opulence of the hotels and the trappings of western wealth. In particular, I ventured down a small alleyway, above my head, lines full of laundry, at street level, battered bicycles, boxes and a glimpse into the tiny homes which sheltered large families, without so much as running water. Instead, large stone tanks store the water the family need, taking up most of the space in very rudimentary kitchens.

Back streets of the old town

Longines, Rolex and Mont Blanc to those few who are 'more equal than others', and the western financiers that keep the city moving.

Nanjing Road

I finally made it to the museum, and it was well worth the visit. There were great exhibitions of Chinese furniture and ceramics, which helped me while away a couple of hours, before finally heading back to the hotel to get another early night and prepare for my flight home the following morning.

I'd enjoyed Shanghai in a way. It's like no other city I've visited, and there are many beautiful things about it - the architecture old and new, the peace of the Yuyuan gardens, the food, the 'exciting' taxi journeys, cutting through the traffic. But, there are also the poorer sides to the city, which I guess many people don't venture into. The places where 'real' people live, struggling each day, while the money making areas are kept glossy and busy with tourists. I can only imagine what it must be like in the country, where the rural communities are subject to more of the oppression that you don't see in the sanitised city.

For that reason, I'm not in a hurry to return to China. I'd rather go to India again - which will be the subject of my next post.