This Ain't Your Grandma's Shanghai!
Shanghai is the place that makes you heave all your superannuated preconceptions about China out the window: it is HAPPENIN’ here. It’s not just the nearly 15 million residents that hurry through the streets every day; the architecture and construction renaissance continues to grow and breathe fire, pushing the boundaries of the city further in each direction. The energy that I feel walking down some of the busier streets must be akin to those visitors of New York in the early part of the 20th century, that of a city that neither stirs nor rests, but one that quakes and roars. Every human being here is on his or her way somewhere; stragglers are discarded and figuratively run over by all that is moving here on Shanghai’s roads. Everyone seems to fit chaotically into some complex yet beautiful machinery that spews out energy and returns it back unto itself so that it can be re-used and harnessed for later.
The last time I was in Shanghai I was suffering from a sickness potent enough to confine me to a hospital bed overnight. Hence, I remember very little about this crazy city, except that it didn’t make me feel very good. I must have been unfairly assigning blame; the magnificence of this city is tangible and ever present in its huge litter of super-skyscrapers, its spacious shopping malls, its elegant parks, and the billboards (Oh the billboards!). I hear that a lot has changed in the past 5, 10, 20 years. I haven’t been here to bear witness to that change, but the intensity that I feel seeping through every corner here must have resulted in some sort of progress.
There is so much yet for me to see and do, but the impression this city has made on me has, needless to say, been quite powerful. I think it’s difficult for people who have never lived in a truly massive metropolis to really appreciate how large a city like Shanghai can be. And the energy isn’t concentrated here, either. I walked out of a subway station in Pudong, the far eastern side of the city, and I saw a crop of buildings that looked like the downtown area in San Francisco. Later I learned that these buildings were all new residential complexes, and not even considered part of any downtown. This city is growing so quickly and so tremendously that an area the size of San Francisco can be considered a fringe residential neighborhood.
Following my first adventure out on the town on Thursday night, I went out to indulge in some nightlife again on Friday night with Tina and her crowd of personable and energetic friends. After an all-you-can-eat-drink sushi binge, we headed off to Fuxing Park, which is located in what is known by the tourist guides as the French Concession. Back in the mid 19th century, when the Europeans and Americans basically blackmailed the Chinese government into giving them pieces of the city, the French typically wanted no part in the other colonists’ attempts to unite all the Western areas of the city, and remained segregated from the rest of the town. The French colonists had their own system for transportation, electricity, and water. This area, now the French Concession, is now an amalgam of 20th century communist industrialism and classical French architecture, which is actually quite beautiful at night. I was telling Judy as we were standing outside the restaurant that a lot of this area in Shanghai reminded us of parts of New York, namely the East Village, where the avenues are lined with trees and tidy brownstones, with beautifully designed restaurants and boutiques almost hidden by the comfortable architectural homogeneity of the surrounding buildings. Fuxing Park at night was a welcome respite from all the towers and hotels in that the greenery overwhelmed the buildings, and not vice versa.
I won’t get into too many details about my experience at the bars, except to mention that splitting a bottle of Johnny Walker Black will make you not able to acknowledge anything, even the fact that you’re drunk off your rocker. It was in this stupor that I realized I had lost the $500 cell-phone that my mom had let me use. I’m surprised that none of the major news stations both here in China and overseas had any reports about the full-fledged hurricane known as Hurricane-Eric’s-Mom that hit the central eastern coast of China.
When the fit hits the shan, somebody’s going to have to stay after school. Now who do you suppose that might be?
Well, there’s other stuff to report too, but I have plenty of time to do that, and you have plenty of time to read it.
Peace
The last time I was in Shanghai I was suffering from a sickness potent enough to confine me to a hospital bed overnight. Hence, I remember very little about this crazy city, except that it didn’t make me feel very good. I must have been unfairly assigning blame; the magnificence of this city is tangible and ever present in its huge litter of super-skyscrapers, its spacious shopping malls, its elegant parks, and the billboards (Oh the billboards!). I hear that a lot has changed in the past 5, 10, 20 years. I haven’t been here to bear witness to that change, but the intensity that I feel seeping through every corner here must have resulted in some sort of progress.
There is so much yet for me to see and do, but the impression this city has made on me has, needless to say, been quite powerful. I think it’s difficult for people who have never lived in a truly massive metropolis to really appreciate how large a city like Shanghai can be. And the energy isn’t concentrated here, either. I walked out of a subway station in Pudong, the far eastern side of the city, and I saw a crop of buildings that looked like the downtown area in San Francisco. Later I learned that these buildings were all new residential complexes, and not even considered part of any downtown. This city is growing so quickly and so tremendously that an area the size of San Francisco can be considered a fringe residential neighborhood.
Following my first adventure out on the town on Thursday night, I went out to indulge in some nightlife again on Friday night with Tina and her crowd of personable and energetic friends. After an all-you-can-eat-drink sushi binge, we headed off to Fuxing Park, which is located in what is known by the tourist guides as the French Concession. Back in the mid 19th century, when the Europeans and Americans basically blackmailed the Chinese government into giving them pieces of the city, the French typically wanted no part in the other colonists’ attempts to unite all the Western areas of the city, and remained segregated from the rest of the town. The French colonists had their own system for transportation, electricity, and water. This area, now the French Concession, is now an amalgam of 20th century communist industrialism and classical French architecture, which is actually quite beautiful at night. I was telling Judy as we were standing outside the restaurant that a lot of this area in Shanghai reminded us of parts of New York, namely the East Village, where the avenues are lined with trees and tidy brownstones, with beautifully designed restaurants and boutiques almost hidden by the comfortable architectural homogeneity of the surrounding buildings. Fuxing Park at night was a welcome respite from all the towers and hotels in that the greenery overwhelmed the buildings, and not vice versa.
I won’t get into too many details about my experience at the bars, except to mention that splitting a bottle of Johnny Walker Black will make you not able to acknowledge anything, even the fact that you’re drunk off your rocker. It was in this stupor that I realized I had lost the $500 cell-phone that my mom had let me use. I’m surprised that none of the major news stations both here in China and overseas had any reports about the full-fledged hurricane known as Hurricane-Eric’s-Mom that hit the central eastern coast of China.
When the fit hits the shan, somebody’s going to have to stay after school. Now who do you suppose that might be?
Well, there’s other stuff to report too, but I have plenty of time to do that, and you have plenty of time to read it.
Peace
posted by sushipanda at 4:23 PM
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