The Sights of Shanghai
Shanghai, The Whore of the East or The Paris of China, choose your favorite moniker. Of course, the debauchery of olden days was obliterated by Mao’s communist regime more than 50 years ago. It took a 25 hour train ride from Guilin to finally get here. I purchased a soft bed for the arduous ride to help smooth the travel time. I sat in my bunk with three Chinese who shared tea and bite size candy with me and attempted to converse with absolutely no luck. A couple in the adjacent compartment gave me a tear drop shaped grapefruit the size of a baby’s head that I subsequently shared with my own bunkmates.
I spent many hours staring from the train car and dreaming, watching the farms approach and fade, rice stalks bundled in piles. We zoomed past swiftly flashing foreign faces and faded weather-beaten orange houses. Children waved from the fields as the express train spit into the future at drastic speeds. I sat in the dining car and romanticized the early days of train travel, imagining myself amongst road-weathered baseball players chomping cigars and playing cards, me with the day’s scorecard in my felt cap, pen and writing tablet in the ready position. But I had to remind myself that I was in China, which wasn’t difficult to do. Men and women encircled, jabbered the gibberish of language unknown to me.
I shared a taxi to the hotel with a young Israeli couple I met on the train. The youth hostel that I am currently calling home is a converted hotel of a bygone 19th century era that once housed such distinguished guests as Albert Einstein, Scott Joplin, Thomas Edison, and Ulysses S. Grant. I hear their ghosts creak upon the old wooden floors and squeak across the polish of the gigantic art deco lobby. Now, the former suites have been stuffed with dorm beds but the charm of the past is still evident. The gilded fireplaces remain and the wooden balconies lend a view across the Haungpu River.
Shanghai itself is a mix of two eras, both of western influence. The river cuts through the two worlds leaving a stark juxtaposition. On the western bank is the area known as the Bund. The architecture is European in design. Both the French and English controlled the port of Shanghai shipping silk, opium, tea, and other goods and the Bund was their district. This area was later occupied by both the American and Japanese navies. During the period of English occupation the Bund was home to the decorative Customs House, brownstone banks, villas, and lavish hotels, all of which still stand today, though the red flag of China flies conspicuously atop each of the buildings. Also during the heyday of this era most of the area posted signs that read “No dogs or Chinese allowed.” Today, The Bund is one of the two defining characteristics of the city and tourists from all points snap pictures of the buildings that represent a heady era full of intrigue, chicanery, and luxury long since passed. From the opposite side of the river, the facade of the Bund certainly resembles the waterfront of the Seine. And when the whipping wind strikes the shore in the evening I cant help but be reminded of San Francisco.
The east side of the Haungpu is the new city and, the Chinese hope, the first great financial center of the 21st century. Only ten years ago this area was a patchwork of farms and outlying slums but metamorphosed into a futurist skyline. The most visible symbol is the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, the largest in Asia and the third largest in the world. On the viewing deck housed in a purple sphere Chinese push and shove for the resplendent view. Just down the boulevard is the sight of the third tallest highrise in the world, only outclassed by the Petronus Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpar and the Sears Tower in Chicago (also now surpassed by the 101 building in Taiwan- ed). For some reason this observation deck is far less crowded yet houses perhaps a finer vantage point for viewing the entirety of the city. The lot next to this monstrosity is the beginnings of what will be the tallest building in the world. Though at the moment construction has stagnated, mostly based on the IMF financial crisis of 1997 that is still being felt across Asia. So now the half finished giant stands sleeping, awaiting the funds to reawaken the project.
Yesterday, after enjoying the sights of western influence and indulgence, I wandered into the district that is known as the old city, where the Chinese have resided for many years. As I ambled down the dusky street a cacophony split my ears. Fish peddlers draped their goods from clothes hangers and shouted prices at pedestrians. Vendors sold everything from fruit and nuts to live turtles. Bicycles screeched and sped, ringing bells and barely avoiding accidents. laundry hung drying out of second story windows. And the red light emanating from lanterns cast an eerie glow upon the street. Children grabbed my arms and old men laughed at the sight. Women argued in an indecipherable tongue, shook and pointed fingers. My legs were wobbly from a day of pounding the streets and the colors and sounds swirled in front of me as if in a dream.
Though Shanghai is long past its storied prime, a certain charm still exists down the back alleys and waterways. And if one isn’t careful its easy to imagine the dapper businessmen, gangsters, and coolies, running rampant through a once thriving city. But alas time moves forward and Manhattan, Paris, London, and Shanghai of the 1920’s and 30’s is but a quixotic memory. And time pushes on for me too, onto Beijing tomorrow.
