shanghai
During the course of my travels, I invited my Mother to Hong Kong. She likes to travel so I figured it would be a good place for her to come for the obvious tourist reasons but also it would be easy given the assistance of my friends in HK. But she wasn't aware that I had planned an excursion in China. This was to be a surprise. I couldn't hold off the surprise for long as she kept asking questions about the Great Wall (how far away it is, etc, etc) that I relented and told her of the plan to visit Shanghai and Beijng. She was chuffed as she dearly wanted to go to bBeijing. We did the usual stuff in HK for a few days before making our way by flight to Shanghai.
I have been there before. I was dazzled by the enormity of the city then and remain so. The city just seems to be bulging with skyscrapers, people and a feverish capitalism. Take a walk down the main commercial road and every high-brand designer has set up shop. Dozens of them. It's hard to imagine that these luxury stores are making money. But I bet they are. China is now the fourth largest economy in the world (if the statistics are to be believed) having overtaken France and the UK in 2005. A lot of this GDP passes through Shanghai, as one of its main ports, so some people are making fabulous sums of money. It must be said that out of a national population of 1.3 billion, the vast majority certainly aren't.
But Shanghai is one of the most prosperous areas. With a population of 14 million, it is noisy, conjested and packed. It has a few places of historical interest. The Bund, its riverside area, and Frenchtown allow one to see the remnants of its decadent colonial past. A lot of those splendid buildings were the product of cash earned from improvishing the Chinese. Mainly with the burden of chronic opium addiction. The Yuyuan Gardens are more the kind of thing I like to see. A traditional Chinese intepretation of a beautiful landscape.
That said Shanghai is a modern city that very much tries to ape and surpass Hong Kong. The central government is certainly intent on making Shanghai the new financial city of China. Something they will have created, not the foreigners. (Despite Shanghai being mainly a colonial creation anyway) So the bigger, the flashier, the more impressive, the more gigantic, the better. Sometimes good taste is lost in the headrush. Let's not mention pollution. We viewed Shanghai from the hightest buildings, got on the underground Bund metro (a weird flashing psychedelic experience, I wonder what the designer was on) and generally experienced the hustle and bustle of this amazing city.
The nightlife is good too, although pricey. I left my Mother to watch English language news channels and went off into the night. I will say no more than I returned to the hotel at 6am. A great night.
I have been there before. I was dazzled by the enormity of the city then and remain so. The city just seems to be bulging with skyscrapers, people and a feverish capitalism. Take a walk down the main commercial road and every high-brand designer has set up shop. Dozens of them. It's hard to imagine that these luxury stores are making money. But I bet they are. China is now the fourth largest economy in the world (if the statistics are to be believed) having overtaken France and the UK in 2005. A lot of this GDP passes through Shanghai, as one of its main ports, so some people are making fabulous sums of money. It must be said that out of a national population of 1.3 billion, the vast majority certainly aren't.
But Shanghai is one of the most prosperous areas. With a population of 14 million, it is noisy, conjested and packed. It has a few places of historical interest. The Bund, its riverside area, and Frenchtown allow one to see the remnants of its decadent colonial past. A lot of those splendid buildings were the product of cash earned from improvishing the Chinese. Mainly with the burden of chronic opium addiction. The Yuyuan Gardens are more the kind of thing I like to see. A traditional Chinese intepretation of a beautiful landscape.
That said Shanghai is a modern city that very much tries to ape and surpass Hong Kong. The central government is certainly intent on making Shanghai the new financial city of China. Something they will have created, not the foreigners. (Despite Shanghai being mainly a colonial creation anyway) So the bigger, the flashier, the more impressive, the more gigantic, the better. Sometimes good taste is lost in the headrush. Let's not mention pollution. We viewed Shanghai from the hightest buildings, got on the underground Bund metro (a weird flashing psychedelic experience, I wonder what the designer was on) and generally experienced the hustle and bustle of this amazing city.
The nightlife is good too, although pricey. I left my Mother to watch English language news channels and went off into the night. I will say no more than I returned to the hotel at 6am. A great night.
posted by Ciarán at 8:40 a.m.
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