I am staying in a quiet corner of the Shanghainese neighborhood of the French Concession, which is filled with boutiques, restaurants, and bars. The French Concession is a bit west of the hustling downtown area, and my hotel is in the western part of the neighborhood. (An enclave within an enclave.) On a tip from a TechnoServe alum, I booked a room in a boutique courtyard hotel, which is set back from a leafy side street. Sometimes, I hear, there’s not one car when you arrive on the street after stepping out from the hotel.
Beyond the immediate area where I’m staying, crossing the road remains easier here. Shanghai – while a massive city – does not have the extremely wide parade boulevards of Beijing. And although the crowds of people, cars, and bicycles could get almost as thick as in the capital, the intersections have been more orderly. There are even countdown lights on the “Walk” signs. If I were a professional street crosser, I’d definitely choose to ply my trade in Shanghai over Beijing.
Shanghai is the tail of the dragon which has been my trip to China. The most Western of Chinese cities, one of the – if not the biggest, and definitely the most modern and forward-looking, I’ve heard more than one Chinese refer to Shanghai as “the New York City of China.” It felt true – during my three days here there have been moments when I could have been in Manhattan. And in many ways, Shanghai is years ahead of NYC.
My first stop in Shanghai was the excellent Shanghai Museum, which has very good and accessible collections of Chinese art, calligraphy, jade jewelry, coins, furniture, and stamps. The museum is shaped like a circular vessel, complete with handles at the top, and the galleries ring a large atrium in the center.
I took a particular interest in the seal – or stamp – exhibition. The museum has an extensive collection of the seals used by emperors and their administrations to certify documents and correspondence. Accompanying the seals was a narrative describing the technology and policy governing the seals and their use – from standardization of the designs under different emperors to the more widespread (democratization?) of seals in later years, when technology and relaxed regulation allowed more Chinese to create and use their own seals.
Though I didn’t see it in it’s full glory, later conversations with an expat, Guillermo, and his friend,Yuanyuan (more below), confirmed my suspicion that China is a stamp-happy country. My stamp experience was limited to immigration at the airport – STAMP!; changing money at the bank – STAMP!; and buying a train ticket- STAMP!; but apparently the practice of stamping things is alive and well in many more activities.
In China, the English word for “stamp” – both the noun and the verb – is “chop.” I commissioned a customized chop of my own for any and all business that I needed to conduct while in China. Readers of my dispatches from southern Africa will know that I am now prepared to deal with official documentation and correspondence coming my way in both China and Swaziland.
The other museum in Shanghai which I particularly enjoyed is the Propaganda Art Center, a tucked away musesum with a collection of government issued posters from the 1940s through the 70s, denouncing the (imperialist!) USA, heralding China’s alliance with the USSR, and otherwise charting the rise and unification of the nation through a particular lens. I had seen the other side of these posters at various places in the States, and suggested in the PAC guest book a joint side-by-side collaborative exhibition.
At the museum I met another vacationing American, Christine, who I spent a couple of hours walking around the French Concession shops with. We ended our walk at the Shanghai flagship store of Shokay, a maker of yak-down items such as scarfs, hats and other clothing, throw blankets, etc. A friend, Esther Hsu Wang, played a hand in incubating the business. Shokay is a social business, and it was fun to see the store in Shanghai mixed in among all the other boutiques (but it would have been more fun to see the yaks or the weaving in the countryside).
One of the highlights of Shanghai is it’s impressive skyline, and the tallest building in the city (for the time being) is the 100 story Shanghai World Financial Center. Many of the buildings, including SWFC have viewing decks atop the structures, with the admission price correlated to the building height. At RMB150 (around USD$25) the SWFC deck is the most expensive single attraction that I’ve visited in Hong Kong or China – more than the Great Wall and the Forbidden City combined. (New business idea: build a massive skyscraper and charge admission to a top floor viewing deck. NB: lots of competition on this one in China.)
Before entering the elevator to the top of the SWFC, visitors are guided through a small museum about the city and the building. The most memorable part of this was a video with side-by-side renderings of the NYC, Tokyo, and Shanghai skylines over time. Starting in 1920, the years ticked forward and showed new developments in the skylines. As new buildings emerged in NYC from the beginning, Tokyo’s silhouette was still until around the mid 1960s when towers started to emerge. The image of Shanghai was basically unchanged until the mid-90s; in the past 15 years the development has been nonstop.
Stepping out of the elevator and onto the observation deck, the city stretches forever in all directions. The top floor of the SWFC is supported by the rest of the building only at the ends of the viewing hall – there is no structure below the main hall – and panels of glass in the floor allow you to look down below.
Between these activities, walking around Shanghai, and more good eating, I squeezed in a visit to the Shanghai Library, an evening cruise on the Huangpu River, some time at the Confucian Temple, and a fun stop at the Shanghai Bird Market where the main attraction to me wasn’t the birds, but rather than many different types of bugs (ranging from insects to grasshoppers to I don’t know what) being sold alongside them.
While in Shanghai, I met up with Guillermo and Yuanyuan for an evening. Guillermo is a friend of my friends Philippe and Daniel Gerschel, and he has been in Shanghai working for Adidas here. (He is all in.) I met them for dinner one evening, and they took me to a smart bar afterwards for a drink.
There was also a man whom I asked to take a photo of me in People’s Square in Shanghai. I gestured with my camera; he shrugged and seemed a bit surprised. The man dropped his bag, coiffed his hair, and turned to me, ready for his picture. After a moment of recognition and some laughs, we switched roles.
And I’ve also had many moments where language wasn’t needed. For instance, in my Beijing cab on the way to catch the bullet train (after I had pointed to Beijing South Station on a map to instruct my driver), I found a pack of Dentyne gum in my bag which I had picked up at Newark airport. I popped out a piece, and when my driver took notice I offered him one, which he seemed to highly enjoy.
Tipping is generally not done in China. In some cases a nicer restaurant will put a 10% service charge on the check, but outside of this it is not customary nor expected. I’ve acted outside this norm when someone’s been particularly helpful or expedient. When the taxi got to South Station and it was time to settle the fare, in lieu of a tip I offered my cabbie the remaining half pack of gum. I feel like if I didn’t have to catch a train I would have been invited to dinner at his home. (New business idea: export Dentyne to China.)
In all, it’s been a fun trip. I’m confident that I’ll return to Asia before too long. If it’s back in China, I’ll hope to get out of the big cities and experience some of the countryside and/or mountains.
Though Hong Kong was my first stop, I haven’t yet written a note about my time there. I’ll look to do that, and include some closing thoughts on my trip (e.g. preparing for the new Chinese world order?) soon.
