Shanghai Memories

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Shanghai Skyline at Night

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So, I am back from Shanghai, trying to sort out the memories of a journey.

First thing that comes to mind on a very late evening or very early morning, jetlagging and depending the way you wish to look at it, I am back in Germany, la province. Were I in Shanghai at this exact moment, having a good handful of junk food probably would not be that much of a problem for a junk food junkie like myself at this time. I would probably take a good walk around the corner to Huaihai Road and have myself a burger meal in the 24/24 burger outlet. At no point freaing for my personal safety, any other than becoming victim to a pickpocket at worst. I would probably look out my window and see the video displays on one of the high rise buildings opposite the Bund river bank in Pudong - stretching 20 something floors, easily competing for the biggest full motion, full colour video displays on the planet. Belittling everything I have seen in terms of public display anywhere ever before.

I would probably take a look through the typical morning mist and recognize the tropical rain forest displays or the parrots saying good morning, from a distance of two miles as the bird flies. It feels isolated in a strange way to look outside my window and see nothing, know there will be nothing, not even artificial birds, for another three hours. I miss the horns of the Shanghai drivers who are often accused of reckless driving. Well, in a way, customs on the streets of Shanghai are kind of dangerous if you are a pedestrian. It is survivable, but walking the streets is a Darwinian game in Shanghai. Size counts. Which is why I would take several pedestrian flyovers before I would arrive at my junk-fooder of choice. Were it day, a myriad of traffic wardens would try to keep at bay the flood of traffic. Maybe I would board a taxi which is a cheap experience in Shanghai, at about one tenth of the price per mile I would pay here.

Thoughts come to my mind that employers and their lobbyists in this country, Germany, will never fail to roll back wages saying that - after all - we were competing against the Chinese when it comes to production and knowledge industries. What they are failing to say is that, at my favourite junk-fooder, in the most chique corner of town, a meal would cost me about one eighth of what would cross the counter in this country. Seems to me they are playing the game of not telling the other side of the story.

A two litre bottle of 7up would cost around 60 US cent (or 5 RMB-¥) at alldays (the Shanghai counterpart of Seven Eleven), in the dead of night - not the obligatory equivalent of the 2.5 USD I pay at my daytime supermarket here.

I feel without options about what to do, really as if I had travelled from NYC to Anchorage, or maybe Paris (Texas). Speaking of NYC, I remember the view from the taxi on the elevated highway cutting through Shanghai and putting every point in the inner circle of the road ring at a 15 minutes reach by taxi virtually. It was the future. People in NYC will have to measure their city by Shanghai standards, even as we speak: "Wow, this place looks like Shanghai!"

Admittedly, there are big holes still in the infrastructure of the metropolis, and reaching your next subway station can be hard at times when you are lost in translation with the buses, or trains which (unlike the subway) bear no Latin letters to reveal where they're going. But having taken a look at the City Planning Museum, looking at the Blade Runner like skyline even today, I have no doubt that they mean business when it comes to creating a metropolis that is one of a kind.

Admittedly, I have seen beggars on the streets of Shanghai who elude any description and who raised more than a burning pity inside me. I hear about unconventional evictions of land owners in the old parts of town on TV here, and judging from the driving style of large Volkswagen limousines on the streets, I have little doubt that there is a lot that is left to be desired. China will have to fill in the promise of a concept of a "harmonical" society, and give hope to les Miserables, and quick. Looking at the lowest end of a society is the litmus test of how successful a society really is.

When I entered the country and left it through the customs lines at Pudong airport, automatically thoughts about my expectations and a final sum up of my stay in Shanghai came to my mind. I could not resist the thought that I would have been a lot more afraid to enter the U.S., and exit it at this time. The process is bureaucratic, yes, it might not have been a good idea for me to use a plastic container as a makeshift rostrum in front of Department Store No. 1 to criticize anything in public. Then again, as a foreigner, would I be better off if I underwent the Catholic inquisition by the INS at the U.S. borders, if I said that I think shit of the sitting U.S.-administration? How long would that give me warm shelter with pleasant gentlemen at any given U.S. airport? In China, I was not even asked what I thought of the government. Getting in and out was a relatively relaxed process, officials were friendly. My first impression held: When asking for my visa before the journey, I was able to enter the consulate through one gate. No metal detectors, no police, no suspicions.

In the end of the day, it might be China's pragmatical approach to treating the rest of the world and logistical problems inside that brings it less enemies, it would need to shield against than the U.S.

In a series of reports in a loose succession, I will try to shed some light on China as a experienced it as a novice traveller this spring.