Shanghai: A Retrospective

Last night I got back from a trip to Shanghai. The internet is still on half-gas there because of the damage caused by the Boxing Day earthquake in Taiwan. Consequently, I couldn’t access WordPress. So, you’re going to get my Shanghai trip in one hit; diarised for your reading pleasure. Here goes.

Wednesday, January 17, 10pm

Shanghai since noon

Hours in Shanghai: 10
Number of taxi drivers seen stopped on side of highway for purposes of urination: 2
Total number of expensive meals consumed alone at romantic Italian restaurant for sole purpose of making most of per diem allowance: 1
Chinese Yuan given to beggars: 4
Pirated DVD movies bought on street corner: 15
Pirated series of Deadwood bought on street corner: 2
Number of grinning DVD salesmen gathered round me on street corner gently suggesting I also buy porn: 6
Percentage of time in China spent in taxis: 20
Number of dumps executed: 2
CEOs of China’s mobile equivalent of Google (for advertising) met: 1

Thursday, January 18

I’ve been in Shanghai a day and a half, and I still haven’t seen the city. That doesn’t mean what it sounds like – it’s not an ‘I’ve only been round the commercial district’ sort of comment (although that is true). I mean, I actually haven’t seen the city. A combination of winter fog (cold air, river dissecting the city, ocean nearby) and terrible pollution (17 million people trying to keep warm by coal) is brushed on to the trees, the buildings, the cars, as thick as paste. It’s damned hard to see past.

Think I’m exaggerating? This is a shot from my hotel room window.

The only thing scarier is that this is considered tame compared to Beijing.

Pity the hordes of cyclists that cling to the sides of streets like slaters on rotting wood.

Friday, January 19

Staying at a hotel has its advantages, but for a travelling experience it just can’t be compared to a hostel. At least, not if you’re either: a) young; b) relatively adventurous; c) interested in local life beyond the middle classes.

Sure, I like having a robe to wear in the morning, and a nice bed with soft pillows, and cable TV, and a desk to work at, and room service, and so on. But when you have guys your age opening doors for you and calling you sir and telling you to enjoy your stay – well, you soon start to feel like a bit of a cock.

So I’m glad to have checked out of the City Hotel Shanghai, even if my company was footing the bill. I’m looking forward to getting to a hostel for the next two nights. There I hope to meet people like me and start to wrestle with the less varnished elements of this city.

Sunday, January 21

I now know what it’s like to fly on the ground. I took the Maglev train from the city to the airport, and it was one truly memorable and amazing (for once, that word isn’t out of place here) travelling experience. The train, which is basically suspended above the flat track by magnetic force, sped up to 431 kilometres per hour.

431 km/h.

Gulp.

It was a great end to what has been a great trip. Staying at the hostel, as anticipated, was much more rewarding than the hotel. Friday was quiet, but I got to hang out with a 69-year-old American guy who found his wife in a magazine called Asian Presentations. This guy – let’s call him Don (because that is his name) – heard of this magazine while he was in the US. It was 1990, so online connections were out of the question. Each magazine offered 300 women looking for love (i.e. financial security). He had three issues. On the second leg of world tour, he stopped in the Philippenes and sent out 40 telegrams (yes, telegrams – this is old school dating) to potential wives he scouted from the magazines. He’d already decided he wanted to marry again – his first ended in divorce – so it was just a matter of whom he could find. He got 70 replies. Apparently social networking can also be done by telegram.

Don spent his time in the Philippenes meeting a woman every hour. In the end he did fall in love… or convenience… or… well, I’m not sure what the word would be… But anyway, he got himself a girl with a nice smile, and he seems pretty happy about it. But he did offer one sage piece of advice: “It seems to me that if it was possible, a man would do best to stay single for all his life.”

Don was a straight-up guy, though, and I got on with him very well. Together we lamented the state of the American government, and politics, and the war in Iraq – and I had to assure him that the US is still a great country. He didn’t seem so sure.

Sadly, his back didn’t hold out for the night, so he couldn’t accompany me to a bar. Probably just as well – I would have got too drunk, like I did last night…

Indeed, Saturday was more eventful.

I managed to pull myself out of bed in time to catch a midday bus heading in the complete opposition direction to my intended destination. Damn Mandarin and its four tones and similar “ch” sounds. I ended up in a grey industrial part of the city noteworthy for the absence of any personality. It reminded me of Christchurch (snap!).

An hour later, I was on the right bus, heading to the ancient town Zhujiajiao – most famous, unfortunately, for appearing in a scene in Mission Impossible 3, and known as China’s Venice. Well, it was a much smaller, boutique Venice; pretty as a picture, and good for a few (as sold by the many tourist hutches that line the cobbled streets). It was a lovely detour – one that many tourists seem to forego in favour of avoiding a two-hour busride through the burbs.
Later, I got back to my bunkroom and struck up a conversation with an amiable Dutch couple, who had travelled overland by train all the way from their homeland. Soon I was joining them for a drink in the hostel bar, and the beginnings of drunkenness were quick to greet me after just a couple of Tsingtaos (Hamish McKenzie 2.0 is a new lightweight model with enhanced fuel efficiency). Happily, we all shared a love of jazz, and, even more happily, we were soon sharing beers at the Peace Hotel, taking in the traditional jazz sounds of the Peace Hotel Jazz Band, which has entertained presidents Carter and Reagan, among other luminaries. Actually, to be honest, it was highly unlikely that we were listening to the selfsame band, because: 1) the dudes didn’t look that old; and 2) the ‘band’ turned out to be two bands, playing on rotation. Hell, sounded the same to me.

The Dutch couple ditched me for the comforts of the hostel (the girl was sick), so I headed out to the new ‘hot’ bar district, Xintiandi. I’d heard a lot about it, so I couldn’t in all conscience leave the city without sampling its wares. It turned out to be pretty much a replica of Lan Kwai Fong, only with hotter singers in the covers bands. There must be something about expat cities that attract trashy overpriced bars in swept-up ‘districts’ with bored shitless covers bands feigning enthusiasm.

Of course, I was alone, which I normally don’t do very well with in bars, but this was different: I was pretty drunk, and I was travelling. In those states, I have no problem making friends with complete strangers. It wasn’t long until I was hanging out with a couple of young Brazilian guys who were in town for business. They wanted to find a decent bar too, so we went round the corner to a place with a band playing Bob Marley songs. More agreeable, but it was soon shut, so we headed off to a big trashy meat market night club called Mirrors (or Windows, or something like that), where we laughed at the punters and watched the younger Brazilian unsuccessfully try to pull. My memory’s murky, but I’m pretty sure I cut the cord earliest and was tucked up in my bunk bed by about 5am.

One incident of note today: while I was walking along Nanjing Road in a (later successful) bid to bag me some cheap new threads, I was harangued into getting my shoes polished by, er, a shoe polisher. He was happily chatting away shining my shoe and asking me where I was from without understanding my response when a couple of guys approached him and said something angrily to him. He stood up and said something back and there was a moment of weird silence. That lasted all of two seconds. Then, much to my surprise, the polisher hoofed it, trailing some of the tools of his trade behind him, as the two strangers chased in hot pursuit. My left shoe remained conspicuously unpolished.