the shanghai experience

Shanghai, (1st-6th/10/2013)

Location: East China coast, a two and a half hour flight from Chengdu.

Population: 23 million.

Famed For: Being the 'Paris of the East' and the biggest city proper in the world.

 

Visiting Shanghai is very much wish fulfilment for me. It's the city I most wanted to see when I came to China and the place I'd hoped to be sent to for my teaching. As it is, on my meagre internship salary I'm rather glad I've ended up somewhere far cheaper!

 

It's a sprawling tapestry city, a mishmash of all things wonderful and bizarre, seamlessly woven together into one extraordinary place. It's a melting pot of cultures and consumerism and like any cosmopolitan city provides you with the option to do and try almost anything you want.

 

The food, for example, is multinational. My craving for croissants is fixed one smoggy morning by visiting the French patisserie opposite a tube entrance and nibbling at the flaking, buttery pastry we buy there. We treat ourselves to pizza by the river one evening, enjoying the taste of real cheese after six weeks without it. We sip the thin, brown soup from a bowl of Japanese ramen noodles for lunch and walk past restaurants where the smell of Thai curry wafts down from the open upper windows. Of course there's the requisite menu oddities- chicken soup with an entire dead chicken sitting unhappily in the pot, a broth made using the skull of an ox and then there's the delightfully tasteful Taiwanese establishment, More Than Toilet, where your food comes served in a lavatory bowl.

 

The architecture veers from Sci-Fi fantasy to the sublime. The Bund, smog bound during the day, becomes a Spielberg inspired, glittering, neon wonderland at night. Stroll through the French Quarter with its elegant tree lined walkways and tasteful European-style houses and you could easily be mistaken for thinking you were in Paris- even the street signs are in Chinese and French. Nanjing East Road is Leicester Square transplanted across continents. Duck into one of the many tiny market streets though and you're in a world of narrow alleys and overhanging two-storey buildings, lines of washing strung out to dry overhead and shops tucked into cubbyholes in the walls. There's the obligatory 'restored' ancient town, with it's dark panelled shops and pagoda style roofing, full of overpriced tourist kitsch and the omnipresent Starbucks coffee shop, but Shanghai offers such variety that  hop onto the tube, and two stops down the line you can't help but find yourself somewhere completely different. It's difficult to find a moment of peace and quiet in a city like Shanghai, and if you've come, as we have, during the National Holiday then it's practically impossible. But tucked away in the middle of all the hustle and bustle is the Jade Buddha Temple. Inside it's near silent, just the gentle, rising curl of incense and the breeze ruffling the leaves of a few potted plants. It's hard to believe you're still in the centre of the city. In the tiny temple gardens there is a pool with dozens of brightly painted koi carp, hungrily mouthing at the surface of the water as a little child feeds them. Inside, the Jade Buddha itself is relatively diminutive in it's glass case but the absolute stillness is worth the entrance price and in a place like Shanghai it's easy to understand the attraction of Buddhism and it's quiet, slow, contemplation.

Likewise, visiting Zhujiajiao Ancient Town in the Shanghai suburbs offers a moment of respite from the ever present hustle and bustle. A seventeen hundred year old water town, it is the Chinese equivalent of Venice, with thirty six stone, wood and marble bridges crisscrossing the narrow waterways, and scores of old men pushing their wooden boats up and down the canals, as the tourists take pictures and admire the scenery. We eat dumplings on a rooftop terrace overlooking the water before taking a trip in one of the boats ourselves.From the water, you gain an entirely new perspective of the place and the gentle rocking motion lulls you into a quiet meditation, punctured only by the quiet snap of a camera and the slap of the water against the boat.

 

As for sightseeing and entertainment there seems to be a limitless amount of options to choose from. We take an open-topped bus to see the attractions, winding our way through the city streets and taking in the view. It's an impressive way to see the city- we pass soaring skyscrapers and the National Stadium, a modern art museum that appears to be made out of red Lego and parks full of families enjoying the good weather. We sip inexpensive cocktails at hostels and eat spicy street food under dim pavement lighting, shop and walk and shop again. But one of the best things is experiencing my first proper Chinese firework show, completely free in one of the local parks. We arrive late and the crowds back all the way to the tube entrance, but it doesn't matter because the fireworks are so big that they can be easily seen no matter how far the distance. They light up the sky like it's day time, huge incandescent balls of golden light, exploding in showers of white sparks before quietly trailing away to be replaced by the next round of colour and light. There's no music, but the resulting gasps of admiration from children and adults alike is all the soundtrack that's needed.

Like everything about Shanghai, it's big, bold and beautiful, modern and ancient and completely unforgettable.