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The Scintillating Sister City
— Shanghai
After an arduous traffic-impeded cab
ride from the city’s newer airport in the fast-developing Pudong
area, at about 7:00 pm I disembarked at the Ritz Carlton, best known
in Shanghai as the Portman (or Port-tuh-Man depending upon descendancy
of speaker). I was promptly struck by two first impressions:
this town was loaded down with vehicles and westerners.
Of course I was in a part of town
particularly heavy with both. In the Nanjing Road West corridor,
shoulder-to-shoulder are glitzy boutiques, glistening urban shopping
malls, towering office buildings and high-priced hotels.
The Ritz Carlton Portman is one of
the latter. Very up-market, it boasts rooms starting at about
US $225 a night and I wasn’t staying there. I was booked at
less illustrious accommodations in a less commerce-driven section
of town. I first set foot on city pavement at the Port-tuh-Man
due to my late arrival and scheduled meeting with an acquaintance
whose very official office is located near that location.
Dr. Ira Kasoff, a graduate of Harvard
who also holds a Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from Princeton, is
Chief of the Commercial Section at the US Consulate General in Shanghai.
His professional and personal history with China dates back more
than 20 years. He speaks Mandarin like a native and has authored
and collaborated on several books referencing the culture and business
of China. As government point man for facilitating new US
business concerns in this part of the world, he’s sort of a big
shot, probably a little smarter than me, and I otherwise must respectfully
defer to him on all things Chinese.
His first directives were of the retroactive
variety. “You should have flown into Hongqiao,” the older
airport closer to the center of town. I explained that due
to office logistics and short notice, heading to the newer but more
distant Pudong was my only option. “And you should have taken
an earlier flight, avoided rush hour.”
Actually, had my flight not been two
hours late I would have avoided rush hour. But Ira is my senior
and he does represent the US Government. So, despite the built-up
frustrations of the day, I thought it best not to rankle him with
trivial justifications for my belated schedule.
Instead I stuck him with the dinner
tab.
And his money was well spent.
This, my first western meal since arriving China nearly two months
prior, was accomplished near the Portman at Pasti, on Xikang Road,
a small upscale Italian cafe, reasonably priced by western standards.
The pasta, seafood misto and house Chianti were excellent.
More important, from an observational perspective, despite there
being only 15 seats in the place, it seemed like half of those were
occupied by remarkably attractive stylish young women – both of
the western and Chinese variety.
So within two hours Shanghai received
high marks for both good food and attractive occupants.
Ira served with the US Commerce Department
in Shanghai in the mid 80's, and returned as a private sector consultant
the latter part of the decade. After a few years he again
signed on with Commerce and over the next decade and a half he was
assigned to varying posts around the globe. In 2004 he returned
to Shanghai with his wife and now 11-year-old daughter. It
was as if a new city had been plopped down to this corner of China.
“Things were still pretty tricky in
the 80's,” Ira explains. "The city had not yet begun to develop.
Culturally it was somewhat insular. Doing business was not
always an easy proposition and old, run-down buildings made up a
good part of the area. But when I came back it was just amazing.
Where once was a sort of ramshackle urban infrastructure with a
somewhat insular international outlook, now there was a modern metropolis
that had essentially thrown its doors open to the world.”
As example he offers, “After returning,
the first cultural event we attended was a performance by the Alvin
Ailey Dancers, who were at the new Shanghai Grand Theatre.
This was a world-class event, and it would not have been even remotely
conceivable in the old days.”
During dinner Ira went to his mobile
phone multiple times to check in on his daughter, who is “11 going
on 16,” according to him. Ira’s wife was also out and his
daughter was being minded by the nanny, in this part of the world
sometimes known as an “ayi” (‘auntie’). I got the impression
that Ira may be a bit of a doting dad.
I asked how it was, raising a family
in a major Asian metropolis far from the States. “Fortunately,
Shanghai is an extremely cosmopolitan environment. My wife
loves it here and it’s a great experience for my daughter,” he said.
“At an early age she is gaining tremendous exposure to the world,
she’s picking up the (Mandarin) language, has a lot of friends and
the city is very safe – if you watch out for the traffic.
About the only complaint she has is that we won’t allow her to buy
knock-off DVD’s.”
After dinner Ira happily returned
to his family and, after a brief stop at the hotel, I continued
out into this dynamic, complex and very expansive urban environment.
Shanghai is huge. The largest
city in china, the geography spans 6,218 square kilometers (2,400
square miles) and accommodates a population of more than 13.5 million.
That’s about eight times the size of New York (309 sq. miles), which
has a population of about 8 million people. In two short days
one can not even fantasize about skimming the surface of the landscape
or culture. But on a single weekend you can get a feel for
the immense transition that has occurred and the evolution that
continues.
Massive new office buildings and booming
commercial zones wrap around intimate and traditional pocket neighborhoods.
Fashionable locals and well-heeled western expats are elbow-to-elbow
in upscale cafés and trendy bars. Bicycle-bound local entrepreneurs
contest for road space with their Mercedes-ensconced cousins.
You can depart the generic interior of a Starbucks, cross the street
and experience a gritty basement-housed live seafood bazaar – where
for decades fish unknown to western palates have been chopped and
prepped upon sale.
You can one moment be hiking down
a hyperkinetic ultra modern commercial corridor, sidestep into a
narrow pedestrian alley and 15 seconds later you are in another
world. Insulated from the noise, congestion and booming commerce,
the quiet neighborhood life of a residential back alley goes on
much like it probably has for a hundred years. Housewives
dry their laundry outside, beat carpets and take more than a few
breaks to gossip and laugh with neighbors. An intruding westerner
does not warrant much attention. He is perhaps granted a smile,
then ignored.
Back out on the main drag traffic
is thick, but the streets upon which it eventually flows are modern,
smooth and clean. Compared to most US cities, police presence
is relatively light. And that works out fine, because by all
counts this major metro area is extraordinarily civil.
On one point, however, a westerner
could be excused for misinterpreting a sometimes bothersome habit.
The urban Chinese drivers love to hit their horns. In both
Beijing and Shanghai the cacophony is nonstop. Unlike the
west, where going to the horn is often tantamount to bellowing an
insult, here it is all about caution – mostly. Mostly, because
the onus of caution is not so much on the lane changer, but more
on the driver whose lane is being changed into. Similarly,
crosswalks are not necessarily considered pedestrian safe zones.
Thus you get a lot of ‘be-careful-I’m-over-here’ type staccato toots.
Then there are the ‘look-the-bloody-hell-out’ sustained blasts –
most often used by fast-moving drivers to discourage more assertive
pedestrians.
On the other hand, westerners hiking
the streets here will see signal of safe passage to the culinary
habits of the west – coffee. In this nation of green tea drinkers,
locating a dose of quality liquid caffeine is not always the easiest
proposition. Not so in Shanghai. Fronting the wide sidewalks
and boulevards, many independent cafés and shops offer the stuff
and (like it or not) the Starbucks are expanding out from the downtown
areas.
The first morning in town I picked
up a nicely strong café Americano at a little Bohemian place that
also offered a free wireless hotspot for laptop-equipped patrons.
The next morning I was closer to the hotel at an upscale bakery
tea/coffee house. I had a try at their “House Deluxe,” which
turned out to be a very well made frothy double espresso.
Across from me sat a stylish woman, her pot of tea kept warm at
the table. She worked intently at her late-model laptop.
I may as well have been in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco
– which officially happens to be Shanghai’s sister city (an arrangement
seemed designed solely to supply taxpayer-funded China junkets to
San Francisco mayors).
Despite the revolutions and renovations,
Shanghai has not completely deserted her colorful past. When
exploring a nightclub district later in the evening, my out-of-towner
camera, pale skin and gender drew the agents of entertainment.
While friendly enough, the persistence of these devoted talent representatives
became a hindrance when setting up for time-exposed photographs.
Part in mild desperation and part as an experiment, I withdrew my
Chinese Government-supplied ID, a bound passport-style affair with
the PRC seal in gold on the cover. I shook my head gravely,
held it up badge style and said simply, “Beijing.” I don’t
know if these guys were impressed or wary of my sanity, but they
left me alone.
It was early Saturday evening the
next day when I was exploring the boutique, café and club district
on Dongping Road, a few blocks from my hotel in an area still quaintly
referred to as (with unintentional irony) the “French Concession,”
a holdover from Shanghai’s politically libidos past. Killing
time waiting for the sun to fully drop, I happened by an English-style
pub nicely housed in a well-restored brick building. This
is the sort of place to which a cocktail-hour inclined westerner
is drawn like Halliburton to oil.
And it was a good move. “Oscar's,”
just off Dongping at the corner of Fuxing Road and Baoqing, is an
exceedingly civil and stylish establishment equipped with well-ensconced,
well-read expats. Over the course of a couple of hours and
a few Jack Daniels (no ice), I enjoyed a lively collective conversation
with a fellow American, an Aussie, a Canadian and an Irishman, ages
30-ish to 62. These were smart gents and about as well informed
on world affairs as any group I’ve come across. Making an
exception for the stranger arrived at their corner of the bar, they
dropped their usual prohibition on discussing world politics and
we went at it.
Surprisingly, though the political
leanings of this five-man cocktail summit included a range of ideologies
(or lack thereof), on the subject of Sino-American dynamics, strategic
maneuvering and the varying domestic and international merits of
those respective governments, we were in complete agreement.
And here would seem a judicious point
at which to bring this writing to a close.
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