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Shanghai |
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Although the
lights have been out for quite some time, Shanghai once beguiled
foreigners with its seductive mix of tradition and sophistication.
Now it is reawakening and dusting off its party shoes for another
silken tango with the wider world.
It has been the domain of adventurers, swindlers, gamblers, drug
runners, idle rich, dandies, tycoons, missionaries, gangsters and
backstreet pimps; a dark memory during the long years of forgetting
that the Communists visited upon their new China.
All through these years of oblivion, the architects of this social
experiment firmly wedged one foot against the door of Shanghai's
past. Today Shanghai is pounding on that door. The sun rises every
day to a city typifying the huge disparities of modern China:
monumental building projects push skyward and glinting department
stores swing open their doors to a stylish elite while child
beggars, prostitutes and the impoverished gather outside. Always a
city of jostling juxtapositions, Shanghai is entering the new
millenium running hot on the friction of contrast and the energy of
its own fevered growth.
Area: 6,340 sq km
Population: 13.4 million
Country: China
Time Zone: GMT/UTC +8 (Standard Time)
Telephone Area Code: 021
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Orientation |
Shanghai lies in
central-eastern China, exposed to the East China Sea. Broadly,
central Shanghai is divided into two areas: Pudong (east of the
Huangpu River) and Puxi (west of the Huangpu River). Shanghai still
has no single focus and the feel of the city still owes much to the
original concessions. For visitors, most attractions are in Puxi,
including the Bund - the tourist centrepiece, though not the
physical centre of town. West of the Bund is the former
International Settlement and one of Shanghai's main shopping
streets, Nanjing Lu. South of the Bund is the Chinese city, a maze
of narrow lanes. West of the old town and hidden in the backstreets
north and south of Huaihai Lu (Shanghai's premier shopping street)
is the former French Concession, with tree-lined streets, 1930s
architecture, and cafes and bars. At its western end is a major
collection of Western-style restaurants and bars.
Continuing southeast, you come to the massive shopping intersection
of Xujiahui. Farther south is Shanghai Stadium. Western Shanghai is
dominated by Hongqiano, a hotel/conference centre/office zone.
Farther west is Gubei, an expat area. Northeastern Shanghai has an
industrial feel and is home to several universities. Further
northwest is Zhapei and Shanghai train station. On the east side of
the Huanpu is Pudong, a special economic zone of banks, skyscrapers
and new residential complexes. Street names are given in Pinyin,
which makes navigating easy, and many of the streets are named after
cities and provinces. |
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When to Go |
Above all the rule for
Shanghai is to lay low during or, for the least complications,
altogether avoid the Chinese New Year; the city grinds to a halt and
public transport is flooded. The rest of winter offers good hotel
discounts and few tourists. Summer is peak season and gets a bit
muggy, while from September to November the temperate weather brings
out several interesting arts festivals and fairs. These are probably
the best months to visit but trade fairs and conventions do little
to bring the prices down from peak season.
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Events |
Shanghai's revelling options
are myriad; the city's inhabitants celebrate everything from the
dead poets to beer, and they do it with a vibrant dash you'll
remember long after you've licked away the last crumbs of mooncake.
The biggest event in Shanghai's calendar is the Spring Festival,
otherwise known as Chinese New Year, when many people take a week
off. The Longhua Temple has large celebrations, with dragon and lion
dances. The Lantern Festival (February) is a lovely time to visit,
with people carrying coloured paper lanterns. A Temple Fair is held
at the Longhua Temple on the third day of the third lunar month
(around April). It's eastern China's largest and oldest folk
gathering. The Shanghai International Tea Culture Festival is
usually at the end of April. Tomb Sweeping Day, also in April, is a
day for worshipping ancestors; people visit the graves of their
dearly departed relatives and often burn 'ghost money' (for use in
the afterworld) for the departed.
The Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month
(June) commemorates the death of Qu Yuan, a third-century-BC
poet-statesman who drowned himself to protest against the corrupt
government. The Shanghai Beer Festival staggers into town around the
end of July. The Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the Moon
Festival and is the time to eat tasty moon cakes. It takes place in
September, on the 15th day of the 8th moon. The Shanghai Tourism
Festival kicks off in late September and offers a wide variety of
cultural programs. In November and early December there's an annual
International Arts Festival.
Public Holidays
1 Jan - New Year's Day
Feb - Chinese New Year (Spring Festival)
8 Mar - International Working Women's Day
1 May - International Labour Day
4 May - Youth Day
1 Jun - Children's Day
1 Jul - Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party
1 Aug - Anniversary of the Founding of the PLA
1 Oct - National Day
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Attractions |
Frenchtown
The former French Concession is the area around Huaihai Lu and the
Jinjiang Hotel. Huaihai Lu is all about shopping, with huge
department stores blotting out the sun along a road colourfully
lined with flower boxes, while the area around the hotel is littered
with cafes, boutiques and antique shops.
Head down the side streets off Yan'an Lu for the tatty, down-at-heel
fin de siθcle architecture that is so evocative of yesteryear.
Nearby, the Yuyuan Gardens & Bazaar area of the Old Town offers some
delicious lunchtime snacks and welcome greenery.
Nanjing Lu
Nanjing Donglu (Nanjing Road East) has long been China's golden
mile, although these days it's looking a bit frayed and has slipped
a few notches to the luxury option of Huaihai Lu. But laden shoppers
still traipse past its cathedrals of commerce. A late 1990s
renovation project pedestrianised the street from Xizang Lu to Henan
Lu, and the shopped-out can catch the tourist train that runs along
its length.
Even back in the dull Communist era, Nanjing Donglu had a distinctly
'shop till you drop' feel about it. Nowadays, Esprit, Benetton and
McDonald's have shouldered Marx and Mao into the draughty halls of
little-visited museums - which was where the capitalist state was
meant to end up.
Shanghai Museum
Of the Shanghai Museum's 120,000 works of art, one-third have never
before been shown. While guiding you through the craft of millennia,
the museum simultaneously draws you through the pages of Chinese
history. Expect to spend half, if not a whole day here - it's one of
the city's highlights.
The Bund
Formerly a towpath, the Bund gets its name from the Anglo-Indian
term for the embankments used to prevent flooding. To the Europeans,
the Bund was Shanghai's Wall Street, a place of feverish trading and
an unabashed playground for Western business sophisticates.
The Bund remains the city's most impressive mile and is an eloquent
reminder that Shanghai is a very foreign invention. Still a grand
strip of hotels, shopping streets and nightclubs, it remains an
intrinsic part of Shanghai's character.
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Off the Beaten Track |
Huangpu River Cruise
There are three main perspectives on Shanghai - from the gutters,
from the battlements of the tourist fortresses and from the water.
The Huangpu River offers some remarkable views of the Bund and the
riverfront activity at night as well as during the day. Tour boats
leave for 1, 2 and 3.5-hour tours from the dock on the Bund.
Both day and night tours offer excellent sights. The best but
dearest choice is the three and a half hour, 60km (38mi) round-trip
cruise, which takes you up the Huangpu to Wusongkou, the junction
with the Yangzi River, and back.
Huzhou Pagoda
Huzhou Pagoda, built in 1079 AD, is the leaning tower of China, with
an inclination now exceeding the tower at Pisa by 1.5 degrees - at
last count. The 19m (62ft) tower started tilting about 200 years
ago. It's on Tianmashan in Songjiang County, 20km (12mi) southwest
of Shanghai. Bus No 113 from Shanghai train station terminates
there.
Yunnan Road Night Market
A good stroll west of the Bund on Nanjing Lu, the night market is a
nightly mini-festival of food at very reasonable prices. If you're
feeling queasy, stay away from Nanjing Lu. It's pretty much
Shanghai's prime eating strip - and just about anything gets eaten
here.
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Activities |
When you need to chill out
after all that exercise, treat yourself to a massage or spa. Ask a
local to direct you to a legitimate, specialist massage clinic.
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History |
Up until the 7th century AD
Shanghai, then known as Shen or Hu Tu after the local bamboo fishing
traps, was a barely developed marshland. Most of eastern modern
Shanghai didn't exist until the 17th century, when a complex web of
canals was built to drain the region.
An ideal port, Shanghai is the gateway to the mighty Yangzi River
(the name Shanghai means 'on the sea'). But when the British opened
their first concession here in 1842, after the first Opium War, it
was little more than a small town supported by fishing and weaving.
Change was rapid. The French turned up in 1847 and it wasn't long
before an International Settlement was established. By the time the
Japanese rocked up in 1895 the city was being parcelled up into
settlements, all autonomous and immune from Chinese law. Enter
China's first fully fledged Special Economic Zone.
The world's greatest houses of finance and commerce descended on
Shanghai in the 1930s. The place had the tallest buildings in Asia,
and more motor vehicles on its streets than the rest of China put
together. Shanghai became a byword for exploitation and vice, with
its countless opium dens, gambling joints and brothels. Guarding it
all were the American, French and Italian marines, British Tommies
and Japanese bluejackets.
In 1949 the Communists put the foot down and began eradicating
slums, rehabilitating hundreds of thousands of opium addicts and
stamping out child and slave labour. For the West, the Shanghai
party was over.
By the 1990s, the wheel had turned full circle. Invitations went out
again to capitalist business interests as the central government
hunted foreign capital to help reinvent this whirlwind metropolis -
and met with some success. By the mid-1990s more than half the
world's high-rise cranes were looming over Shanghai.
Today the city continues to grow apace, with new underground
stations, highways crisscrossing the city, the most modern stock
exchange in the world, a swish new airport, two giant bridges and a
whole new city in Pudong. Perhaps no city in the world is as
futuristic, and Shanghai has become the very symbol of China's rise
to economic powerhouse status. It's thought that Shanghai will
overtake Hong Kong as an industrial and financial capital within one
or two decades. However, despite the growth and international
investment, poverty is still prevalent.
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Getting There & Away |
Shanghai is easy to get to. It
is China's second-largest international air hub (third-largest if
you count Hong Kong) and if you can't fly direct, you can go via
Beijing or Hong Kong. With rail and air connections to places all
over China, ferries travelling up the Yangzi River, many boats along
the coast, and buses to destinations in adjoining provinces, you'll
be hard pushed to find somewhere you can't get to.
Shanghai is a nexus for international flights and is busy day and
night ferrying people in and out of the city. A new airport opened
in 1999 near Pudong, about an hour's drive from the city centre,
handling most international and some domestic flights. Buses and
taxis connect the new airport to the city centre and Hongqiao
airport. Hongqiao airport is 18km (11mi) from the Bund and reachable
via bus, shuttle or taxi. It has some international and most
domestic flights. Departure tax is 11(international) and
6(domestic). Both taxes are paid at the airport from which you
depart.
Shanghai is at the junction of the Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Hangzhou
train lines. Since these branch off in various directions, many
parts of the country can be reached by direct train from Shanghai.
Most trains arrive and depart from Shanghai station.
Shanghai has a few long-distance bus stations; the most useful is
probably Hengfeng Lu. It's a 13-hour trip to Beijing from this
station.
Boats are the one of the fastest ways of leaving Shanghai and are
often the cheapest. Ferries travel up the Yangzi River and there are
many boats that stop along the coast. There are also regular ships
and ferries to Korea and Japan.
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Getting Around |
Shanghai isn't exactly a
walker's paradise. There are some fascinating areas to stroll
around, but new road developments, building sites and shocking
traffic conditions conspire to make walking an exhausting, stressful
and sometimes dangerous experience. Travelling on buses can also be
hard work; the routes, and particularly the stops, are not easy to
figure out and buses are packed at rush hour. The metro and light
railway system, on the other hand, work like a dream. Taxis are
cheap and hassle-free as long as you avoid the rush hours. As
private cars become increasingly affordable to the new middle class,
traffic is becoming noticeably heavier, a trend that will only
worsen. The city took a big swipe at traffic congestion in 1999,
investing more than a billion dollars in transport building
overpasses, a second metro line and a light railway within a year.
Unfortunately there is still not enough space for everyone at rush
hour and from around 7am to 9:30am and 4pm to 6:30pm it's every
frail old man for himself. Cool aggression and elusive speed, along
with a friendly smile, keep things from getting ugly.
Local buses are hard work. During the rush hour and the weekends
they are packed to the hilt and virtually impossible to board. Stops
can also be unpredictable: you may be helplessly carried past your
destination. Pickpockets are another drawback.
Shanghai's subway system is a dream, and probably the best way to
get around town. Trains are fast, cheap, clean and easy, although
they can be crowded at peak hour. The new Mag Lev (Magnetic
Levitation) line has started regular services between the city and
Pudong airport. The 30km (19mi) trip will take just eight minutes.
Although it's possible to hire a car in Shanghai, it's really not
worth the hassle unless you're familiar with the nightmare of
Shanghai's one-way system and the appalling conditions on the roads.
Shanghai's Volkswagen taxis are reasonably cheap and easy to flag
down, except during rush hour. Only a few take credit cards. Most
taxi drivers are surpisingly honest, but you should always go by the
metre.
While there are some fascinating places to stroll through in
Shanghai, new road developments, building sites, jam-packed walkways
and shocking traffic conditions conspire to make walking in most
areas an exhausting experience. |
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Western
China
