Simon Lewis: Comrade Hack

From lowly rice paddies to high-rise metropolis, Shanghai has emerged as the world’s fastest growing city. But what is life really like in China’s chic, capitalist hotspot?

Surely it’s only Shanghai residents who twitch their curtains open of a morning and check how the skyline has changed. This is the fastest growing city in the world, probably the fastest ever, and locals joke that its mascot is the crane.

Too often China’s meteoric rise is expressed in dull figures – but gaze at glittering avant-garde architecture, neon lit flyovers and whole bar and restaurant districts, all of which seems to have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, and you can see a revolution happening. The place is buzzing with energy.

It’s raw, sometimes vulgarly nouveau riche, but its undeniably addictive. Coming into the city from China’s interior, I get culture shock. In comparison, the rest of the country is prosaic. Shanghai is somehow separate, international, and hyper-modern. In the Twenties, it was famous for style, gangsters, inequality, decadent pleasures and fantastic opportunities. Now the city has shaken off its communist mothballs, and exactly the same is true today.

Unique among Chinese cities, Shanghai is actually an attractive place. And it’s at its most charming on the Bund, the west bank of the Huangpu river. It’s best in the early hours, when residents start the day with formation dancing, tai-ji exercises and kite flying.

Here the story of modern Shanghai began, as foreign traders at the beginning of the twentieth century built grand European-style buildings. The British consulate is here, and the headquarters of the former opium traders, Jardine Matheson, and that stalwart of pre-war elegance, the Peace Hotel. Today these fusty colonial constructions are faced down by gaudy upstarts in the business district of Pudong, on the opposite bank, which ten years ago was mostly paddy fields.

I balk at the Chinese breakfast of noodles and buns, but fortunately in Shanghai, pastries, cakes and coffee are popular – perhaps it’s the lingering French influence. The Manabe chain has six pages of coffees on its menu (including jelly coffee cubes). But for real continental style cafe culture, I head to the cafes of the French concession around Huaihai Lu. There’s no better place for lingering over a cappuccino and watching the fashionable people tick by, do deals or discuss which party to be seen at later.

Style is king in Shanghai and the boutiques here are China’s chic-est. Look out for qipaos that’s the long dress with a slit up the thigh and designer originals, and you can get a great suit made for a fraction of the cost in the west. Continuing with the sartorial theme, every visitor should try a beauty parlour. There’s one in every mall. You’ll get seriously pampered with a manicure, a massage and a haircut for less than twenty dollars. During the cultural revolution ‘polluting’ foreign ideas such as permed hair illicitly continued here. These days, bleached streaks are everywhere, and lots of girls are sudden red heads. Only when I’m spruced up do I feel part of this city, where some people have a unique appraising glance -shoes to watch to face, taking in all the labels on the way.

The international influence is everywhere apparent. Pre-war art deco buildings abound, such as the Metropole Hotel on Jinagxi Zhonglu and the Shanghai Mansions on Suzhou Lu. They stand in the shadows of the brazen skyscrapers, yet, oddly, look more futuristic. Foreign food is eagerly experimented with; Brazilian seems this year’s cuisine of choice. Foreign mores too, are embraced, such as hand shaking (rather than namecard swapping) for men, and air-kissing for women. The Shanghainese have always felt rather apart from the rest of the country and looked abroad for inspiration as well as business. The city was built by immigrants, Chinese and international, with a common desire to reinvent or better themselves, and perhaps that is the heart of it restless dynamism.

There aren’t many sights as such, but one place I always return to is the Shanghai Musuem on Renmin Square, built in the shape of a Chinese urn, whose huge collection of art and artefacts offer a counterweight to the rest of the city, where the new is venerated. Here is a reminder of China’s five thousand years of continuous culture, and, finally, a quiet place to contemplate it. My favourite piece is a suit made entirely of fishscales by the Oroqen people of northern China.

Evening is when the city is at its most distinctive. It lights up like an arcade game, with even the tangles of the elevated freeways highlighted by garish neon. Green and purple are particularly favoured hues. Nanjing Lu, China’s premier consumer cornucopia, is full of stores trying to outdo each other.

Retrospectively, most visitors decide that eating was the highlight of their trip. There may be plenty of international food, but as always, it pays to stick to the local cuisine. A personal favourite is 1221 on Yan’an Xilu; simple, classy, Shanghainese fare that won’t break the bank. I’d go for the duck. Then if my budget stretched to it, I’d check out the classy bars; though at nearly ten dollars a beer, I’d be drinking very slowly.

I have one final recommendation – every visitor should try this. Go to the Hyatt Hotel in the Jinmao Tower in Pudong the highest building in the city – and take the lift to the top floor. Order a cocktail at the Cloud Nine bar and look in stunned awe at the twinkling city spread out beneath you. See that? That’s the future.

| Msafiri | Nov05-Jan06| Edition 53 |