Shanghai China trip report
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The Shanghai trip was really interesting. I wish I could say that it was a lot of fun, but the reality is that I wasn't treated all that well much of the time. There was a very clear and obvious bias against non-Chinese. I'm not just referring to people being friendly (which they were often not), but rather basic professional behavior. When I'm seated in a restaurant and it takes nearly 15 minutes just to receive a menu, when I'm watching numerous native Chinese people getting seated after me, yet receiving their menus first, that's not a good sign. I was basically meant to feel like I was the lowest priority customer every time. For a country and a city that keeps bragging that they're ready to embrace foreign visitors, this was very disappointing. Their governments, propaganda and marketing machines can say whatever they like, but the reality is that you can't force people to be nice to outsiders. Either they're ready to welcome those who are different from the monoculture, or they're not.
Anyway, I don't want to give the impression that I felt unwelcome all of the time. Much of the time, I was treated as just one of millions of people in a large, very crowded bustling metropolis. Very quickly, the impression of the size & scope of the city hit me. Nearly everywhere I went, and every I did was just full of people. The best way to describe it was to combine Times Square on New Year's Eve with the biggest, most popular shopping mall during the holiday shopping season, and that's basically what it felt like everywhere. Just about every public setting (streets, subways, parks) were always jam packed with people.
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Of the week that I spent in China, I spent 5 of those days primarily commuting to and from the office of my employer, or working in that office (it also happened to rain all of those days). As a result, the vast majority of my experiences were spent primarily walking the few blocks between the hotel & subway or office & subway, or riding (for an hour) on the subway. It was a decent way to people watch, but not that great for exploring the city in any depth. One facet that struck me from the start is the utter chaos that is street life. While the roads are overwhelming not full of cars, they are full of trucks, buses, bikes and motor bikes. And all of them are weaving and honking all the time. Additionally, the sidewalks and other areas that I always assumed were pedestrian-only, were fair game. If the light turned red, this guy on his motorcycle would literally just drive up onto the sidewalk, and suddenly act as if he was a pedestrian (honking all the while). Right turns on red are a hard rule, except that there's no expectation of stopping before turning. This makes crossing streets a bit of a game of chicken to see whether you can actually get across before some vehicle came careening around the corner at full speed.
I did get the weekend to explore, and I crammed in as much as I could. I spent Saturday in the most touristy portions of the city, which turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. While I saw a lot, I was also repeatedly harassed by numerous scam artists. I spent the morning exploring the Shanghai Museum, and had a really wonderful time. The exhibits detailing the history of various facets of Chinese art were very well done and laid out. As I was coming out of the museum and preparing to make my way to the next attraction, I was approached by this Chinese couple who claimed to be tourists themselves, visiting from some distant village. Their English was quite good (a rarity), and they were exceedingly friendly (also, unfortunately, a rarity). I knew something fishy was going on when they 'invited' me to join them for a "Chinese Tea Ceremony". I knew that this was a very common scam, where naive tourists would go to these ceremonies and end up having to pay several hundred dollars afterwords. I declined the offer, and moved on, but I was irritated that it had happened at all.
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I spent much of the remainder of the afternoon walking the length of (East) Nanjing Road, which is the city's central shopping district. While I guess I should have known better, I wasn't expecting a Vegas Strip atmosphere, but that's basically what it was. Lots of gimmicky shops, tons of people, and an unending stream of random people trying to get me to buy supposed Rolex watches and DVDs. I finished the walk along the western shore of the Huangpo River, at The Bund. The Bund is basically this mile+ long stretch of huge, European style 80+ year old bank buildings. The buildings were nice and all, but the main attraction that everyone there was interested in gawking at was the skyscrapers across the river in Pudong. The views were quite nice, and the weather was about as good as could be expected when the sky above was blue, yet the ridiculous pollution caused the horizon to be gray in all directions.
Following this, I crossed the river to Pudong, and spent the remainder of the day exploring the area around the two tallest buildings in China, The (88 story) Jin Mao Building, and the (100 floor) Shanghai World Financial Center. They're both impressive structures, with equally impressive views from the top. Also, Shanghai has this rather gimmicky thing going on where most of the buildings in Pudong put on colorful light shows at night. Even the busses and trees have lights on them. It was amusing for a while, but unless you're a child, I don't see how it would be entertaining for all that long.
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I spent the first half of Sunday exploring two of Shanghai's oldest and most famous Buddhist Temples. First was the Jade Buddha Temple. This temple is literally crammed into this gritty urban neighborhood, beside a string of shops and apartments. Until I got there, I wasn't even sure that I was in the right place. Anyway, when I arrived this group of older women was doing this (religious?) song and dance which was interesting. The rest of my time there was spent just wandering around. The temple complex is comprised of several buildings of varying sizes, some with offices and shops, others which were worship halls with different size & styles of Buddha statues. The courtyard was kinda packed with worshipers burning incense and praying. Even with all the people (worshipers and tourists), it still managed to be a fairly serene and beautiful setting (which is saying a lot for Shanghai).
After leaving the temple, I walked back towards the subway station on a slightly different route, and ended up coming upon another one of the alleys between the rundown apartments, where there was this huge lineup of different vendors selling different kinds of food, mostly often lined up on sheets or blankets on the ground. I saw tons of different types of produce, pig parts (mostly hooves, but also what i think was a liver), live fish in buckets (with some freshly killed and getting scaled &
gutted on the street in front of me), what looked like live eels (also in buckets), dried mushrooms and other dried seasonings & vegetables, a few vendors making different kinds of bread and pancakes (I saw green onion pancakes, what looked like redbean buns, ,something with a lot of egg in it, and sesame flatbread - more on this in a bit), and at least 4 different guys slaughtering, gutting & de-feathering live
chickens. It was simply amazing. It was like i had stepped back in time, and was at this rural village market, yet i was literally about 2 blocks from the subway station. The place was packed, with tons of random people buying their groceries. Most of the people ignored me altogether. One lady gave me this look of death when she realized that i had taken her picture (and i wasn't even trying to get her in the shot, she just happened to be standing in the way). Thankfully she didn't say or do anything, she just stared at me menacingly for about 10 seconds. A few people smiled at me, which was nice. Two people actually tried to talk to me, but they basically didn't know any more English than 'hello'. We smiled and nodded at each other a few times, but unfortunately, that was about all i could do. The guys slaughtering the chickens were hardcore. They'd yank one (still alive) from this cage, whip out a tiny blade, slit its throat, and then chuck the entire bird in this large bucket beside him. The blood was spurting up out of the bucket onto the wall behind them, and the chicken was twitching madly, making the bucket dance across the ground
a bit. After the thing stopped bleeding as much, and was mostly limp, he grabbed it, and started cutting it up & open to gut it. He also chopped off its feet, and then went to work plucking off all the feathers. The guy also had a few live ducks that i'm assuming were also ready for sale & immediate slaughter. There were a few other
fish vendors who were scaling the fish right on the street. The pile of scales was a few inches tall. There was also this other guy who was selling these tiny pineapples (just slightly larger than my fist), and he was skinning them, with this massive pile of pineapple skin on the ground under this feet. As i was walking the length of the alley,
there were some even more narrow side alleys running off at right angles, which basically led to the back entrances of the apartments. I saw a good chunk of these people's lives there. I saw the expected clothing drying on wires, kids playing with toys, quite a few chamber pots (apparently they had no indoor plumbing). Again, the entire scene was beyond surreal. Finally at the end of the main alleyway, there was this huge open lot where I can only assume a bunch of apartments were recently bulldozed, as it was nothing but rubble. Amongst the rubble, i saw about a dozen people just picking through the pile for who knows what. At that point i turned back to return the way i had come, and came upon this woman who was cooking flatbread
with sesame seeds, in huge rounds (about the size of a large pizza). I decided if i was ever going to try some street food, this was my chance, so i gathered up my courage, and watched as someone else bought some to try & figure out how much it cost. Unsurprisingly, it was dirt cheap. i got two slices from the round for 1YN, which worked out to 15 cents total. The slices were literally about the size of a large slice of pizza, and about twice as thick. The woman seemed really impressed or happy that i was buying from her. i watched when the others bought, and she never had any expression, but when i handed her the 1YN coin, her whole face lit up. it was awesome. The bread itself was really tasty. It was still warm, and a bit salty, with a
nice flavor from the sesame seeds that coated one entire side. The temple combined with this alleyway experience really made my entire day. It was really nice to finally be around people who weren't loud, rude or just trying to get my money. Just ordinary people doing their thing.
Next, I got back on the subway, and took it further south, to the stop closest to the Longhua Pagoda. This one was a bit of a challenge to find. While I had a street map printed out, the map
made it seem much closer to the subway station than it turned out to be. I was about to give up altogether, when i walked around a curve on the street, and finally found it. The pagoda in front of the temple is huge (like 8 stories), and its amazing to think that this thing was built over 1000 years ago. The temple and grounds were also pretty
extensive. While this temple was similar in a lot of ways to the Jade Temple that I saw in the morning, it was definitely much less touristy and a lot larger. I think i only saw 3 other obvious tourists at Longhua, while Jade had dozens. It was also a bit more quiet. While there were still a lot of worshipers, the grounds were larger, so it didn't feel as crowded. I think i spent about 45 minutes exploring and taking pictures, and was starting to get hungry for lunch. The temple actually had a small restaurant, but unfortunately, the entire menu was in Chinese, so i had no clue what it said. I was a bit frustrated, because I didn't remember passing any place to eat when I walked there, and my next stop (IKEA) was a long walk away. I didn't have much of a choice, so i started walking back to towards the subway. Somehow, i stumbled upon this tiny pastry shop, where i ended up buying this huge muffin shaped roll that was stuffed full of tuna & minced onion, and this baguette shaped thing that had bacon & green
onion inside. They were actually surprisingly decent. They both tasted fresh, and the flavor was nice. The total for both was 11YN (\$1.61), so adding in the sesame flatbread, i spent about \$1.75 on lunch that day.
After this, my day was spent mostly walking huge distances searching for stuff. unfortunately, that shanghai city map that I got was pretty horrible. It became apparent that it was either really out of date, or just plain erroneous when street names didn't match up with reality. Worse, it left out a lot of streets. My next destination was IKEA, which according to the street map was less than 2 miles, however in reality it was closer to 4. There were some long stretches of the walk where i wasn't completely
sure if I was on the right street. Also, i had a non-fun adventure trying to find & use a bathroom. I learned the hard way that most bathrooms do not have toilet paper.
Compound that with the fact that they don't even have western style toilets, but instead are basically just porcelain holes on the floor, that you have to squat over. I really needed the toilet, and most stores & restaurants don't have any public toilets to begin with. The city's solution is to have public toilets scattered about the city.
that seems like a sane move, except that the signs for them are nearly useless, because all they typically say is "Toilet 100m", with no further guidance on exactly where the toilet is. I ended up wandering into Coaxi park in search of a toilet, figuring that i had seen a bunch just yesterday when I was walking through People's Square park, so surely there would be one here. I found a map board of the park, which even labeled the bathrooms, but didn't bother to include a "You are here" dot, so i had no clue where i was in relation to the
bathrooms, and i was getting increasingly desperate to find one. I started to just wander the park, and found the bathroom. Of course, this is when i learned that they had no toilet paper. Thankfully, i had two decent thick napkins in my backpack, and used them, but I don't even want to contemplate what other people do. After this, I
continued my walk to IKEA, and got there just after 1pm.
As was the trend in just about every large public indoor space, they had this bizarro security just to get in, where I had to put my backpack into this large red plastic IKEA bag (very similar in size and shape to those yellow bags that you can use to
hold stuff), and then carry the red bag around. i honestly don't understand how this makes the store safer, or even prevents theft, as when i turned it back in when exiting the store, they made no effort to confirm that i didn't shove stuff inside, nor did they ever even x-ray or inspect my backpack as i was entering the store. Also, the
store was crawling with more of the creepy, navy blue uniform security goons that i've seen all over the city. Beyond that, it was the standard IKEA experience. The products, and even their names were just about identical to what we have in the US (even all the signs were in English plus Chinese). I was hoping that the cafeteria
would have some quirky food items, but no, it was also nearly identical to the food that we see on the menu in the US. Even the food stand near the exit (where they usually have the cheap hotdogs & ice cream) was the same. I guess the consistency is a good thing in a way, as you can depend on every IKEA on the planet to be the same. One amusing thing is that while i wandered around the cafeteria, people watching, I saw people who had ordered spaghetti & meatballs eating them with chopsticks. I'm sure that there's something truly ironic about this and marco
polo's mark on history, but its clearly lost on the locals. Also, the drink fountains had "craMberry juice" (yes with an M instead of N).
Next, i had another long walk up to the area where i was planning to have dinner later on. There was supposed to be this mall with a supposedly really good Chinese restaurant. Somehow, when I finally got there just before 3pm, the mall was closed. As in, roped off, as if there was some bio-hazard inside or something. I have no clue why, there were no signs, just that there was no way to get inside, and no indication that it was even open. Diagonally across the street there was another
HUGE mall (6 stories tall), which i went into and explored for a bit. This one was kinda interesting because nearly all the stores were selling various electronics (cameras, computers, music players, televisions, etc). Each store was basically like an outlet for a particular brand. There literally where separate stores for SONY, HP,
Acer, Canon, etc. I can actually see how this could be really useful if you're shopping for something like a laptop. You can go to this one mall, and then test drive & price all the different vendors in one place at the same time. Also, I noticed that there were no 'Apple' stores. Instead, it seems like Apple licenses the right to sell their products to other companies, which have then setup Apple store clones, which look nearly identical to the Apple stores in the US, yet are named after these other companies. One that i saw today was called "I*dea" (I have no clue why the spelled it like that, other than some bizarro misunderstanding of how to spell the word).
Beyond that, the trip was uneventful. I should note that the Shanghai Pudong Airport does an absolutely crappy job with signage. While nearly all the signs are in English & Chinese, there's nothing telling you how to get to the ticket counters (or Departures, or anything remotely resembling your gate). I had similar problems figuring out where to go when I first arrived as well, but erroneously assumed that was just due to being overwhelmed). Its basically just a walk forever until you get luck and happen to find the departures hall. One plus is that they do offer free wifi and power sockets right near the gates.
Al the trip pictures are posted here.