Coming to the world's most cosmopolitan city has its advantages and disadvantages. To understand Shanghai you have to appreciate its size, 6,000 square metres about four times the size of London and its costs - the sixth most expensive city in the World. Having said this in Western calculations daily life is still inexpensive compared to living in England. However this essay is not about Shanghai directly, or its geography and economics, but its, feel, its sounds, and its senses. In other words what is it like to come to Shanghai and actually live everyday in a city, that like New York, never sleeps.
When I first arrived in Shanghai I was put-up by some relatives of my Chinese girlfriend in a small apartment near Shanghai Indoor Stadium. However they were about to move and so within a short time I found myself helping them to move to their new apartment closer to the husband's business area. Within another two months I had moved again, this time to my own apartment in an International School where I was employed to teach English, some science and psychology. This school was located in the new area of Pudong where most Westerners who work for the big companies such as General Electric and General Motors rent expensive houses and villas in guarded enclosed grounds. For some reason the Chinese fear for Westerner's and always insist on almost locking them away when not at work. I had spent three years in China, first in JinHua (Zhejiang Provence) and then two years in Wuhan, known as the cauldron of China as it is so hot there. So when coming to Shanghai I was not a new foreigner to China but by and large an old hand.
However Shanghai is not like the rest of China, it is a mega-city and crowded with foreign nationals, with embassy's to serve them and restaurants to please all tastes from which ever country you hail from. So at first I was actually disappointed as before in JinHua and Wuhan I had been special, people were interested in you, invited you places and to their homes, but in Shanghai you are one of many and so you lose that feeling of being different very quickly. I did not like Pudong, it is like living in a graveyard, there are times you can walk to the local Carr Four supermarket (French) and hardly see another person except for some American teenagers running about on skateboards and mountain bikes, well out of the price range of most Chinese. In a word for me it was, boring and felt like a suburban desert rather than a bustling over-populated China. At the end of six months my contract with the school ended and I took up a post with a Chinese psychology company as its Clinical Director. It was an easy job as I only worked one day a week for what a Chinese would have to work two months for. They wanted my "name" more than me so I started using the spare time to teach business English to Chinese companies and started my own business giving Western style counselling to the local people. This also meant another move to my present apartment at Nanpu Bridge on the Puxi side. Every night the streets are full of traders selling, dubious food, trinkets, clothes, flowers and abundance of other merchandise and of course the cheap DVDs!! (Piracy here is like no other country - everything is copied and sold openly in the street). From about 6pm to 11pm the outside street from my apartment is full of people, walking, shouting and buying/selling almost everything you can think of. This can be a little annoying sometimes trying to get past them to your apartment block entrance and just going thirty metres to the Chinese supermarket is a trial of dodging motorbikes that insist they have right-of-way on the pavement. I never move out of the way but feign deafness and frustrate their progress as much as possible.
Once you are settled in Shanghai, job, place to live, confident about taking the Metro and buses everywhere then you can start to explore. At first you do the usual things go and see the Pearl TV Tower and the decide whether to spend the 100 rmb to go to the top and then deciding not too. You can also pay to go to the top of this building which has an unusual square cut out at the top and see all of Shanghai; again though frugalness got the better of me and I decided not to pay but to photograph instead. Not far from there is the under-water tunnel to the Bund area (the old colonial buildings) leading to the Peoples Square. Again you only do this once and having paid my 50 rmb you get to visit three museums underground and then take the little train under the river through a tunnel that is lit by a laser show as you pass through. The first museum is the Sex Museum and a really funny place to visit. I guess it is my English dry wit that sees things from an ironic point of view when visiting something that is showing traditional sexuality that is not reflected at all in the populace at large. The other two areas are the aquarium (a little dull) and a light show ( a little weird) where you sit in a dark room by yourself and listen to the sounds of people moving about in the room and trying to scare you. (Did not scare me but I did laugh at one point). Once through the museums you can go off on the tiny train through the tunnel to the Bund on the other side of the river. As for the rest of Shanghai you tend to explore as you go - and so with all the teaching in different parts of the city I eventually went everywhere. If you like shopping you can go to the cheap areas outside any major district but in the main centres you can see world-class shopping department stores and high-class clothiers. However Shanghai's main shopping is often at big-city prices and you have to be quite rich to shop here as you would in London, Paris or New York.
The night life here is rich in choice but many foreigners frequent the bars and night-clubs. I never really like this scene in Shanghai as they tend to attract irresponsible Westerners who get drunk, insult Chinese women and tend in general to behave badly. There are many tourist areas with bars and cafes that are designed to catch the unwary pocket - they charge sometimes 100 times the value of a drink or food in these places. Better to seek out the bars and clubs the Chinese use that are friendlier and less expensive. The nightclubs tend to play techno-music all night - this is not only very boring music but also repetitive and sounds somewhat fake. You are better to go to places that play live music; some of the Chinese rock session bands are quite entertaining. The difference though from the West is they try to ply you with food all the time and drinking is actually secondary to their idea of a good time. There are plenty of theatres and cinemas as in most big cities and that is purely a matter of taste.
On a daily basis as in any city when you are working and trying to make ends meet you start to take the city for granted and all those treasures that tourists talk about you pass by without a single thought. Shanghai is about making money, being in business and trying to succeed. Many Chinese migrate here from the smaller cities, towns and countryside hoping to join the big company and make their fortunes. However like many large commercial cities many have their dreams dashed in the struggle to just make a living to pay the rent and eat a decent meal once a day. Most of my friends in Shanghai are girls, this is for two reasons, one, most of my students and work colleagues are female anyway and secondly I prefer female company. However so many of them are unattached, smart, working, but very lonely. Shanghai seems to exude loneliness especially for girls coming into the city from outside. You also see how strong Shanghai born women are here too - they tend to be intelligent, confident and classical in their dress and habits. They also tend for the men to be too successful and therefore scare off the local men who want a more timid girl to marry. The Chinese love to control each other and so strong women here can be lonely too. (Even if they are in a relationship).
The big question is will I stay in Shanghai or move on? I like the city and its people, with its bright evening lights and sultry atmosphere. Shanghai has a lot to offer and you would be hard put to find other big cities as clean and tidy (at least in the main areas) and with so many green areas full of trees and water features. My favourite thing about the city is the statues! They are everywhere, but what I enjoy about them is that they are of normal scenes, people and comic invention. They add a certain vitality and amusing interest to street scenes where normally the pavement is empty except for the millions of people who pass by.
Maybe I could settle down here for a while but I know I suffer from wanderlust and sooner or later will say goodbye to Shanghai and hello to my next adventure.
When I first arrived in Shanghai I was put-up by some relatives of my Chinese girlfriend in a small apartment near Shanghai Indoor Stadium. However they were about to move and so within a short time I found myself helping them to move to their new apartment closer to the husband's business area. Within another two months I had moved again, this time to my own apartment in an International School where I was employed to teach English, some science and psychology. This school was located in the new area of Pudong where most Westerners who work for the big companies such as General Electric and General Motors rent expensive houses and villas in guarded enclosed grounds. For some reason the Chinese fear for Westerner's and always insist on almost locking them away when not at work. I had spent three years in China, first in JinHua (Zhejiang Provence) and then two years in Wuhan, known as the cauldron of China as it is so hot there. So when coming to Shanghai I was not a new foreigner to China but by and large an old hand.
However Shanghai is not like the rest of China, it is a mega-city and crowded with foreign nationals, with embassy's to serve them and restaurants to please all tastes from which ever country you hail from. So at first I was actually disappointed as before in JinHua and Wuhan I had been special, people were interested in you, invited you places and to their homes, but in Shanghai you are one of many and so you lose that feeling of being different very quickly. I did not like Pudong, it is like living in a graveyard, there are times you can walk to the local Carr Four supermarket (French) and hardly see another person except for some American teenagers running about on skateboards and mountain bikes, well out of the price range of most Chinese. In a word for me it was, boring and felt like a suburban desert rather than a bustling over-populated China. At the end of six months my contract with the school ended and I took up a post with a Chinese psychology company as its Clinical Director. It was an easy job as I only worked one day a week for what a Chinese would have to work two months for. They wanted my "name" more than me so I started using the spare time to teach business English to Chinese companies and started my own business giving Western style counselling to the local people. This also meant another move to my present apartment at Nanpu Bridge on the Puxi side. Every night the streets are full of traders selling, dubious food, trinkets, clothes, flowers and abundance of other merchandise and of course the cheap DVDs!! (Piracy here is like no other country - everything is copied and sold openly in the street). From about 6pm to 11pm the outside street from my apartment is full of people, walking, shouting and buying/selling almost everything you can think of. This can be a little annoying sometimes trying to get past them to your apartment block entrance and just going thirty metres to the Chinese supermarket is a trial of dodging motorbikes that insist they have right-of-way on the pavement. I never move out of the way but feign deafness and frustrate their progress as much as possible.
Once you are settled in Shanghai, job, place to live, confident about taking the Metro and buses everywhere then you can start to explore. At first you do the usual things go and see the Pearl TV Tower and the decide whether to spend the 100 rmb to go to the top and then deciding not too. You can also pay to go to the top of this building which has an unusual square cut out at the top and see all of Shanghai; again though frugalness got the better of me and I decided not to pay but to photograph instead. Not far from there is the under-water tunnel to the Bund area (the old colonial buildings) leading to the Peoples Square. Again you only do this once and having paid my 50 rmb you get to visit three museums underground and then take the little train under the river through a tunnel that is lit by a laser show as you pass through. The first museum is the Sex Museum and a really funny place to visit. I guess it is my English dry wit that sees things from an ironic point of view when visiting something that is showing traditional sexuality that is not reflected at all in the populace at large. The other two areas are the aquarium (a little dull) and a light show ( a little weird) where you sit in a dark room by yourself and listen to the sounds of people moving about in the room and trying to scare you. (Did not scare me but I did laugh at one point). Once through the museums you can go off on the tiny train through the tunnel to the Bund on the other side of the river. As for the rest of Shanghai you tend to explore as you go - and so with all the teaching in different parts of the city I eventually went everywhere. If you like shopping you can go to the cheap areas outside any major district but in the main centres you can see world-class shopping department stores and high-class clothiers. However Shanghai's main shopping is often at big-city prices and you have to be quite rich to shop here as you would in London, Paris or New York.
The night life here is rich in choice but many foreigners frequent the bars and night-clubs. I never really like this scene in Shanghai as they tend to attract irresponsible Westerners who get drunk, insult Chinese women and tend in general to behave badly. There are many tourist areas with bars and cafes that are designed to catch the unwary pocket - they charge sometimes 100 times the value of a drink or food in these places. Better to seek out the bars and clubs the Chinese use that are friendlier and less expensive. The nightclubs tend to play techno-music all night - this is not only very boring music but also repetitive and sounds somewhat fake. You are better to go to places that play live music; some of the Chinese rock session bands are quite entertaining. The difference though from the West is they try to ply you with food all the time and drinking is actually secondary to their idea of a good time. There are plenty of theatres and cinemas as in most big cities and that is purely a matter of taste.
On a daily basis as in any city when you are working and trying to make ends meet you start to take the city for granted and all those treasures that tourists talk about you pass by without a single thought. Shanghai is about making money, being in business and trying to succeed. Many Chinese migrate here from the smaller cities, towns and countryside hoping to join the big company and make their fortunes. However like many large commercial cities many have their dreams dashed in the struggle to just make a living to pay the rent and eat a decent meal once a day. Most of my friends in Shanghai are girls, this is for two reasons, one, most of my students and work colleagues are female anyway and secondly I prefer female company. However so many of them are unattached, smart, working, but very lonely. Shanghai seems to exude loneliness especially for girls coming into the city from outside. You also see how strong Shanghai born women are here too - they tend to be intelligent, confident and classical in their dress and habits. They also tend for the men to be too successful and therefore scare off the local men who want a more timid girl to marry. The Chinese love to control each other and so strong women here can be lonely too. (Even if they are in a relationship).
The big question is will I stay in Shanghai or move on? I like the city and its people, with its bright evening lights and sultry atmosphere. Shanghai has a lot to offer and you would be hard put to find other big cities as clean and tidy (at least in the main areas) and with so many green areas full of trees and water features. My favourite thing about the city is the statues! They are everywhere, but what I enjoy about them is that they are of normal scenes, people and comic invention. They add a certain vitality and amusing interest to street scenes where normally the pavement is empty except for the millions of people who pass by.
Maybe I could settle down here for a while but I know I suffer from wanderlust and sooner or later will say goodbye to Shanghai and hello to my next adventure.
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