December 14, 2006

• China Blog: Day 114. Shanghai Blog: Day 2.
  

  19:16 Beijing Time
  

  
  

  Phrase Of The Day: Zhe qiguai tian… (The strangest day…)

  So, I’m in Shanghai.

  In fact, I’ve been here less than 24 hours. I arrived aroundabouts midnight last night.

  Interesting personal observation of interest only to me: Whenever I arrive in a city for the first time, it’s usually at night.

  Anyway, Shanghai.

  I still can’t decide if I like this place. Part of me loves it, part of me hates it. You can certainly tell I’m a country boy- I’ve been walking around all day gawping at the sheer SCALE of things in this place. The city is huge! and I mean, in both area and vertically.

  Shanghai seems to have been planned out by a child flicking poster paint onto a city map. Seriously, if Changchun’s building placement is “somewhat random”, then Shanghai’s layout is the architectural equivalent of giving a monkey a typewriter. The buildings are ALL different, and look completely mismatched and hodgepodge. This is both cool and weird at the same time, and often you can be walking through a street of slums in the shadow of towering, opulent multinational corporate headquarters.

  And it’s certainly a city of experiences and characters abound!

  For example, today I decided to look for the Bund. I asked a friendly passing orange seller in my best Chinese where it was, and he replied “Straight ahead” and pointed up the road. Now, I have been told to watch out for the Shanghaiese dialect, but I think instead of “The Bund” he misunderstood me to say “What is the most direct way to leave Shanghai on foot, avoiding any sort of tourist areas?”

  For, dear reader, after nearly two and a half hours of walking along a road I took to be the Bund (And finding an arcade, and an awesome little park, and a place called Changchun Road) and exploring many interesting nooks and crannies, I came across a small tourist information stand.

  “No, sir….the Bund is about an hour away, in another part of town. Take the Number 21 bus and it will get you there.”

  Oy vey!

  So I get on the number 21, and get deposited two streets from The Bund…on the road on which the orange seller told me to go North in the first place.

  Then, while stopped for a repast in a delightful little floating restaurant on The Bund, I encountered a really nice young couple from London. The lass, Jane, had had her wallet stolen that morning, and this began our conversation. We spent a pleasant hour and a half chatting, and, should nothing happen to change my plans in the meantime, will be going to the Shanghai Museum tomorrow morning.

  Interesting character number 3 was a slight Chinese feller by the name of Zhou YiMing who, as I was taking a photograph, approached me and started chatting about life, the universe, and everything. He’s a professor of English, and likes to just go up to people and talk to them, but apparently they normally just brush him off or are very rude to him. So, we went for a coffee and a chat in a really famous 1920′s cafe on Nanjing Lu whose name escapes me right now. Really nice guy, lots to say, and he showed me all the coo’ stuff along Nanjing Lu. Also, he’s offered to show me around Shanghai’s major tourist areas if ever I come back.

  After departing his company, I walked back to my youth hostel.

  And during THAT journey, my friends, the real drama happened.

  I was walking along the road, and this absolute CRACKER of a young lady fell into step and started chatting. Now, this is not unusual, so I took it with a pinch of salt. You know me, talk to anyone, yadda yadda yadda.

  THEN she linked her arm in mine and asked me to go and meet her friend in KFC. I tried to leave, but she said “two minutes” and so I acquiesced, despite having eaten. So then she tries to make me buy her KFC, BEFORE taking me to met her “friend.”

  Now, despite my mother’s many objections to the contrary, I am neither totally naive nor a complete idiot. I’m feeling kinda sceptical by now – beautiful women certainly don’t pay attention to me for either my good looks or dazzling personality – so I gave her the cash for KFC and left.

  As I was walking down the street, this huge black guy chases after me, and drops his hand on my shoulder.

  “Man, I was watching you in there, and you did the right thing to run. You’re smarter than most folk your age. Yesterday I went with one of those girls to a bar, and after five minutes, when I hadn’t drank or touched the girl, they charged me 5000 yuan (about £500), and when I said I wouldn’t pay, they threatened to kill me.”

  Yes, dear friends. Your humble narrator almost got scammed by a Shanghaiese hooker.

  This city is CRAZY! I’m really not sure if I’d be able to live here, but, like everything else in my life, I’ll never know unless I give it a whirl. Besides, it seems nowadays I have NO control over where my life will take me next, but Shanghai doesn’t seem to be TOO bad an option- at least, in the short term.

  Anyways, I’m going for a drink in the bar of my hostel, from where, safe and hooker-free, I write these words, and I will leave you with a selection of today’s snaps!

  
  A view from the Purple Cloud Double Pavillion Gardens, illustrating both the serene beauty of the park and the smog that prevents the Shanghaiese from ever seeing the sun.

  
  This, dear friends, is a McDonalds ice cream stall. It sells nothing but chemical-laced McDonalds ice cream. You have these in the States?

  
  Changchun represent, yo!

  
  A view of Changchun Road. See what I mean about the towering opulence and the run-down housing in contrast?

  
  Finally made it to the Bund!

  
  Zhou YiMing…. my Shanghaiese coffee buddy!

  Zai Jian, guys!

  • 7:14 am
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