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| Shanghai 2007 - China Rising After a customer event in Houston, my big boss decided to hold a meeting in Shanghai. This allowed us to visit rapidly expanding auto customers and see the 2007 Shanghai Auto Show. Better yet, we were able to see first hand the glorious past and amazing development of China's showcase city. I had not realised that Shanghai was almost as much of a foreign creation as Hong Kong, with the remnants of the French and International (British and American) settlements lovingly preserved. But the boom and drive today is the new China. When the rest of the country comes closer to Shanghai's cutting edge, the world will be a different place. |
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| 2007 April 21-26 |
| The best movie system and spiciest noodles I've ever had on a plane, flying Korean Air over the Pacific. I was not prepared for the 1900-1939 western elegance of the French Concession district, with tree lined streets and beautiful Art Deco mansions. It was strangely similar to my street in Brussels, built around the same time in the late 20s. We stayed at the Jinjiang Hotel complex, where Nixon and Zhou Enlai reopened US-China relations, but our meeting was across the street at the former Cercle Sportif Français (French Sport and Country Club), in a stunningly restored Art Deco meeting room. |
| Exciting new architecture on People's Square, formerly the British race track, and my first view of the new skyscrapers across the river in Pudong. Later in the week the weather got better for a nice stroll along the Bund. |
| Classic Shanghai and even snazzier models at the Shangai Auto Show. In addition to cars, billboards sell electronics, designer gyms and chic silk from Shanghai Tang. Nanjing road bustles with shops, and the Art Deco masterpiece Peace Hotel, like New York on the Bund, will reopen soon to reborn luxury. |
| More traditional fare: turtle on rice. My appetite went out the window when my colleague said "oh look, I got a head". The same was true for the nicely shrink-wrapped duck tongues at Carrefour. But despite all the foreign architecture Shanghai is still China, although the old city is becoming either Qing Dynasty Disneyland or huge blocks of flats just as fast as the residents can be moved. |
| The soul of the old Chinese town is the YuYuan, a beautiful classical Chinese garden complex. Despite the traditional architecture, the future keeps poking up its nose on the horizon. The street plan of the extension of the old French Concession is still visible through the smog, but more and more skyscrapers are filling holes (existing or created) in the urban fabric. Many of the new bright-bright-shiny-shiny buildings with strange shapes reminded me of Dubai. |
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| Calligraphy, old paper money, furniture and regional costumes at the excellent Shanghai Museum on People's Square. |
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| The China of my childhood, that of Mao suits and the Cultural Revolution, seems to exist only in the flea markets. Let the world beware. Shangai is back, and rising again. |