Around Shanghai

Between visiting family, relatives, and friends, we explored various parts of Shanghai, discovering new places and revisiting old favorites.

• Zhang Yuan (Zhang Garden): an urban renewal project featuring traditional Shanghai residential buildings.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Waitanyuan (Source of the Bund): another urban renewal project showcasing the oldest commercial buildings at the north end of the Bund. On the day we visited, a bustling Christmas market, which had sold out, created quite a crowd. Unfortunately, we couldn't explore as much as I had hoped.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Dishui Lake: located at the very tip of Shanghai on the East China Sea, this new urban development is centered around a man-made circular lake that spans 2.5 km in diameter. It is home to the new Shanghai Planetarium and features a branch of the popular Duoyun Bookstore. The day we visited was bitterly cold and windy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Panlong Tiandi: a recently transformed shopping and commercial complex, reimagined from an old water village. Here, we stumbled upon our first Aldi in Asia.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Having missed M50 in 2019, we were delighted to discover that the place has expanded while maintaining its edgy vibe. No wonder it was our go-to place when we lived in Shanghai. First below, a photo by Oliver Jiang. Second below, a painting by Ning Tao.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Shanghai-Style Savory Fried Nian Gao for Lunch at M50.
  
  

Impressions of Shanghai - The Economy

The supposed economic slowdown in China is difficult to discern in Shanghai.

• Wherever there used to be a lot of people, there are still a lot of people, though I have been told that restaurants that used to turn over quickly, now just manage to be full.
• I have been told the real estate market is down by as much as 20%. To curb flipping, five years ago, the rule was two apartments per person; now it is one per married couple. It seems the government can easily influence the market.
• There are visibly fewer foreigners (i.e., non-East Asians) on the streets. The COVID lockdown had to be the main contributor. Other factors are harder to quantify, such as de-emphasizing English language education (not unlike efforts to de-emphasize math education in the US). More concerning is the brooding technology cold war between the US and China. As a direct consequence, an Intel colleague and friend, whose entire project was cut by Intel, but interestingly was picked up by a smaller US company, whose CEO surely doesn't go to White House roundtables.

A particularly interesting insight from a friend in finance is that all the doom and gloom about the Chinese economy that we read in the US is because the markets are betting against (i.e., shorting) China. There is no doubt China is not at the peak. The question is - how far and how long will the dip be?

On a different note, the highlight of my entire Shanghai visit was my very brief conversation with a Uighur Didi (rideshare) driver. After some minimal small talk, such as "Shanghai winters are damp and cold, aren't they?" I pointedly asked him if all the reports we hear in the US about Xinjiang are true. He mentioned that detentions and camps have decreased lately. His primary grievance, however, was the lack of freedom. I responded with a rhetorical, "Who is truly free anyway?" He expressed a preference for being a beggar abroad rather than driving in Shanghai, but lamented that the government would not issue him a passport. It reminded me that freedom can be as simple as a citizen's right to obtain a passport!

Wherever there used to be a lot of people; for example, on the East Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street(1st and 2nd below), and our fav Six Miles Cafe in Lujiazui (3rd), there are still at lot of people.

Impressions of Shanghai - Changes

The last time we were in Shanghai was May of 2019. Though it has been almost five years, we do not detect much change. The most significant changes were:

• We can now use Alipay by linking our US credit card. For example, we scan our Alipay-generated QR code at the Shanghai Metro turnstile entrance and exit, and a 5 RMB subway ride shows up as a $0.70 transaction on our Capital One card. We too, can manage living cashless.
• Almost all admission tickets are individually linked to a name and an ID number. This may be a leftover from COVID and remains unchanged. Of course, local people do this online. We had to do this at ticket windows by showing our passports. There was never an option of simply handing over cash and receiving a ticket in return. Anonymity, which was never a thing, now lies completely in the wayside of progress.
• The subway is not as crowded as before. Over the last five years, the system grew by 20%, totaling ~800kms and ~500 stations..
• There are many more public toilets: very clean with moving air, free, and with plenty of toilet paper.
• At least twenty-five percent of the cars on the road have batteries (electrics and hybrids) and are easily spotted by their green license plates, with BYD and Tesla just two of many manufacturers.
  
  Look closely at the photo below taken on our favorite stretch of West Nanjing Road. Every car license plate in the shot is green.
  
  

BYD (1st below) and Tesla (2nd below)

Shanghai

While this blog is still in South Korea and there are ~5 Korea posts to be written, we are in Shanghai. I bought a new mobile phone, a Xiaomi Mi 9, and have been testing out its camera in some of the usual spots, and some new ones as well.

Modernist building on Wukang Road.


And The Paramount Ballroom.


The new mall near Grandmother's apartment.


Veg Resto in Xujiahui on May Day.




Dockless bike shares with airless tires. Cool.




At the optical store. ;-)


Checking out Hive Box self-pickup and dropoff cabinets at Sun-Ling's cousin's townhouse complex. Very cool.

Birthday Extravaganza

My grandmother's 100th birthday celebration is the reason we braved this very cold, damp, gray winter weather to descend into Shanghai. Even though she was born in November 1920, family tradition, great grandchildren school schedules, and China public holidays all dictated the date of party to be 12/31/2018. Old people can be anxious for birthday parties too.

Even though my paternal grandmother was actually older than this grandmother when she died, she was pretty much out of it in the end. This grandmother, on the other hand, still has much of her mental and physical health. even though she is obese, does not believe in exercise, is not a fan of food therapy, and comes from a family of only average longevity/health. She seems a statistical anomaly to us.

John adds: The Celebration was well attended with relatives from both Sun-Lings maternal and paternal sides, Grandmother's former students (she was a teacher), Sun-Ling's mother's university colleagues, in-laws, neighbors, and more.

New Year's Eve morning we wake up to a dusting of snow on the rooftops outside our Airbnb apartment in the Luwan District of Shanghai.


The Celebration Banquet.




Sun-Ling speaks of Grandmother's long life.


Grandmother cuts the cake with help from Sun-Ling's mother.


Sun-Ling, brother, sister and 2nd Cousins.

Shanghai - More Around Town

In which we visit the 10th Shanghai Biennale, the so-called West Bund River Walk, and revisit the coconut man.

First hot day in Shanghai this year as we walk along the West Bund. Lots of boat traffic to keep the guys from getting bored. That's the Lupu Bridge at back.




And in this shot you can almost see the buildings of the 2010 Shanghai Expo on the far right bank.


And there's a skateboard park of sorts.


And the nearby Long Museum with sculpture park.


It's a short walk to Longhua Buddhist Temple for a vegetarian lunch at their onsite restaurant; noodle soup.










And it always breaks our hearts to see the horrible renovation of the nearby Longhua Airport Terminal, once a beautiful Art Deco building.


It's officially Spring when the cherry tree near Grandmother's apartment is in full bloom.


Beautiful day to be on the river. Maybe one day I'll hitch a ride on one of these work boats.


The kuai di, courier services, are moving tremendous numbers of packages these days as online shopping continues to grow in China. Three years ago on our last visit, most couriers drove electric motor-scooters, now they drive electric (I think) three-wheelers.


We see the coconut man again atop the bridge and stop to buy mangoes.


While we were delighted with the 6th Shanghai Biennale in 2006, we found the 10th Biennale to be ho-hum. My guess is that the art often seems lost in the new venue, Power Station of Art, the former power plant with it's huge spaces.

The giant smoke stack of the Power Station of Art is outfitted to be a giant thermometer - reading 29 C in this photo.






1999 (2014), a sound installation by Liu Ding. "The work 1999 reflects on the state of “contemporary art“ in China in the 1990s. The work consists of recorded quotes and pop music of the 1990s, which can be listened to on the telephones."


"Bouquet V (2010), meanwhile, consists of 95 different flowers, each occurring just once in the elaborate arrangement of various sizes, colors and textures." By Willem de Rooj.


Windows on the World (Part 2), 2014 by Ming Wong. "This work (in collaboration with Thomas Tsang of Dehow Projects) focuses on the concept of “future” in Chinese modernity, and particular, how it is manifested in the unlikely relationship between sci-fi and 20th century Cantonese opera.


There is a wide open deck off 3F with a coffee shop and great views to the Huangpu River and Lupu Bridge. Not to mention the west side gives a so-so view of the 2077 ft tall Shanghai Tower, the 2nd tallest building in the world (no worthy photo).