China: Shanghai

We were barely in Shanghai, less than 72 hours for a cousin's wedding. It has been quite a few years since the last wedding in Shanghai. This one is rather special. The bride is a favorite cousin and is 37 years old. I had almost given hope of her ever getting married. It was a truly joyous occasion for all the families.

















China has been relaxing visa rules to attract tourists. We went on the free 240-hour transit visa. While that might be the intention of central government, China continues to feel unwelcoming:

• The Great Firewall is more formidable than ever. None of the free VPNs I tried worked on my phone, though I could get through using my eSIM. It was easier to get through two years ago. Psychologically I felt cut off from the modern world.
• All airport "free wifi" requires phone or passport registration. There is no anonymous surfing.
• At Shanghai Hongqiao Airport I couldn't send verification to my US number, and there was no passport registration machine inside security. I asked a few passengers at the gate to get me a code using their phone number and was turned down. People have no trust and they are cowered by government surveillance. I was horrified - the US could be heading this way.

We rode the High Speed Train from Hangzhou to Shanghai. Smooth.




The wedding was at the very 5-star Anandi Hotel. First below is the view to Suzhou Creek from our 10th floor room. And see also a similar sunrise view. Not to forget the amazing restaurant.






We made a short stop at our old haunts on Nanjing Xi Lu: to visit Jo Ma (an Aunt on SL's mother's side), to eat vegetarian at Jing'an Temple, and take a photo of the Art Deco Eddington House apartments.

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)