I’ve never wanted to go to China. I don’t know if it’s the remnant of a Cold War childhood, when China was Red China, or too much current news, of imminent collapse or governmental collusion with murderous Putin, or Uighur concentration camps…
But a cheap flight comes with disadvantages – a 14 hour stopover in Shanghai – and I ain’t sitting in an airport for 14 hours…not when an hour-long, $1 subway ride takes me to the heart of one of the biggest and most important cities in the world. Sold. (China offers a 144-hour – six day - visa on arrival, no preplanning, no fee.)
And so I found myself on the #2 train, bound for Nanjing Road. Little did I know that this pedestrian shopping street dead ends at one of the great urban vistas in the modern world: The Shanghai Bund.
It’s a miles-long pedestrian stretch of riverfront with a spectacular view of iconic vistas: On one side, the colonial-era buildings including the Peninsula Hotel, lovely buildings that used to be home to most of the international sector so familiar to anyone with knowledge of China’s last 150 years. The history this area has seen!
On the other side, across the broad Huangpu River, is a parade of skyscrapers and other urban monuments that fairly scream World’s Number Two Economy, Soon to Be Number One! Built in the fanciful shapes of much postmodern architecture, encrusted with millions of LEDs, the vista is dazzling day and night.
I am sure that most of those walking on the promenade along the river are fairly convinced that this will soon be the first city, of the first economy, in the world. I am quite sure that’s not going to happen, just as it didn’t happen for Japan, which was once the upstart Number Two and earlier this year fell another notch to Number Four.
But China remains an impressive Number Two, and its boldness in proclaiming that, architecturally, is quite something to look at, as is the pedestrian promenade of Nanjing Road…
I walked 21 kilometers total, in about nine hours, and felt as though I’d barely scraped the surface of parts of one neighborhood. Shanghai is immense, bigger even than Mumbai, and it felt like it. Unlike Mumbai, or for that matter, Saigon, it’s also clean and organized and affluent.
The day was beautiful, breezy and a bit warm, but only just…Shanghai is the same latitude as Madrid and New York City, so spring is still just growing. As with Kyoto, the blistering heat I had in Saigon was not yet here. But it will be. The humidity told the tale. The city’s famed pollution was little in evidence, another big relief, and stereotype dispelled, at least for the moment.
A wander along the river was really something. The visual delights were many, from the usual sights of young people taking selfies and even wedding portraits shot by professional photographers, to all the delights of being in a big city: Kids playing, adults walking, the occasionally freakily-dressed person, families, groups of young people in uniforms…the whole thing. Surprisingly few Westerners, though; I saw a half dozen all day.
The paucity of anything resembling real Chinese food on this walk was surprising: Most little snack bars offered little more than coffee or tea, and there were no real vendors to speak of. Like Japan, this is Asia, but not southern Asia…street life is there, but resembles the West more than Thailand, Vietnam, India and so forth.
But I have eaten plenty on this trip, so the feast for the eyes was plenty. I did stop to use the wifi at a Starbucks (yeah, they really are everywhere), but their wifi worked only with a Chinese phone number. Why this is, in an international city in THE international coffee place, is a mystery, but I am inclined to think that it’s about something that I noticed as soon as I set foot on Chinese pavement, and never stopped noticing.
Control.
The number of police, and police outposts and above all, of video surveillance cameras, was…astonishing. i’ve never seen anything like it – and I used to live in New York, where there seems to be a cop every block. Here, at least in the areas where crowds congregated, they were everywhere, on foot, on mountain bikes, on motorbikes, in cars parked on corners, in the middle of the block, on raised platforms, and in vans that looked like small command centers.
It was unnerving.
Where there weren’t actual police, there were cameras. Sooo many cameras! Even walking along lovely little forested paths in a park along the river, one couldn’t walk more than 20 steps without seeing one. They didn’t try to hide them. In fact, that seemed very much the point:
Intimidation.
It worked: I hesitated to even take a picture of the cameras – the one above is of the plants, officer, I didn’t even notice the camera – because why would you put yourself out there like that? Why would you stick your head above the parapet of the “anonymity” of the crowd?
So this is what being in a surveillance state feels like: You just don’t dare. You don’t dare speak out, you don’t dare protest, you don’t dare even take a picture of the cameras watching you. Even as a tourist on a transit visa. I have privileges, certainly, but…what if I don’t?
It was quite a feeling, and one I’m not inclined to repeat. And I know that London is choc-a-block with video surveillance cameras, and there are cameras watching us everywhere in the modern world.
But as soon as this feeling hit me – in the airport, where getting through immigration looked easy, but took several minutes at the kiosk with the immigration officer looking at…something – I added my laptop VPN app back onto my iphone. You do what you can to protect yourself from those who are “protecting” you. Without your permission.
It was weird. And getting through immigration on the way out was pretty intense as well, as was repacking my backpack after they rummaged through it at security. I have no desire ever to deal with Chinese officialdom.
All that said, the Chinese people were lovely. The overall vibe of the promenade was light and joyous, people smiled readily, a few even giggling when I smiled back at them. I spoke with one young guy who was delighted to be speaking English with a real English speaker.
It’s a truism to end all truisms, but people really are the same everywhere, on the fundamental levels, and a smile goes a long way. People are curious about people who area obviously not one of them, and most want you to enjoy their country and be happy. And they respond when you say or show you are.
In somewhat related news, many young women in particular smiled at me, which is always a pleasure. Less comfortable were the three women who sidled up to me and asked me what I was up to and wanted to spend some time with me. I was not ready for this, it seems much more something you’d get in Saigon or Bangkok, or perhaps Tokyo. Certainly, Berlin!!
They were friendly and subtle, and not obvious, and I honestly still not sure what their hustle was, if they even have one. Perhaps they were just being friendly? I don’t know, but my traveler’s guard went up, and I finally figured out that one mention of my “wife” shopping inside tended to send them on their way.
But maybe they just wanted to practice their English?
It wasn’t even until later that it occurred to me: Escort, prostitute, sure, those are obvious. But what about undercover cop? There were a LOT of cops, more than I’ve ever seen, save St. Patrick’s Day in Manhattan. And who better than a friendly, pretty woman, to keep tabs on a visitor? There were very few Western people, or Indians, or Arabs, or any others of the other usual groups. So surely, getting to know this older American man who’s just wandering around…well, it can’t hurt to know what’s he’s up to, could it?
Yikes.
So I left with mixed feelings. The overall vibe was light and fun and friendly, and the scene was spectacular. But the underlying sense of a darker reality, of control, of subtle intimidation – even for a visitor – was hard to shake.
They don’t call this an authoritarian state, and I couldn’t help but think that people who support our country’s move in that direction should familiarize themselves with what an unfree state feels like. Double yikes.
So I will probably go back, for a longer visit, and outside of Shanghai. I have a curiosity about China that I didn’t have before, and I really liked the people.
It even made me a bit sad that they live in this manner, and that the impending collapse I read about so much could cause a lot of real pain to real people, like those I’ve met, or at least seen in their natural habitat, and found so delightful.
But that’s travel, right? It shows you real people in places that, just hours before, were cliches or vague visions from past impressions. It transforms the headlines into faces and bodies, smiles and waves. It creates an intimacy of sorts. It’s why Americans need to know each other, at least to some degree, so that we don’t become each other’s convenient straw men and women.
On the other hand, it was just a 14-hour stopover.
Now, back to London.
I loved reading this story of your brief but fascinating visit to China! Wow!!!