Thoughts on Shanghai

OK, this is a quick post to give my impressions and thoughts on Shanghai itself. Whew, where to start? First, the city is big. And when I say big, I mean B-I-G. I’ve been to some major US cities – New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, DC – and Shanghai blows them away in sheer size. There is no central downtown since it’s so spread out. I think there are about 23 million people in the city compared to around 8 million in New York City.

What’s really amazing is the stark contrast of old versus new. There are some stunningly beautiful modern skyscrapers in Shanghai. And they are spread out everywhere. Interspersed among them all are old buildings that have some modern influence but that they are run down, if not falling down, and filled with many who appear to be living in poverty. There are clothes hanging from clotheslines all over the city, even in the high rises. That was actually interesting. I could open my window in my hotel on the 13th floor. And there is still lots of construction going on. I can understand now how China is the number one importer of concrete, steel, and other building materials.

The roads for the most part are pretty good. One amazing thing is that there are elevated highways running all throughout the city. It’s a great way to control traffic but just shows how fast they city has grown and how local authorities decided to handle the traffic. They could probably do something like that in Washington, DC, to handle more traffic on the beltway. And talk about fast expansion, there are power lines running right through the city, including the towers that powerlines are strung on. I’m so used to seeing those in fields in the countryside, not through a major city. So many have the “not in my backyard” mentality that they would probably have a heart attack if they saw those towers.

Another thing, Shanghai is not very clean. I read coming over that the Chinese government has a problem trying to get people to stop spitting. Well, let me tell you, they have a long way to go. We constantly saw people clearing their throats and spitting everywhere, even in front of restaurants. And yes, there is public urination, even mothers teaching their kids how to pee on trees. I even saw one kid whose pants had no bottom so he could just squat down wherever he was and do his business. So, a general rule of thumb when in China is: THERE IS NO 5 SECOND RULE!!! Trust me!

I posted some pics up to show how bad the smog was. I don’t think they could do it justice. The last couple of days before we left the airport was intermittently shutting down due to smog and fog reducing visibility. Our flight was delayed a few hours as they had to clear out that traffic but it was amazing how thick the smog was. Scott Jenkins from Lowe’s talked about how a typhoon would come through and everything would clear out for a couple of days. That’s not very fun to pray for a typhoon to get some good weather. And what really amazed was that people not only dried their clothes out in the open, they even air dried chicken or duck.