Shanghai

March 23-25. Shanghai. Late afternoon on the 23rd we sail up the murky brown Huangpu river, past ship yards and dry docks, past endless stacks of cargo containers, past the puffing smokestacks of big factories, through the choking smog.  We forge ahead, challenging the countless small cargo boats that crisscross the river ahead of our massive ship, ferrying their commodity morsels in an endless waltz of commerce.

Finally, after more than an hour of this mesmerizing dance, we arrive in the parakeet-pleasing city of Shanghai, a shiny new object upon the planet's crust.  The city has hundreds of brand new skyscrapers - some that look like temples, or pineapples, or bottle openers, others just big monolithic structures.  Our ship anchors adjacent the Bund, right in the heart of the city, filling our view with the sparkling, neon Legoland that is Shanghai.

First thing the next morning we go into the city to explore.  It is a vast landscape of modern construction, punctuated with small green spaces, laced with a spiderweb of freeways.  There are so many cranes working to expand this capitalist mecca, that some consider the crane the national bird of China.  Salaries are low, energy is high, real estate is bubbling over.  Taoists, Buddhists, Christians, atheists - twenty six million people whose common threads are the pursuit of money, and a curious habit of wearing their pajamas in public.  Only 5% of the citizens have cars, yet since there are no parking spaces, they must forever navigate the highways and byways in a sort of eternal quest for that which does not exist.  With modern GPS technology, drivers always know where they are, even if they don't know where they are going.  Similarities to much of human existence abound.

Shanghai natives have their own dialect distinct from other areas in China, and some legal and cultural differences as well.  Men outnumber women, thus tipping the scales of romance in favor of females.  To obtain a wife, men must posses the four 'C's.  They must have cash, a condominium, a car, and a career.  The more discerning ladies also demand a fifth quality - the prospective husband must be cute.  Mercifully for these young men, there are no requirements to be communicative or emotionally available.  In Shanghai parents will often supply their sons with an apartment for the sole purpose of enabling them to marry.  With such expensive requirements for young men, it is no wonder that Shanghai couples seeking to produce a child have a strong preference for baby girls.  By contrast, in most other places in China the preference is for baby boys, who are duty-bound to support their aging parents.

To be sure, Shanghai has a lot of history.  It has the dubious distinction of being a verb - shanghai'd - the practice of drugging, kidnapping and ultimately enslaving victims into forced labor.  Today the city's rapid transformation into a modern, international center of commerce leaves it with barely a trace of its ancient past.  They have an ongoing rivalry with Beijing, which tour guides in both cities make apparent.  During our two days here, we are mostly in the city, though also visit an old water village about one hour outside of Shanghai (with gondolas and waterways similar to Venice).   We ride to the top observation deck of a tall building, where we get a great view of other tall buildings and can see as far as the smog will allow.  We stroll the famous Bund, which is a Hindi word meaning waterfront.  A new waterfront path was built by the government for the 2010 world expo.  It is a pleasant walk, crowded with tourists, 99% of whom are Chinese.  We enjoy lunch at a wonderful Tibetan restaurant called Lost Heaven.  Walking back toward our ship, an old Chinese man sitting on the sidewalk tries to squirt white shoe polish on my brown shoes as I walk by.  He gets within inches of my shoes, but I manage to jump out of the way, do a jig and avoid his little scam.  He laughs heartily to see me move so sprightly.  I look at him and we share a brief moment.

In the water village I am not so quick.  A female shoe-shining vendor stalks me with her polishing kit.  I make the tactical mistake of pausing, so she swiftly swoops down to squirt brown polish on my shoe.  Now I have no choice.  I play the game and sit to have both of my shoes polished.  She does a fine job and I pay her the negotiated fee of 5 Yuan, about $1.  With my shiny shoes, we go to a tea house overlooking the canal.  We haggle over the price of a pot of tea.

On the Bund we wait at a busy intersection to cross the street.  Our light turns green, but as if to haggle over our very existence, the drivers wear an expression that betrays any intention of stopping for pedestrians.  We inch out into the street, using the green light not as an entitlement, but as a sign that the traffic gods have conveyed a slight advantage to us, 30 seconds of moral high-ground from which to negotiate.  The drivers ultimately slow down enough to avoid hitting us, but not enough to allay our fears.  They lose this barter transaction though manage to save face.  We survive, but our confidence in the roulette of Shanghai intersections is shaken.

In the evening we are treated to a magnificent acrobatic show performed at the Ritz-Carlton.  Top-flight dancer/contortionist/acrobats perform seemingly impossible acts of strength and beauty.  The same show travels around the world, less theatrical than the famed Cirque du Soleil, but every bit as humanly remarkable.

We learn of Shanghai's colonial past, that it once had a British section, a French section, a Jewish section.  Today it does not even have a Chinatown.  On almost every apartment building we see what is jokingly called the national flag of China - laundry hanging out to dry.  Millions of undergarments dancing in the breeze - not pretty, but less expensive than electricity-guzzling washers and dryers.  We are also told that most apartments do not have heat.  In winter they just wear extra layers of clothes.  We leave Shanghai impressed with the place, curious what will become of this city if the growth continues.  We enjoy a glittering sail-away passing brightly lit boats cruising the waterways beneath the neon towers. Like parakeets, we bob up and down snapping pictures of the pretty lights.  If you like the energy of a big city and don't mind its detractions, Shanghai is a great destination.  Regardless of your tastes, their rapid transformation is an impressive accomplishment, one of the more positive examples of China's political system.  We sail out to sea heading south, with favorable feelings about Shanghai.