Global Adventure, Part Six
SHANGHAI
-Jackson Blair
It is hard to grasp the enormity of Shanghai. It is a monstrously large city, the largest in China.
As I drove from the airport to the city and saw the landscape out the car window, it was obvious there is more variety to the architecture here than in Hong Kong. The apartment buildings are very diverse and are much more attractive. That said, it is a continuation of the apartment living I have seen almost everywhere I have visited in the Far East.
One rarely encounters a house.
It took me over 90 minutes to drive from the airport to the city. There is a rapid rail operation that covers the same trip in 8 minutes! Obviously, if I had known this, I would have been on the train. While driving along at a snail’s pace the bullet like train whizzed past me going so fast I hardly saw it. Judging from the thousands of cars ahead of me on the road, many other folk either don’t know about the train or simply prefer having their car with them where they are going.
The Chinese love tall buildings. Shanghai is the home to many of the more famous. The Grand Hyatt hotel was once, and perhaps still is, the tallest hotel in the world. One evening I went with friends to the cocktail lounge on the top floor. We had to take three sets of elevators to reach the top floor. Once we were there, the view was magnificent.
As you looked out the floor to ceiling windows, everything was below you. The tops of all the skyscrapers were further down. It gave me an eerie feeling. But the bright lights of the city and the wide panoramic view simply stole my breath.
One day I went to visit the historic areas of the city, places where trees are 600 years old, some of the flowering bushes are just beginning to bud, and the buildings are so old no one tries to put a date on them. The construction was all done by hand, the imagery and the statuary have weathered the storms of centuries. Traditions and mythology play a big role in these old buildings, with dragons and Foo dogs carved on rooftops or sitting at doorways to keep away evil spirits, or to guarantee happiness or long life.
Paths that wind between these old buildings are paved with little rectangular pieces of stone. Sometimes there is a discernable design. When you are walking along you have to wonder what the person who laid the walk might have been thinking so many hundreds of years ago, and how hard was it to find the little stones, and how long did it take to construct the walk, and was there a sense of pride in the accomplishment?
As I look at the unique buildings, each with so much character and charm, I am painfully aware that modern architecture has in large part erased individual architectural talent as an art form. Individuals carved these forms that are all around me, painstakingly laid the small stones that eventually form a walk, and crafted the animals that sit atop the roofs to provide some promise of safety or health or long life. Given the lack of any sort of efficient tools or equipment, I suppose it took years to complete some of the things I am seeing here.
It is an irony that as I walk through the old portions of Shanghai and look up at the beautiful wooden and ceramic roof tiles, I see towering above in the distance the modern monstrosities our generation has created. We have built really big, functional and effective skyscrapers and there isn’t a one of them between here and our country that can hold its own against just one of these simply carved, hand built buildings that I am seeing.
Now I know none of us would want to go back to getting water from the well, cleaning ourselves in the river, or sitting on hard wooden chairs without the comfort of padding. But there is a romance to the past that cannot be denied. And there is a synergy between these old buildings and the human spirit. And there is a sense of beauty, in form and substance that is greatly lacking in the architecture of the modern world.
When I experience any sort of confusion about the past versus the future, I ask myself what the humans one hundred years from now will think when they are looking at what we built and left behind.
On my last day in Shanghai, I enjoyed a dinner with friends in a private room overlooking the Huang Lu River. The river is a busy avenue for barges, tankers, cruise ships, tourist boats, and floating advertisements. The latter were a great surprise to me. I suppose they exist in other cities but I have never seen them.
These sailing advertising boards are four story high electronic billboards that sit atop a barge that is moving along the river from west to east and displaying advertisements on both sides that can be seen on shore. It is an incredibly effective form of advertising but I secretly hope it never catches on in America. It detracts from the beauty of the river.
After our dinner we boarded a ship for a cruise on the river. The ship was beautifully appointed with white leather lounging areas, all with their own window, and an incredible view of the shoreline with all the tall buildings lighted for the night. My friends and I settled for the window view for about ten minutes and then we were out on the deck enjoying the breeze and taking pictures of the fantastic skyline.
“Shanghai Nights” with Jacky Chang was a movie I enjoyed. I thought of it as we floated down the river and the title had new meaning for me.
My host at dinner is a man who had permission to attend The University of North Carolina years ago, he had his I-20 from the U.S. government, but China would not permit him to leave.
Like so many Chinese, he had an entrepreneurial spirit and went on to build a wildly successful pharmaceutical company. Both of his children attended school in the United States. He mentions that he finds the United States to be one of the friendliest nations in the world.
I hear this refrain about our country almost everywhere I travel. It always surprises me because I find the Asian culture to be welcoming and pleasing in every city I visit. Yet the fact that almost every Asian with whom I speak either wants to have a job in The United States or wants his children educated in The United States, seems to support the oft stated view in this part of the world that we, as a country, are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!
As I read American papers online during my long trip, and listen to CNN, I cannot help but wonder how long that view of America will continue. It is very important for us to get our house in order and to return to the principles that earned us the reputation we have in the larger world. Anything less is simply not acceptable.
There is a great deal of new construction going on in Shanghai. Buildings are rising everywhere one looks. As I reflect on the cities in China that I have visited, I cannot help but wonder if this nation will not one day soon be the center of commerce. The evidence is very compelling that it may well be.
Shanghai is one of the most impressive cities in the world. I hope you have the chance to visit Shanghai one day. It is an experience you will never forget.
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