Shanghai, what an amazing city! I mean truly amazing - I have never seen anything like it. Yes, I have been here before, and yes, it sort of blew my mind back then, but that experience was not as I would have liked -being carted around from lunch to shopping for a jacket for Mike to up to the top of the Pearl Tower Observatory, a speedy walk along the Bund, another lunch, a visit to a family friend and then onto the train and out of there. This time I was on my own and in control - well, is or can anybody in fact be in control in a place like such as Shanghai? Perhaps Tokyo could possible compare in scope to the sheer size, commotion, hustle and bustle - I am yet to see - but can anywhere else? The fact that this country - and therefore Shanghai is officially communist can not in a million years stand up to reason.
At least on the surface, Shanghai appears to be the most heavy and in-your-face example of pure capitalism gone mad. One walk down Nanjing Lu - the spritzy shopping strip across from the Bund - the old British colonial area - must surely register emotional responses amongst anyone unfamiliar with it. Whether you feel shock, intrigue, exasperation, delight or pure awe (which is what I felt), Nanjing Lu is a street to experience. Perhaps the street was even more congested than usual, due to the fact that I walked down it during the Chinese National Holiday season – one whole week - 7 days - of national holiday for the whole country to commemorate the victory of Communism in China, while every retailer and his dog uses the chance to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell! It is an amazing contradiction. Row upon row of red Chinese flags lining Nanjing Lu while the - perhaps I would say 1/2 a million at a time - people shop, spend and consume.
It is truly amazing. How many times would Mao Zedong be turning over in his grave at this, or the sight of the new city Pudong rising from across the Bund. An amazing scene, when you consider that the extraordinary phenomenon of capitalism and modernity that is Pudong - glittering with video screens advertising companies and tens and tens of stories high on the sides of skyscrapers - itself inversely overlooks the Bund, whose architecture is that of what one may consider the origins of capitalism - in this case, the British –for conquest, wealth and power.
I topped off my experience of Shanghai with a visit to the Shanghai Propaganda Art Centre. Here, once I eventually found the place nestled in a basement of yet another inconspicuous apartment block in the city, I was led off into a room where resided dozens of pure Mao propaganda posters, and then, only after permitted to visit the second of rooms where – yes – Mao’s posters were for sale!
At least on the surface, Shanghai appears to be the most heavy and in-your-face example of pure capitalism gone mad. One walk down Nanjing Lu - the spritzy shopping strip across from the Bund - the old British colonial area - must surely register emotional responses amongst anyone unfamiliar with it. Whether you feel shock, intrigue, exasperation, delight or pure awe (which is what I felt), Nanjing Lu is a street to experience. Perhaps the street was even more congested than usual, due to the fact that I walked down it during the Chinese National Holiday season – one whole week - 7 days - of national holiday for the whole country to commemorate the victory of Communism in China, while every retailer and his dog uses the chance to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell! It is an amazing contradiction. Row upon row of red Chinese flags lining Nanjing Lu while the - perhaps I would say 1/2 a million at a time - people shop, spend and consume. 
It is truly amazing. How many times would Mao Zedong be turning over in his grave at this, or the sight of the new city Pudong rising from across the Bund. An amazing scene, when you consider that the extraordinary phenomenon of capitalism and modernity that is Pudong - glittering with video screens advertising companies and tens and tens of stories high on the sides of skyscrapers - itself inversely overlooks the Bund, whose architecture is that of what one may consider the origins of capitalism - in this case, the British –for conquest, wealth and power. 
I topped off my experience of Shanghai with a visit to the Shanghai Propaganda Art Centre. Here, once I eventually found the place nestled in a basement of yet another inconspicuous apartment block in the city, I was led off into a room where resided dozens of pure Mao propaganda posters, and then, only after permitted to visit the second of rooms where – yes – Mao’s posters were for sale!
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