Shanghai

Had my hopes up too high. Way too high. It only took the first four hours of a four-day trip for Shanghai to disappoint me. May be the most metropolitan city of China, sadly enough, but Shanghai is still very far from sophistication, and even further from civilization.

Can’t deny the beauty of many of the buildings there, colonial and modern architecture, with the obvious exception of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. If only the city wasn’t so far enclosed inside the bubble of filth, overlooking the Huangpu river would’ve been just a little more pleasant than looking at the Hong Kong island from TST.

Considering how little time I had to prepare for this trip, I actually made a lot of effort to research for places to go and, more importantly, places to eat. But in the end, two of the only three decent meals I had there weren’t even Shanghainese.

The people—oh my god, the people. And I thought Hong Kong and Shenzhen were bad. Kudos to their very well developed metro network, including China’s very own Maglev; but it will take a lot more than high-speed train to drive this city away from the barbarianism so deeply rooted in all of China. Not only do people push their ways into the train before passengers get a chance to get out, but they turn back after they’ve entered the train to give an extra shove to those trying to get out.

The most enjoyable part of the trip was probably the walk through an “antique” street lined up with stall after stall selling fake watches, Chairman Mao playing cards, and a bunch of other dirty useless junk. The goods weren’t nearly as interesting as the neighborhood. Just a couple blocks away from the hip and cool Xintiandi, the area around the antique street was the oldest part of the city I saw. With residents just chilling and playing mahjong on the street, and kids running around laughing while attacking tourists with their water guns, it was as genuine as Shanghai could get in this century.

China will forever be China