Communism: A KFC On Every Block

I think I'm going to officially stop calling China a "communist" country.  I'm pretty sure "authoritarian" is more accurate, since it gets across the attitude of the government without commenting on its economic policies.  Because let's face it, China is the new home of rampant capitalism and anyone who thinks differently just needs to spend a few hours there to see what's up.  True, it may not be pure capitalism, what with the smorgasbord of protectionist policies and government regulations, but China is nothing if not a profit-driven and increasingly consumer-driven society.  How else to explain a KFC on every block?

My trip to Shanghai last week during Korea's Chuseok holiday was somehow enlightening despite the fact that I've learned all these things before.  I learned so much about China during my semester in Hong Kong and particularly during my week-long spring break in Beijing, but that was over 6 years ago and it was almost as if I'd forgotten everything already.  I kept finding myself shocked by things that I've already experienced, which just made me feel silly.




My friend Tegan and I arrived at Pu Dong International Airport last Sunday afternoon.  The trip got off to a pretty inauspicious start, which thankfully turned out not to be indicative of the week ahead.  First we spent literally about 2.5 hours on the subway getting from the airport into the city center, partly because we went the wrong direction a couple times.  Then we headed to the Shanghai Railway Station to buy overnight tickets to Xi'an, where we planned to spend a couple of days; I have wanted to see the Terra Cotta Warriors so badly for several years and my friend Jen told me that Xi'an is a great city.  Unfortunately, with many Asian countries scheduling holidays based on the lunar calendar, Korea's holiday coincided almost exactly with the Mid-Autumn Festival in China and every single train to Xi'an for the entire week was sold out.  I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, considering Shanghai has over 20 million people, but it was still disappointing.  Guess I'll just have to find some way to get back to China in the future.

Meg's apartment complex, the Seine (yes, Shanghai seems to have
a bit of an Asian/European identity crisis at times).

Things started to look up, though, after our initial debacles, especially because this was going to be my first time trying out couch surfing.  CouchSurfing is a website where you can find people in various cities around the world who are willing to host travelers on their spare beds or sofas.  The entire site community is self-policed through reviews of hosts by couch surfers and vice versa, so you can be assured that you won't be rooming with some creep or crazy.  I ended up couch surfing with an American girl named Meg who has lived in Shanghai for 3 years and lives in a really nice apartment off of Wuning Road.  She and her roommates were so nice and full of useful information, and I stayed with them Sunday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights (they already had other couch surfers staying early in the week).  Tegan and I spent the other 3 nights at a nearby hostel and, having the benefit of direct comparison, I'm not sure I ever want to stay in a hostel again if couch surfing is an option.

The view from Meg's 11th-floor balcony.

And I used to be the biggest hostel advocate there was!  It's like, would you rather pay money to stay in a room with several other foreigners, unsure about the security of your belongings or how much sleep you are going to get, or stay for free in pleasant accommodations with locals or people who are familiar with the area?  No freaking contest.  (Especially when you add in the fact that the hostel scene has changed a lot since the last time I traveled extensively.  Seriously, since when did it become standard for people to travel with their laptops???  Not only would I be so concerned about someone jacking my computer, but the best part of hostel living, i.e. the social atmosphere, has all but been replaced by a sea of people scattered around the lounge and bar areas tap-tap-tapping away on their keyboards with headphones in their ears.  How unbelievably obnoxious and depressing.)

On Monday and Tuesday, Tegan and I hit the World Expo for two very full, very looooong days.  We both loved it so much and I am going to write a whole separate entry about the Expo because it was just that cool.  We were slightly bemused because we have both heard nothing but negative feedback about the Expo and that it's a giant waste of time and money.  I guess it's all in how you approach the event and what you want to get out of it, because we had a fantastic time.  But more on that later.

Wednesday was by and large a dead day thanks to the fact that I destroyed my feet after 24 hours worth of trekking around the Expo.  It seriously hurt to walk, plus it was rainy and shockingly cold, so I spent most of the day lounging around the hostel reading.  On Thursday, Tegan and I took the metro to the bargain market underneath the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum.  I desperately needed new shoes that wouldn't make me want to cut my feet off at the ankles and even though I've never been much of a bargainer I decided to give it a shot.  Imagine my shock when I suddenly whipped out some mad bargaining skills and got a few sweet deals:  shoes, sunglasses, and a nice new laptop shoulder bag that looks more professional than the one I use now (not that I'll have reason to use it for a while).  The laptop bag in particular was so awesome.  Almost unintentionally, I got the woman to drop from the initial price of ¥1880 to ¥500 (about $75), for a bag that would have easily cost me a few hundred in the US. Beautiful black leather, very classy... I was extremely proud of myself and the sales woman seemed quite ticked-off that I essentially beat her at her own game :)

After shopping, Tegan and I took the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel from Pudong over to the Bund, which is the riverside street with buildings in all sorts of different European architectural styles.  The Sightseeing Tunnel was honestly one of the most hilarious and pathetic "tourist attractions" I have ever witnessed, and truly China in its audacity and willingness to make a quick buck.  It is quite literally a tunnel underneath the Huangpu River in which tourists enter a glass-walled people-mover and coast past various neon-lit "landscapes," complete with techno-blippy sound effects and a robotic voice setting the scene.  As CNN says, "But what's not to love about the sudden appearance of blow-up dolls, flashing colored lights and booming, disembodied voices saying vaguely apocalyptic words such as 'magma' and 'hell.'"  Seriously.  It really made me think of a sadder version of the weird, scary-trippy boat scene from the 70's version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  Absolutely bizarre and nonsensical.  Bless you, China.

Tegan split off from me on Thursday evening to spend the rest of the week with a family friend and I spent the next day hanging out with a guy from Italy who lives in the French Concession, the former French-dominated area of Shanghai where the majority of foreigners now live because it is both the most expensive area in the city and the neighborhood which feels the most European.  Lots of parks and fancy shops up and down tree-lined streets.  It was quiet and residential and beautiful, with lots of amazing smells (flower bushes everywhere, pasta sauce wafting from windows, none of the rank sulfuric retch-worthy whiffs you get in other parts of Shanghai).  Living in the French Concession, you could almost forget you were in China.  If I had to live somewhere in China, that would most definitely be my chosen spot.  It was the only place I've ever been in that country that was simultaneously urban and peaceful.

A typical shopping street in the French Concession.

Part of Pudong.

Saturday was spent sightseeing in Pudong and the French Concession, which was interesting in that the two areas really could not be more different.  The French Concession is older and established and more European, while Pudong is like, the epitome of China's future, in the sense that it is brand-new, ostentatiously forced, and very "look-at-me."  Pudong is the area on the opposite side of the Huangpu River from the majority of the city, where nearly all of the major skyscrapers live.  It's basically the entire Shanghai skyline.  Which boggles your mind when you realize that most of the buildings have only been there for 3 years!  This is no organic neighborhood, this is government planning at its finest.  Meg told me that when she arrived in 2007, hardly anything currently in Pudong even existed yet.

More of Pudong.

(China has gone crazy in Shanghai in order to impress all of humanity once the World Expo began.  When Meg arrived, there were only 4 subway lines.  Now there are 11!!!)  I really wish that I had visited Shanghai in 2004 when I visited Beijing because it would have been such a spectacular contrast.  I saw a photo display of Pudong from 1995 to 2010 and the level of construction that the area has seen in that time, particularly in the last 3 years, is simply and literally unbelievable.

The Oriental Pearl TV Tower, built in 1996, basically the first sign of things to come in Pudong.
Currently the 8th tallest freestanding structure in the world.

The skyscraper on the left, slightly obscured by the Jin Mao Tower on the right (couldn't get a good angle), is the Shanghai World Financial Center.  It is not the tallest building in the world (that's the Burj Khalifa in Dubai), but it does hold the Guinness World Record for Highest Observation Deck, which, let's face it, is really the better qualifier for tourists.

Anyone who knows me well knows my obsession with going to the tops of things, so while I was in Pudong, I went to the 100th floor observation deck of the Shanghai World Financial Center, which looks like a giant bottle opener.  The whole building only went up 2 years ago and the observation deck is the highest in the world at 474 meters (1,555 feet).  The building also has the highest hotel in the world, the Park Hyatt Shanghai, which is on the 79th to 93rd floors.  The views of Shanghai were not as pretty as the views of many other major cities, but the sheer scope of the urban sprawl was fairly impressive.  Besides, it was still cool to see everything from up high, particularly some of the newer suburban areas in Pudong which just look like a sea of identical buildings with either blue or red roofs for that dash of color.

The most populous city proper in the world, with the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and top of the Jin Mao Tower looming in the foreground.

Looking the other direction, away from the Huangpu River and toward the ridiculous modern sprawl of Pudong.

Saturday night I met up with my friend Jonathan, who was visiting from Hong Kong to see his sister's family, and we went out after I had dinner with Meg and her roommates.  It was a nice way to spend my last night in China before heading back to reality (well, Korean reality) the next day.  I left for my flight about mid-day on Sunday but rather than take the metro all the way to the very distant airport, I got off the subway at Longyang Road so that I could take the fancy maglev train the rest of the way.  I've heard all about the maglev train in the news, but riding it for real was something else.  Maglev is derived from magnetic levitation, meaning that the train is propelled by a very large number of strong magnets between the train and elevated "tracks."  A trip that had taken Tegan and I about 45 minutes on the subway coming into the city took me only 8 minutes on the maglev.  According to the in-car speedometer, we got up to speeds of 301 km/hr (187 mi/hr) although apparently the train can reach max speeds of up to 431 km/hr (268 mi/hr).  I don't believe I've ever been on a smoother, faster train ride in my life.  

This guy is as amazed and bewildered as I was.

The thing that was the most freaky was the way that the train actually leaned into turns, something that could obviously never happen on conventional tracks.  On sharper turns, we were tilted so far to the right, while going so fast, that it almost felt as though the train would simply tip over or jump right off the track.  Slightly unnerving, and honestly, by the end of the train ride, I felt like I might throw up.  I'm not sure my stomach is used to moving consistently at such high speeds.  But still, if you wanted to impress me, China, job well done.  Now all you have to do is get those trains actually set up between your cities and not just as a display for tourists coming from the airport and I'll be really impressed.  

I couldn't help but note the genius of making something like the maglev the last thing a visitor will experience before leaving the country.  It really leaves you with the impression that China is leaping ahead to places we can only hope to reach in our own home countries.  For every thing that drives me absolutely crazy about China (not least of which is the people, who made me almost as insane and angry as I was during my first trip to Beijing lo those many years ago), there is another thing that slaps me in the face and reminds me that China is changing faster than any country on Earth at the moment and that we should be trying a lot harder to acknowledge that and keep up.  A Chinese-Canadian guy we hung out with at the World Expo made the remark that literally none of the accomplishments the Chinese have achieved in places like Shanghai over the past decade would be possible in our large, unwieldy democracies.  I certainly would never want to live under an authoritarian government (of which I was constantly reminded thanks to the inaccessibility of the Chinese-censored Facebook) but I'll be damned if they can't get things done.  It really makes you wonder if the democratic world will be able to hold its own.  I can't help but want to imagine a future now where we all have maglev trains, all over the world, zipping people around in total comfort and at top speeds.  

Man, I can only wish.