Travel Shanghai Part 1: First Impressions
April 27th 2006 10:57
Shanghai's ultra cosmopolitan cityscape, upon first glance, reminds one immediately of Freud. The CBD area, with its abundance of skyscrapers constructed in the most unique of architectural styles, reaffirms man's global enthusiasm for phallic worship and masculine adamancy with splendid visual grandeur.
There is the Jin Mao Tower standing its ground proudly at 88 storeys and 340.1ms, designed to resemble a looming stack of banknotes; the renowned Oriental Pearl which appears on every single panorama postcard of Shanghai and soon in MI3 (possibly playing the transmitter for Tom Cruise to communicate with the aliens who are allegedly the source of human suffering); the cool Bank of China Tower that resembles a firing cannon, among other things; and so many other visual delights that draw the talent and imagination of the world's greatest architects together in one brilliant symphony of economic prosperity. The nightlife that takes place beneath these looming giants hustles and bustles with elusive excitement, tempting the most conservative of travelers with its Siren's call. Hengshan Road, famous for its high-class nightclubs and bars, becomes a palpitating artery flowing with western and eastern pleasures after 9PM, their luxury putting to shame even the more extreme of capitalist excess.
The look of angst and fervor on the faces of Chinese youths while they funk out to Japanese, American and Hong Kong trance music bear no difference from those on the faces of Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and all man seem to be equal for a moment while alcohol flows freely above the guitar riff. Indeed, Shanghai is not just China's window to the world; it's the golden veil shrouding the flaws of the current regime with frightening visual intensity and efficiency.
It is a city of motion and dynamic energy thrown together in a million polar extremes, qualities that the average tourist may find hard to incorporate into his original view of China upon first arriving.
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The tourist-compulsory Oriental Pearl Tower and its surrounding skyscrapers including the Jin Mao in the middle
Heng Shan Rd - If you can squeeze through, it's really a fun place.
The heart of Shanghai near the Bund, a whirlpool of olden day architecture and floating teahouses
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