Shanghai: Nanjing Lu

I flew in a taxi between the fifth floors of modern high rises, then down Yan’an Elevated Road as it swept out from between them and curved down to meet the river. Stone and concrete bank buildings built in the 1920s glowed yellow in their sodium spotlights and looked across the river at the 21st Century.

I paid off the taxi at the statue of Mao and dove into a crowd that swirled like a school of fish. The night sky was a burnt orange in color and the night air ungodly hot. I went up the steps two at a time so the boys selling brightly flashing electronic gizmos were unable to corner me. At the top, the river wall was jammed with people, mostly families on tour from other parts of China. About one in a hundred were tall overfed Australians. About one in three hundred were tall underfed young Americans, set apart by their long hair and ragged clothes.

My eyes widened at the Oriental Pearl Tower. It stood across the river like a spaceship made in some giant toy factory, white and red and violet, China’s bold stake in the ground announcing in ridiculous splendor her intent to own the future. It grinned over the shoulders of countless families getting countless portraits taken, its colored lights always moving. I walked swiftly, dodging proffered postcards and statuettes, and pushed through the crowd to the wall over the river. I stood there to breathe the air awhile.

The Huangpu licked at the stone below me. A constant stream of barges and boats drifted silently by, lit dimly by the million small lights of a hundred tall buildings. Across the water was a glittering Tomorrowland. Brand new high rises lined the opposite bank. A video screen twenty stories tall flashed pretty Chinese faces and bewildering Chinese characters. Near the base of the Tower was a globe of the world a hundred meters across, China showing prominently in red. In the back, glowing through the haze, stood the Jin Mao Tower, China’s tallest building, a 420-meter shepherd of steel and glass and lights. Behind it another tower, to be just as tall, was about halfway built.

I wondered what these thousand people around me thought, many having come in from poor rural cities, raised on communist austerity, now posing proudly before their country’s garish bid to attract global capital. Maybe they didn’t think about it much. Idealism often falls before national pride. Or maybe they were just waiting for the wealth around them trickle down. Some would be waiting a long while.

I fell in with another thousand people and we pressed our way through the pedestrian tunnel under Zhongshan Lu, the street that follows the river. Across the street, anchored by the Peace Hotel and its green peaked roof, Nanjing Lu curved away under electric Pepsi signs. I walked up Nanjing Lu in the street, pushed off the sidewalk by the crowds, and dodged a constant stream of Volkswagen Santana taxicabs. For several blocks there were open shops and street vendors and people on bicycles, people in cars, people walking, people trying to get my attention. I could have done all my Christmas shopping without breaking stride if my people had wanted faux Rolex watches, fancy pen sets, or polo shirts.

Three blocks from the river, the intersection of Nanjing Road and Central Henan Road was the only place in Shanghai I saw pedestrians obey the “no walking” signs. They crowded along the edge of the street waiting for men in green uniforms to let them go. The officers did not let anyone so much as step off the curb if the lights were against them. But once the lights changed we swarmed in all directions. Like a salmon fighting the current I dodged across the street and splashed into a pool of people who were no longer hurrying somewhere but had finally arrived, yet still drifted along in the currents and eddies of Nanjing Lu.

I walked a block. The street, paved in stone and lined with planters and trees and benches, was a canyon between eight-storey buildings. Neon signs hung off the buildings, the colors merging into a bright yellowish light. There was a constant buzz of overlapping conversation punctuated by direct appeals.

“Good evening, sir. What you want? We have many clothing.”

“Hello, sir. You look for dinner? This way please.”

“How are you? Where you from? You like girl? Come see, no pay just to see.”

I walked a second block. The hawkers, teenagers all, were left behind to try someone else. Department store lights flooded the street. Neon signs lit the upper floors. Dresses hung on racks on the second floor, people sat at tables on the third, hair was being styled on the fourth. All the way to the top, lights were on, work was happening, business was booming.

A loud beep brought me back down. A toy train chased me out of the way. It pulled little cars full of people whose feet were tired. None of them were smiling. Shopping is hard work and not very fun.

I walked a third block. More of the same. A street stage presented loud music. A piece of paper hung from a camera on a tripod, listing prices for a souvenir portrait. Families walked – father, then children, then mother. Teenagers ganged past with rockstar haircuts. Girls walked in pairs, hand in hand, arm in arm; girls who smiled at a tall foreigner and tried to make friends, who wanted to go have a drink and “practice English.” A politely smiled decline was not taken as such; but “bu yao” (“no want”) was always understood, and they trolled on elsewhere.

I fetched up in a place where the sky opens up and the lights dim: People’s Park, full of trees. There was a Metro station there, and an underground shopping mall full of cheap merchandise. I turned around and ran the gauntlet all over again, walking swiftly back down Nanjing Lu, past the strollers and the hawkers and the ropers, back to the river, for another breath of air.

For more pictures go here.