Shanghai is shaping up for EXPO overload.  Everyone is scanned as they enter the hotel.  If you forget your key to your room, they check your birth-date to re-enter.  Shangri-la have shipped in their best staff from around the Asian region to cope with multilingual guests. (more…)

        

The thunder of the fireworks practice for EXPO in Shanghai has just abated.  I am sitting overlooking the Bund contemplating a hectic day. I have always run to the Bund (or riverbank) as soon as I hit Shanghai.  Maybe it is because it is one of the few places in urban China where you can still feel the wind in your hair. Maybe its because of the multifarious passers by that remind you of the complexity of the city.  Maybe it is because this is where I called my Dad four years ago to debate the benefits of living in Beijing or Shanghai.  He told me openly (and as it transpired accurately) that “if you want money stay in Shanghai, but if you want real China go to Beijing.”  Shanghai, or the ‘Paris of the East’ may not be ‘real China’ but it is the best of everything Asia has to offer (at a price).  If you have money anything is possible.  If you are poor you will spend your time looking up and no-one will smile back.  The nightclubs make London look like a backwater.  The height of the buildings belittle New York.  The fashion conscience residents make Parisians look parochial. (more…)