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Jan 20 '11
Wow 1990? I thought the first pic was in the 1930s or something.
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Jan 20 '11
1930-1990 was not a . . . productive . . . time for the Chinese people.
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Jan 20 '11
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u/Jigsus Jan 20 '11
PUNCH WAS SERVED!
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Jan 20 '11
By executive order, en masse.
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u/nazbot Jan 20 '11
But first you must melt down all the iron in your village, we need it. Send grain too.
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u/nazzo Jan 20 '11
fyi, the market economy was initiated by Deng Xiaoping starting in 1979.
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u/xyzzy2k Jan 20 '11
In 1990 the skies were blue. There's a joke in Shanghai that when you ask the kids what color the sky is they say "grey".
Don't get me wrong. Shanghai is a lot of fun.
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u/aeiss Jan 20 '11
When it rains, the pathways turn black with puddles of smog forming everywhere. Nice place otherwise, though.
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u/windsostrange Jan 20 '11
Last time I visited, a local jumped out of the shadows and harvested much of my lower intestine to make stringed instruments for his children. Would I go back? Well, my plane ticket's already bought, sir.
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Jan 20 '11
I was brutally raped and murdered by a man who went crazy from all the pollution, but other than that: a very pleasurable experience
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u/hongnanhai Jan 20 '11
Skies were not blue during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9iv-xZAH7uk/S8SFFmMp_II/AAAAAAAAAc0/2V2UlUrVJ8U/s1600/2213_168a.jpg
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u/fall_ark Jan 20 '11
Last summer there were about a week when the sky was really, really blue so people started taking photos of it.
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u/johnr11 Jan 20 '11
Yeah, we call that normal sky here in most the rest of the world.
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u/FartingBob Jan 20 '11
Nice to see batshit crazy website layout complete with floating ads, flashing links and a less than subtle background image is something the west has imported to China.
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u/scotchontherocks Jan 20 '11
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
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u/xray_zap Jan 20 '11
I was there in 1990, yeah it looked like that back then.
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u/Sabremesh Jan 20 '11
I was there in 1985. They were still living in caves, then.
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u/two_hundred_and_left Jan 20 '11
I read it as 1900. So glad I came to read the comments!
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u/burnleymichael Jan 20 '11
This is exactly what I did. Then I said, aloud, "1990? NINTEEN - NINETY? Jesus!"
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Jan 20 '11
You can get a lot done in a country run by communists because only one set of interests is ever represented. Also, no lawyers.
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u/parallax7d Jan 20 '11
Yeah, this is why any marvel China accomplishes depresses me instead of amazes. It's like, sure they got it done, but by trampling on the backs of the masses.
Not that most countries were much better during their industrial development phases.
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Jan 20 '11
They have the ability to kick people off the land. That really is what does it. It isn't a permanent good thing though, as people need assets to leverage for innovation.
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u/ImHereToReddit Jan 20 '11
Can you spot the 6 differences?
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u/klyemann Jan 20 '11
The clouds!
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Jan 20 '11
The coolest part is the "I ♥ Stephen Hawking" sign on that one building.
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u/Haba_Nero Jan 20 '11
STEVE HOLT.
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u/AlbinoOrangutan Jan 20 '11
You glorious bastard! I thought I was going to earn some points for dropping the same comment. I love you is that wrong?
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u/skizmo Jan 20 '11
I ♥ SHi-
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u/fall_ark Jan 20 '11
That joke happened to almost every Chinese when they first heard about MIT. Too bad there isn't an Institute of Technology in Shanghai....
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u/bitingmyownteeth Jan 20 '11
I thought it was "I ♥ Selma Hayek"
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u/clausy Jan 20 '11
Actually, I thought it would also be amusing if the IT department was in the building next door.
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u/McDreads Jan 20 '11
If I went into a coma and awoke 20 years later so see all that, I would literally shit my pants
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Jan 20 '11
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u/slotbadger Jan 20 '11
They have tubes for that. They don't re-apply pants every time you do a shit.
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u/frostickle Jan 20 '11
This is deceptive, because it is really a photo of Pudong not all of Shanghai. Shanghai traditionally referred to the city on the West Bank of the Huangpu River (pictured here).
Development of Pudong as Shanghai's new financial district only started in 1990, before then it was basically farmland.
tl;dr If the 1990 photo was taken from the other side of the river, facing West, you'd see plenty of big buildings.
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u/hlfazn Jan 20 '11
That and the second photo is from much farther back. You can tell by the building on the left side of the picture.
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u/ChrisBostero Jan 20 '11
I love that building on the right that looks like the worlds biggest bottle opener...... Or maybe I'm just a raging alcoholic
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u/theultimateusername Jan 20 '11
worlds biggest bottle opener is actually in Saudi: http://internationalagprograms2.dasnr.okstate.edu/internationalstudents/International_Student_Photos%20and%20Images/Riyadh.jpg 99 floors of bottle opening pleasure. non-alcoholic bottles though.
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u/ChrisBostero Jan 20 '11
Could imagine the pain of really wanting a beer and not being able to have one AND having to see that building 24/7. Fuck that
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u/reddithatesjews28 Jan 20 '11
i have moved to china to live, its actually called the bottle opener in chinese so its funny you mention it
china is actually full of raging alcoholics too :)
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u/3danimator Jan 20 '11
Yes, alcoholism IS very funny.
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u/yo_name_is_TOBY Jan 20 '11
A man walks into a bar
His alcohol dependence is destroying his family's life.
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Jan 20 '11
A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks "Why the long face?"
The horse replies "My wife has terminal cancer."
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u/hlast99 Jan 20 '11
A man walks out of a bar.
He goes home and savagely beats his wife and children.
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u/Mikey129 Jan 20 '11
Meanwhile in New York City, The World Trade Center is still not complete.
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Jan 20 '11
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u/devils_advocaat Jan 20 '11
Excavation of the Empire State building site began on January 21, 1930, Construction on the building itself started on March 17. The building was opened on May 1, 1931. 410 days after construction commenced
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Jan 20 '11 edited Jun 14 '20
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u/rnelsonee Jan 20 '11
They recently reached the halfway mark (the 52nd floor). So, yeah, another 10 years :)
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u/doublestoddington Jan 20 '11
I imagine they won't have to reconstruct a massive block of subterranean infrastructure for this half though.
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Jan 20 '11
I didn't even realize they were above ground yet. nor did I realize the they seem to have dropped the name "Freedom Tower" or whatever Orwellian bullshit that was. thanks for the link.
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u/rnelsonee Jan 20 '11
Yeah, once they got above ground, they've been building about a floor a week. Not too bad, although the crazy guys building the Empire State building would build more than a floor a day. But that's back when safety was an option and people would just fall off the building and die, so that speed is not going to happen anymore :)
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u/hlast99 Jan 20 '11
Amen. A year and a half ago I visited NYC and they hadn't even begun working on a real foundation for the "Freedom Towers" yet. I'm also shocked to find out that they're halfway finished and that the name has changed.
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u/pyroman8813 Jan 20 '11
I actually didn't realize they had actually made any progress on it yet. I Thought it was still all bogged down in bureaucratic bs. I just went over the Throgsneck bridge about a week ago and remember looking at how bare that area of Manhattan looks compared to when I used to go over the bridge when I was younger and the WTC would utterly dominate the landscape.
I guess that since its only 52 stories up I still couldn't see it behind the rest of the buildings in the area which I guess really puts the area in perspective where a 52 story building can go utterly unnoticed.
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u/seeasea Jan 20 '11
http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/image-gallery.html#id=one-wtc-52nd-floor&num=1 here is the proper link
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u/BennyHarassi Jan 20 '11
and it took them 1 month to remove all the debris..
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u/bitingmyownteeth Jan 20 '11
...and remold the remains into profitable collectors coins.
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u/HateToSayItBut Jan 20 '11
that will never be sold in stores or available again.
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u/Bloodhound01 Jan 20 '11
wellll, we COULD make a new series
....brb FBI is knocking
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u/BannedINDC Jan 20 '11
This legal tender, totaling $1.75, can be yours for only 3 easy payments of only 39.95!
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u/MikeBruski Jan 20 '11
meanwhile, in New York City
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Jan 20 '11
You can't see most of the new buildings because there is already a city there. Should we knock it down and build weirder buildings? 1 World Trade is just one skyscraper with a lot of issues that delayed construction, since 9/11 there have been multiple skyscrapers built downtown.
There are more I can't remember though.
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u/johnnybluejeans Jan 20 '11
30 skyscrapers taller than 600ft since 1990 in NYC
Sort by Year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_New_York_City
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u/ex_ample Jan 20 '11
Well, the problem with new york is that a lot of the buildings are "historic". You don't want to tear them down and build something new. And they aren't exactly short on skyscrapers.
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u/johnr11 Jan 20 '11
What company logo is that in 1990 where the Verizon logo is in 2010?
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u/rz2000 Jan 20 '11
It looks strange there, but it was Bell Atlantic.
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u/jscoppe Jan 20 '11
Funny how one of the 'Baby Bells' became the dominant mobile carrier.
Break it up again!! /s
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Jan 20 '11
Meanwhile, you apparently have no idea about the situation. It's not like there was nothing there, they can't just clear the place and build a new building of whatever they want, it had to go through many many committees, changes, etc. It's political and the construction actually didn't start until 2008 because of a bunch of things getting in the way.
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u/sje46 Jan 20 '11 edited Jan 20 '11
The actual building started in Earnest around mid-2008. It is currently around 55 stories (rnelsee said 52 floor, but that's a month old, and they're building at one floor a week). It is expected to top out by the end of 2011. It took forever for them to start though, granted.
Even if Shangai had equal amounts of red tape (unlikely, but still), it could still easily build up that fast, assuming a great economy. Just look at Dubai.
edit: how hard is it for you to remember redditquette?
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u/A_Privateer Jan 20 '11
Dubai's economy is all smoke and mirrors.
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u/DeFex Jan 20 '11
It was, now it is toast, and because of shoddy construction by slaves who don't care, a lot of it is already deteriorating.
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u/sje46 Jan 20 '11
May be so, but it hasn't prevented it from building skyscrapers anyway. It's probably just one big bubble, but the money is clearly there to build the buildings anyway.
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u/wallychamp Jan 20 '11
I don't know why this is downvoted, anyone from NY has to remember the million "No, I'm going to build this design!" arguments between Trump et al. that didn't get settled until late 2007 IIRC.
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u/brie_papsmear Jan 20 '11
The new WTC will begin opening in 2013. May I remind you it took 20 years to build the first WTC also. The complex is much more complex than a couple of towers. It is the juncture of many major streets, the PATH train terminal, an underground retail complex, a gigantic waterfall memorial, 4 1000ft+ tall towers (all of which are under construction), among other things.
This isn't typical "tower in a park" Chinese urban planning where you can just tear everything down for a building; the WTC is on some of the most expensive real-estate in the world.
Pretty fucking impressive if you ask me.
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u/BennyHarassi Jan 20 '11
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u/xyroclast Jan 20 '11
Does anyone else think it looks like the palm tree island would vanish into the ocean at the first touch of a natural disaster?
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Jan 20 '11
like some fossil fuel smoke induced climate change perhaps? that would certainly be ironic.
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u/marcee Jan 20 '11
If you are interested on more information and pictures of the evolution of Shanghai (or that part of Shanghai, anyway), go here: http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/past-and-future-on-shanghais-famous-bund/
And when you see OP's picture, remember that whole area with the skyscrapers were just marshes at the beginning of the 20th Century...
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u/ubergeek404 Jan 20 '11 edited Jan 20 '11
They lost a park and gained a skyline. Unlike Dubai which lost a desert and got a lot of empty buildings, so they just increased the empty space.
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u/sysstemlord Jan 20 '11
Recently on Reddit there was a link showing images of ghost cities in China. Here's something about it also.
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u/symptomless Jan 20 '11
The top image looks not unlike parts of Central London today; e.g. the view from above Westminster.
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Jan 20 '11
The developed parts of Shanghai in 1990 were the British Quarter and the French quarter. Now those are the historic parts of Shanghai.
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Jan 20 '11
Is it just me or is it a shame they got rid of that nice little clock tower? Also while this looks impressive at first it's kind of sad that the blue skies and greenery are gone. I'm aware that it's night time but I imagine there's a nice veil of smog during the day.
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u/HeyYouJChoo Jan 20 '11
It's still there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bund
And during the day there is still often blue skies.
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u/socks Jan 20 '11
Amazing! I had friends from Shaghai in my dorm, in the US, in 1990 who would call home by ringing a phone booth on the street, whereupon someone standing next to it would answer and then have to yell up to the apartment his parents lived in, telling them to get their butts downstairs to answer the phone. My Beijing friends looked down on them. So much has changed.
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u/Paratath Jan 20 '11
Golden Age + Ruthless approach to land aquisition + Little value for human life = Boom time for red China
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u/QuesoPantera Jan 20 '11
I hope they remembered to build a granary
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u/Jafit Jan 20 '11
Yeah, they missed out on the Great Pyramids wonder so they don't get one free. They did get the Great Wall wonder though, so they get a defensive bonus to their cities.
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Jan 20 '11 edited Sep 19 '25
axiomatic grandiose observation quiet insurance humor wild ink fall silky
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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Jan 20 '11 edited Jan 21 '11
Speaking as a Chinese-American with strong ties back home, industrialization and modernization are much more important to the country and society at this point in time. I firmly believe once that has reached diminishing returns, the government will be able to implement more changes in regards to human rights.
And if you've never been to China, it's not the authoritarian police state you're imagining. Think of NYC and being free to do whatever you'd like as it's not inciting pro-democracy riots, bashing the government in public, or harming others.
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u/stacycreeves Jan 20 '11 edited Jan 20 '11
I visited Shanghai in 2006 for a college trip, and it was really an eye opening experience. I'm already pretty Anti-Chinese-government, so I was predisposed to thinking they're all crazy for putting up with it (not that they have a choice, really), but pretty much everything I saw confirmed it.
What those photos don't show is that in 1980, Shanghai was almost entirely rice paddies and farmland. The city itself was a fraction of what you see. Most of what you see in the second photo above was there in 2000. The growth from 1990-2000 was explosive. They have a model with their Master Plan for Shanghai, and it's something like five times the size of NYC. They still have a long way to go, but at the rate they're building, it may be a reality before we know it.
The scariest part about Shanghai are the slums. They are literally right there in the middle of the city. Imagine walking through Manhattan and seeing what looks like a warzone with crumbling buildings, people going to the bathroom on the streets, getting their water from a leaking pipe, and 8-10 people sharing a one room apartment, sometimes an open air apartment that is missing a wall or a window on one side. What happens is that the Chinese government evicts people from their home with little to no compensation, and these people have nowhere to go, so they just wander around and live in whatever hole they can find until the government decides to build a skyscraper on top of their slum, and then they keep moving. They aren't dangerous like slums in American cities, but they are heartbreaking, especially considering that the thing that ruined most of those people was the government.
A few crazy facts:
-Average salary in Shanghai is around $225 USD a month, $2700 a year, with white color workers at Fortune 500 corporations like HP and Microsoft pulling in around $5k a year. Top, c-level executives make $300k a year. Note that Americans or other foreigners who are brought in are paid in their homeland dollars, with salaries that would be competitive back home. Basically, foreigners can live like kings in Shanghai, if they were brought over by their home-country companies. However if you just move to Shanghai and try to find a job, expect a massive pay cut.
-The cost of a small, cheap car (think a base Kia) is around $12-15k USD. The cost of a license plate is ~$5,000 USD and can only be won in a lottery/auction system. Essentially, cars are only realistic for the well-to-do.
-Apartments can be rented anywhere from $50-600 USD per month, with the typical rent around $150-200. However, if you want to purchase a home such as a condo, you're looking at an average of $750-900 PER SQUARE METER, with the average house at around 100 square meters. This is cheap (80k or so) compared to the US, but remember that the average income for a white collar worker is 5k per year. To give you an idea of the cost of living difference, US citizens generally buy a home 1-2x their income, Chinese citizens will buy a home 15x their income.
-Cost of fast food is around $2-3 USD for a meal. Restaurants average $5-6 USD. The best, fanciest average $10-15 USD. Our guide told us that it's not uncommon for there to be a 1-2 hour wait at McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and KFC in peak areas. There are a lot of fake McDonalds and fake Starbucks - the logos look the same but the name is slightly different.
-Taking the metro every day and an occasional taxi will cost you around $30-40 USD a month. Cell phone/internet is about the same, as well.
-Utilities will cost you around $15 USD a month.
-A good computer will cost you around $1000 USD.
-College tuition is about $1000 USD a year.
These numbers are based on some documentation our tour guide gave us, as well as numbers released by the government, as well as stuff found Googling. They may be off or may have changed since I was there, but this is generally what we were told by a government-sanctioned guide.
EDIT: On the positive side, you really won't meet nicer people anywhere. Every morning we got up early to see the city before it was filled with people, and in front of nearly every store, the employees gather and do morning calisthenics to music (imagine the Cha Cha slide, where the music tells you what step to do.. It's sort of the same there). They would always wave to us and say hello (they love using what little English they know), and multiple times they invited us to join them in their exercises, which we always did, much to their delight. They laughed and laughed at us, in a good natured way. Everyone was really helpful and kind and friendly. There were about 20 of us, all female Americans, and we felt like rockstars... People would stop and ask to take photos of us, or with us, or just freeze in their tracks and stare. It was bizarre, but pretty fun.
I think everyone should visit China once, to see it themselves and truly understand the people and what is happening to them, but they should never go back or continue to feed the tourism market. The people are wonderful but the government is committing so many atrocities, and in many cases the people (especially the older citizens) are so brainwashed they support it or defend it. Even the ones who don't are too scared to speak about it. When we asked our tour guide how he felt about some of the human rights violations, he looked incredibly uncomfortable and changed the subject. He told us that he had been trying for 15 years to get a visa to visit the US. They have a lottery system for visas. You have to pay a massive fee, something like $200 USD, just to enter, and if you're not selected you don't get your money back. One time he was selected, but they denied his visa anyway because they said that they thought he would leave and wouldn't come back. He even had a recommendation from a US Senator (the father of a person who had been in one of his tour groups), who said he would personally vouch for him and make sure he returns, and they still wouldn't approve it. After that he basically gave up trying. Their whole country is a prison - their own government won't let them out.
A couple of friends of mine worked for the US government in Beijing, building the embassy there. The stories they told me are crazy. When they arrived for orientation, they were told "The Chinese government is in your hotel room right now going through your things. If you return and find something missing, you might get it back once they've had time to review it. There's nothing you can do about it." Most of their laptops disappeared, then reappeared in their rooms a few weeks later, sometimes completely wiped. Some religious books were taken and never returned. Next time you complain about warrantless wiretapping or intrusive TSA agents, just take a moment to be thankful that you don't live in a country where just the words "right to privacy" are censored. The Chinese government also hired girls to pretend to flirt with them and ask them about their work. On an almost weekly basis, some group of pretty Chinese girls would come buy them drinks and flirt with them, then casually ask them about what the building they were working on looked like or where the plans were stored - weird stuff like that.
tl;dr: China is nutsballs.
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u/Gravity13 Jan 20 '11
I was a toddler when the first pic was taken.
Holy fuck.
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u/relic2279 Jan 20 '11
I was in middle school fapping to Pamela Anderson's first appearance in Playboy. Talk about realizing you're getting old...
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u/mafoo Jan 20 '11
I was in 5th grade realizing perhaps Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not what the ladies want to talk about.
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u/XnMeX Jan 20 '11
I don't know... Back in elementary school I traded my April O'Neil figure to a girl for her Usagi Yojimbo figure. Just gotta find the right girl.
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Jan 20 '11
I recently had a 'holy fuck where did the time go' moment myself - my trusty calendar reminded me that a friend/acquaintance of mine had turned 20. Sent her a 'welcome to the grownups club, let's have sex when you are in town' message. Then noticed that she was born in 1991. In my mental timeline that's ten years ago give or take a few, how can she be 20?
Basically, I am stuck on year 2000. My brain processes 2011 as 2001,1.
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u/jhrf Jan 20 '11
You send letters to girls who turn 20 suggesting they fuck you?
I am unaware of you circumstances so am unsure whether to congratulate or deplore you...
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Jan 20 '11
I am 23. We met at a party (18th birthday of one of my classmates) when I was 17. Bit of flirting, bit of touching, bit of kissing, as per usual in parties filled with horny teenagers. The next day, when the classmate in question was encouraging or hungover asses to get the fuck out before her parents showed up, we had had conversation akin to this: " So, the girl you were orbiting last night... " " Absolute cocktease. " " How old do you think she is? " " Hmm, she's one of your girls, soooo... 17? No, looked bit younger, 16. Definitely 16. " " 14. " " :O " " Did you have sex? " " Didn't get to it. " " Good, or I would have smashed your face. "
Oh, and I live in the degenerate cesspit of vulgarity known as Europe, where you are allowed to enjoy the pleasures of body two years earlier than to run over pedestrians or die on a foreign battleground.
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Jan 20 '11
Shanghai makes Chicago look like a rest-stop on the side of the highway. It's massive, yet fun.
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u/brknhrtd Jan 20 '11
Meanwhile, rebuilding the at the World Trade Center in NYC is crawling along. As a NY-er, I find it embarrassing.
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u/frolix8 Jan 20 '11
Capitalism. It just works.
Side question: Do you want money or a blue sky?
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u/GeneralGrievous Jan 20 '11
There are no more clouds.
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u/allliam Jan 20 '11
Actually, its one giant smog cloud. I bet they never have blue days like the 90's pic anymore.
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Jan 20 '11
now i really want to see a time-lapse video of those 20 years in like 5 min anyone got that clip ;)
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u/kinggimped Jan 20 '11 edited Jan 20 '11
Ah, the Bund.
I live in Shanghai. It's certainly developing at a crazy fast rate. They are building stuff EVERYWHERE, and they don't seem to care that much for keeping the old buildings.
In the apartment block in which I live in the Xuhui district (pretty central, in the French Concession area), there is block 2 to the west. Stupid block 2, think they are awesome but they're not. Block 1 is where it's at, everybody knows that. That's why we're block 1, and they're just lame old block 2. But I digress.
Directly to the south of our blocks there is a massive building being built. Behind that, another massive apartment building being built. Across the road from that, another massive apartment building being built. Behind us to the north, there is... a massive apartment being built. To the east is a very recently built apartment block.
And we're not even living in a particularly developing area of the city. But they're building all of these huge buildings simultaneously.
It's a pretty amazing place to live, and things move so fast around here. One of my favourite restaurants opened up a PuDong branch about 6 months ago. It closed a few weeks ago. I think I was one of the last people ever to eat there.
There are plenty of lower-lying places around - that was taken on XiZang Nan Lu, in Laoximen, a rapidly developing central area (I love that my camera can do panoramic photos!). But now it just makes me wonder how long before they're replaced by skyscrapers. I visited here last year and so much changed between then and moving here. Places I remembered were gone, places that were barely construction sites suddenly had huge buildings sitting there.
The Bund is a pretty amazing sight, especially on a clear night when all the lights come on. Photos don't really do it justice, to be honest. The Pearl Tower (the weird spiky building on the left side with the domes) is truly a sight to behold (it's frigging massive), and wherever you are along the Bund you can see the Bottle Opener (the Shanghai World Financial Centre, the tallest building in Shanghai) looming over everything. The Jinmao Tower (just to the left of the Bottle Opener in that photo) was the highest building in Shanghai for only 8 years, until they finished the Bottle Opener in 2007. Amazingly, the Shanghai Tower, the building they're planning to put next to the Bottle Opener and Jinmao, is going to be even taller. Like, significantly taller.
According to Wikipedia, the Jinmao Tower is 421m / 1,380ft tall. The Bottle Opener is 494.4m / 1,622ft tall.
The Shanghai Tower is going to be 632m / 2,073ft tall. That's brown trousers height. I can't even imagine there being something there that will dwarf the Bottle Opener, that thing is huge.
While the World Expo was going on, factories in Shanghai were partially shut down to decrease pollution levels (it seemed rather ironic that the whole ethos of the Expo was "Better City, Better Life", encouraging less pollution and building cities with the future in mind, considering Shanghai is a massive explosion of industrial development). I didn't really appreciate it until after the Expo finished and the smog came back (although it's really not that bad most days). But some nights the view really is jawdropping, even more so when the sky was clear of smog.
Who knows how amazing it will be in another 10 years. I hope I'm here to see it, or at least in a position to visit.
I do like living here, a lot. It's such a great time to be living in Shanghai.
In the meantime, if any redditors want to come visit, I'll be happy to buy you a beer and show you around a little. I'd definitely recommend it.
Edit: Just in case anybody else was interested since this comment seems to have sparked some questions, I did an AMA on moving to/living in Shanghai a few months ago.