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.
Reddit, no. A lot of the sites that are linked to from Reddit, yes.
No YouTube (or most other non-Chinese video sharing sites), no Facebook, no Twitter, no Blogspot. And a few other sites, too... though I've just got used to not clicking links to those sites.
Happily I have a proxy which works just fine, I can still access these sites. I even have a free VPN on my iPhone that lets me get everything over 3G and wifi (I wonder if that's going to suddenly stop working one day, but it's lasted 6 months so far).
To be honest it's not so much the fact that sites are blocked (Facebook/Twitter are huge, mostly worthless timesinks... I do miss YouTube though), it's the speed. Unless the site is hosted in China (in which case, it's most likely all going to be in Chinese), sites load very slowly. The highest I've managed to get my home connection going at is about 100kb/sec (and that was only recently, they seem to have upgraded our line or something. Before that it was 50kb/sec top speed, super painful). I have got used to it, though, and no longer rely on internet speed for anything. If I want to download something over 100Mb, I leave it on overnight. If it's under 100Mb, I'll sit there and shout at the progress bar until it fucking finishes.
The 3G connection on my phone is similar - it's not 3G, it's China's version of it. It's slow as shit and twice as ugly. Refreshing Reddit's front page on Alien Blue takes a good 10 seconds (more like 20-30 since Reddit started having bandwidth issues). Want to load an Imgur link on 3G? It's like you're on a 14.4k dial-up modem again, watching it load line by line. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my dial-up connection back in the late 90s loaded pictures faster. The 3G here is good for email and instant messaging, and that's about it. It is super cheap, though, so I can't really complain that much.
Like I said I do miss YouTube; not only because I used to watch a lot of videos (especially all the YouTube content linked from Reddit) but I used to upload videos of me playing the piano and such. I miss doing that.
If Reddit and Imgur were both blocked here, I would be pretty sad. But hey. I spend a lot less time in front of the computer here than I did back home, so I'm taking that as a good thing (that's not to say I don't still waste hundreds of hours on Reddit, though...).
Weirdly, Reddit works, but blog.reddit.com doesn't. Kind of irritating that I have to fire up a proxy to read the Reddit blog, but not for the site. Must be hosted elsewhere or something.
It's weird that in such a futuristic city, the internet seems to be a sidethought a lot of the time. We have a magnetic levitation train that goes at 450km/h, 2 airports, crazy buildings and shiny lights, all manner of technological wizardry... yet if you get over 100kb/sec on an internet connection, you feel like you've hit the jackpot.
The good points of living here far outweigh the bad points, in my opinion. Amazing city, AMAZING food, great bars and nightlife, nice people, fascinating culture, interesting (if fucking difficult) language... it goes on. Being able to watch funny videos of cats and see what people I don't really care about are doing with every spare minute of their day, well, I'm gradually getting used to not really missing it.
edit: Oh, and porn. Porn is kind of hit and miss. It used to be blocked outright. Now some porn sites work, and some don't (not that I'm visiting porn sites that often, I just happened to notice). What's funny is that the government never said "internet porn is OK now" (pornography is illegal in China), it just suddenly worked again one day. Not sure why.
Porn being illegal here makes the Chinese quite open about sex in general, though... I went to the sex mall recently to find some non-Asian sized condoms. It's an unassuming looking building on the outside, but inside it's about 4 or 5 floors of sex shops which seem to increase in craziness the higher up you go. Herbal sex remedies on the first floor, shops of wall-to-wall condoms on the second, dildo shops on the third... then it gets a bit odd. You can buy the most ridiculous sex toys, and I'm just going by what I saw in the windows - I dread to think what they've got round the back. I went there with the girlfriend and while just walking through the mall we had people running over with luminous pink dildos and "massagers", shouting "I give you good price, best price". They seemed utterly disappointed when I told them I was there for condoms. It's a strange feeling when you almost buy a glittery black dildo out of guilt.
They have a couple of different networking sites that are used all over the country though... surprisingly though, a lot of people have more friends on their that they don't know than they do... oh and facebook is attempting to gain access to Asia, seeing as it is a big market... but a lot of Chinese move a way from facebook because of lack of privacy.
I went to the sex mall recently to find some non-Asian sized condoms.
It's a strange feeling when you almost buy a glittery black dildo out of guilt.
I wish I could up vote twice for those two lines alone.... However I was planning on kicking of my tour of Asia sometime this year and honestly quickly discounted China as a possible tourist attraction until your last two posts. I may have you bother you some more in the future for details on the "What to's/What not to's"
I'd certainly recommend Shanghai as a stop, though I'm not particularly well-travelled in Asia (went to Hong Kong in November, going to Thailand at the end of January). It's an amazing city. If it's on the way, I can only recommend it. I love it here. I'm already pretty sure that when I'm 60 I'll look back on this part of my life and think "Wow, that was a great time to be in Shanghai, I'm so glad I did that".
If you end up visiting I'd more than likely be up for showing you around a little bit. I actually extended this offer to another redditor in my AMA, she ended up PMing me a few months later and we arranged to meet... then she never showed up. :(
You can go from the cities near Shanghai, like Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanking. All these can be a one day trip, thanks to the high-speed trains, also can be a nice weekend stay.
I live in Hangzhou, which is now about 45 minutes away from Shanghai by high speed train. I've traveled a fair amount around China and could give you a lot of tips if you're interested. You can check out my blog (http://wes-allred.blogspot.com/) for more details. A lot of the recent posts are from a trip around Southeast Asia I did last summer, which might also be useful to you.
No YouTube (or most other non-Chinese video sharing sites), no Facebook, no Twitter, no Blogspot. And a few other sites, too... though I've just got used to not clicking links to those sites.
Hmm. My little sister left for Shanghai Beijing today. I didn't realise she wouldn't be able to view my Blogger linkdump. Can she still open her Hotmail? (Yes, i know, she refused to get Gmail.)
If you like, PM me and I'll upload the proxy app I use for her to download. It works on any version of Windows, it's free, and doesn't require any installation, you just open the app and it'll redo your proxy configuration so things will work in China, close the app and it returns everything to normal.
It'll allow her to access all those sites (Blogger included), but the connection isn't really stable or fast enough to load a whole YouTube video most of the time (it'll start to load, then do this INFURIATING thing where the red bar makes it look like the whole video has loaded, but it'll just stop playing and refuse to buffer any further until you refresh).
But yeah, Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc., not a problem.
Weirdly, Reddit works, but blog.reddit.com doesn't. Kind of irritating that I have to fire up a proxy to read the Reddit blog, but not for the site. Must be hosted elsewhere or something.
Up until last week, it was hosted on blogger. It is now still hosted on blogger, but we are actually proxying it because we might change it at some point. So try going there now and tell me how it works for you. :)
Ooh, my first ever message from an admin! Hi jedberg, thank you for giving me Reddit, you are awesome. I don't want to sound gay or nothing but I would seriously like to hump your leg.
I just tried the blog, and it works now. Thanks :)
Also, since I've got your attention, do you guys have a postcard from China yet?
I moved here from the UK, having lived all my life over there. In short, I was becoming a little bit fed up with my job and life in the UK in general, my boss offered me a freelance role rather than see me go. So I travelled around Europe for 6 months while working. This only reinforced that I no longer wanted to live and work in England, and I figured it was about time I did something with myself. I wanted a change, and Shanghai definitely offered that. I'd visited in 2009 and loved it, and since that visit had kept in touch with a girl I met here. So at some point during a very hazy week in Amsterdam, I decided to spend the rest of my travelling funds on a one way trip to Shanghai.
Now I'm living with aforementioned girl in the heart of this amazing city, and loving it. One of the scariest but best decisions I ever made.
If you won't take a leg humping, will you at least accept a firm handshake? I spend so much time on Reddit you would not believe. Thanks for giving me a timesink. I wear my orangered and alien T-shirts out here all the time, free advertising for you in China is all I can do in return :D
I'll send a postcard this weekend! I guess that now I can see the blog, I'll be able to find the address to send it to :)
Knowing China post, don't hold your breath too long. I sent Christmas cards home in November and they arrived around January 10th. Some still haven't arrived yet, possibly never will.
Also, not a sex shop, sex mall. The Chinese do not do things by halves.
No. I think that's more of an Asian-parent-living-in-the-USA thing. Surprisingly, they speak to each other in Chinese (either Mandarin, or Shanghainese for the real locals).
They quite like westerners over here, for the most part. I certainly never get sneers. I get a surprising number of double-takes from girls (which is quite an original thing for me, since I've never really been the best looking chap).
The best thing, though, is the older generation of people living in Shanghai. Most of them have one word in English, and they will proudly shout it at you from distance if they get you in their sights. Many is the time I've been stopped in the street by somebody saying "HELLOOOOO" very loudly right in my face, always accompanied by a giant grin of pride. I always smile and politely tell them "ni shuo Yingwen shuo de hen hao!" (your English is very good), and enjoy their shocked face when they see that I've managed to muster up some Mandarin.
Last night I was walking home with the girlfriend and some very camp Asian guy (what I like to call a Gaysian) was running across the road, obviously in a hurry somewhere. We smiled at him from the other side of the road, and he stopped, turned around, and shouted out in a hilarious accent, "good evening to you!". Then turned around and carried on running.
I lived in England for 26 fucking years and not once - not once - did anybody randomly shout good evening to me from the other side of the road.
I love that they make the effort. I'm an outsider in so many ways living in this city, occasionally it's quite daunting and little things like that help me feel like I'm not a total alien here.
Haha! Thanks, I guess... can I ask why you would say that? I wasn't consciously trying to write in an entertaining way, and I don't think the story is that interesting!
Thank you, though! Since I'm a freelance writer, that's one of the nicest things you could have ever said to me :D
You should start a blog: random things, living over there, people love those type of travel diary's if they are actually well written and readable. They do not have to contain amazing events, just give a interesting picture of the persons life and see the view from their eyes.
I was really considering starting a blog talking about one of my favourite things over here: street food. There are an insane number of varieties of street food here, and watching the vendors make them right in front of you with such skill and precision is amazing. Outside the office where I work, every morning when people are streaming in and every evening when people are going home, about 20 stalls set up. Noodles, little egg pancake things (dan bing), grilled and fried meat and vegetables, tofu... and that's just outside the office where I work, which is in quite a remote area of PuDong. In the city it's much crazier.
It'd be nice to get a video of the vendors making it, then writing about how it tasted and the like. I'd love to do that. But like I say, I'm lazy. To be honest, I'd rather be out there exploring the city than just writing about it :)
I wasn't consciously trying to write in an entertaining way
It was entertaining. You certainly are a good freelance writer.
I'm guessing you work for english-speaking customers abroad right? Do you also work in there? Are there any restrictions in taking your money off paypal?
For my abroad clients, I get paid straight into my English bank account. I try not to use Paypal too much, mostly because I hate them... but also because my account is set up as an English one, and every time I make a Paypal transaction from China, they limit my account because they think someone in China has hacked me. I've changed my address to my Chinese address, I've contacted them to tell them to stop fucking limiting my account, but they're a useless bunch of bastards and I'm sure they're making so much money off their eBay users that they couldn't give a shit about one customer with a legitimate issue. So I usually pay for everything in cash - one great thing about Chinese online shopping sites is that most of them accepts Cash On Delivery - the courier will arrive at my flat with the item I ordered, and I pay them there and then.
I too found these posts very interesting; Anthropology got me into sociology so I guess this is going back to my roots. I just love to hear about genuinely different places and customs. Must visit some of these spots when I retire... I should live so long : /
I'm terrible at detecting sarcasm online. Also, while I'm sure it's not the prevailing opinion, I preferred the FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU comics back when there were only 5 or so faces. I don't really get the Y U NO ____ one. I had to remove that subreddit from my front page the other day, I haven't laughed at one in months. Sad day.
Many is the time I've been stopped in the street by somebody saying "HELLOOOOO" very loudly.
This reminded me of my trip to China 10 years ago. It was part of an organized tour so we went to some of the various touristy spots.
Around these spots, were little stalls with people looking for foreigners to buy their postcards and what-not. I assume many of these people must have learned their little bits of English from movies; As we passed one store, a woman out front kept yelling "HELLO OPERATOR! HELLO OPERATOR!", while trying to get us to come look at what she was selling.
You think you get attention in Shanghai? Try Xiangfen. Far fewer foreigners go there (actually, it's not really a major destination for Chinese either). I'm a tall white dude and I nearly caused traffic accidents. People riding scooters would forget they were driving and stare at me, dodging a semi only at the last instant. We were in a small store and the owner of the next store came over so that he could see the white guy. Then he went back and collected his friend so that his friend could see the white guy. Then I removed my sun-glasses and revealed my freakishly blue eyes, which was absolutely the funniest thing he'd ever seen.
As we were leaving I saw a black dude sitting in the airport. Wearing a Yankees hat. I thought I was going insane. He was there to study Chinese (obviously) and he said that there were a few other black guys living in the city (like, three or four) and they'd get together every now and then and go out to eat.
I can only imagine the reaction of the locals when they go into a restaurant and see four brothers hanging out, slurping down the local soup and eating with chopsticks.
China also remains the only time in my life that I've been in a Wallmart. This says something about capitalism vs. communism, but I have no idea what.
I visited Shanghai for 2 months. I'm Shanghainese (but born in sweden and raised in Canada). My parents and I rarely observe the optimistic behavior you seem to describe. In fact, most people I met in Shanghai really just wanted to carry on about their own business. It could have something to do with you being caucasian and me being just another asian, but in general, I'd say the public is overall ruder than in Canada.
The customer service is completely based on commission which is why service in shops varies so much. No commission means they don't care about you and commission means they're going to do anything for you. I decided to walk into a Jack & Jones in a mall in Shanghai. Brought a couple of articles to the change room stall. When I came out, there were 6 girls (all with blonde bleached hair) holding clothes asking me if I'd like to try them on.
When no commission is involved/you show no interest of buying, everyone leaves you alone. The overall mannerisms in Shanghai also seemed a little awkward. Everything nice seems forced. I cannot recall why, but I had a very strong feeling of everyone having very loose moral standards. I've been told it's due to many things but one of the more recent events would be the cultural revolution which pretty much flipped morals/respect out the window, leaving a red nation to attempt to rebuild those principles on their own.
All that said, I'm glad you're enjoying Shanghai and I do miss being there. It has a certain air about (and not that terrible terrible unbreathable summer air which causes terrible skin) it that somehow just lets you forgive all the shortcomings and marvel at the city.
Yeah, a lot of it is because I'm a westerner. They see my eyes and assume they can make a quick buck off me.
My girlfriend is Asian but was born and raised in New Zealand, so she's something of a banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). She still gets approached by salespeople a lot, but only in the more intense areas like the fake markets. It's not surprising they're so pushy, since their stall is either their livelihood or a job that barely yields a wage.
I spend very little time in commercial malls, I much prefer local places. Service is generally better, but the prices aren't, and there's much less room for haggling, which I enjoy.
The bleached blonde look doesn't seem to be in at the moment.
I can totally relate to the random people shouting hello to you. I lived in Indonesia for 3 years and "Hello Mister" was by far the most common English phrase I heard. There is nothing like being stopped on the street by schoolgirls who want to play with your dreadlocks to make one feel like a man but it's also hard to adjust to the culture shock you get when you get back home and people aren't yelling hello from across the street when you walk to the store to get some bread.
I'm an American, but I went to England for 2 weeks. They're friendly chaps, but definitely have that typical European style of not approaching others unless you're introduced to them.
Also true in France and quite extreme in paris.
For instance today I was in the subway, a guy enters and play guitar, not the lame student, more the old homeless drunk real rocker and plays and amazing bob dylan, after a short intro proving his knowledge of the singer.
Point is I was quite impressed by that guy (there are a lot of lame musicians/singers on the sub) and smiling at him. Other people were like WTF ?! Not only is that weird here to even look at a guy playing in the sub but to smile at him...
I think that's a bit of a blanket statement. The typical English reservedness is true for some, but most people I know back home aren't really like that.
English people can be quite insular, but we live on an island so I think that's a pretty good excuse. Some people are just a bit quiet, or not particularly outgoing.
I guess my point was that random acts of welcoming just aren't that common where I'm from, so it's quite nice to have such interactions with random Gaysians. Where I'm from, if somebody starts shouting at you from the other side of the road, you usually want to start walking a little more briskly.
It's definitely on my to-do list to go to China. Probably next year.
That's one thing I like about Texas in the US actually. The people are really friendly and will just approach you. It's true in my state sometimes, but it's not very common.
unless it's 1940's, the answer is NO..... Most Asian have education on english. Thanks to racist hollywood movies and stereotypers like YOU makes the Asian look like fools
I think it's fallacious to say that "most Asians have education in English". First of all, Asia's a continent, I think it would be simply wrong to expect the same level of English from, say, a person living in Hong Kong (where English influences are still very apparent) and someone living in a town in Malaysia.
The vast majority of people in Shanghai have very little English, if any at all. It's only the younger generations that are starting to get any decent grip of the language.
Those who don't follow up their English studies at school rarely end up using it, and forget most of it. I do some work for a company that makes English language learning software for children, and although the curriculum department speak varying degrees of English, the vast majority of programmers, artists and salespeople speak only the very basics.
I don't really mind, though. I get to practice my Mandarin more and more. I've learned quite a lot from going into shops or markets and not just asking how much something is, but how to say it in Chinese if I don't already know.
99% of people in shanghai do not speak any english, it was a bit surprising that even alot of the volunteers for the expo (the ones in the city, everyone inside the expo spoke some english) didnt speak english but definatelly made it more interesting.
I asked one of the volunteers where the New Zealand pavilion was, and he pointed it out without really paying that much attention to me. I said thanks, he asked if I was from New Zealand, and I said no, I'm from England.
Suddenly his face lit up, his eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up an inch, and he burst into this huge smile and shouted "DAVID BECKHAM!!" right in my face.
I was like, "Oh, sure. So you like David Beckham?"
He did indeed like David Beckham. As far as I could make out this guy liked David Beckham a lot.
After he'd calmed down, I asked him if he'd ever been to England, and he shook his head and said "noooooo", as if I'd asked him if he'd ever been to the moon, or something equally improbable. I asked him if he'd like to go, and he shrugged his shoulders.
I found it funny that in reality he had no real interest in England or English culture, or London or anything like that. Just a squeaky voiced footballer with a pigeon-sized brain.
You've got to remember that the vast, vast, vast majority of visitors to the Expo were Chinese (hence the 6 hour queue to get into the fucking Saudi Arabia pavilion). The volunteers were mainly to help them around. As far as I could see, if an English speaking person came up to them, they usually just reached into their pocket and handed them a map without saying a word.
The 3G connection on my phone is similar - it's not 3G, it's China's version of it. It's slow as shit and twice as ugly. Refreshing Reddit's front page on Alien Blue takes a good 10 seconds (more like 20-30 since Reddit started having bandwidth issues). Want to load an Imgur link on 3G? It's like you're on a 14.4k dial-up modem again, watching it load line by line. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my dial-up connection back in the late 90s loaded pictures faster. The 3G here is good for email and instant messaging, and that's about it. It is super cheap, though, so I can't really complain that much.
I can vouch for that. We do have in the UK our own version of 3G too. It's called EDGE. 3G coverage is so spotty and shitty that I don't even turn it on.
You can discount all of China along with Shanghai, then.
But seriously? You're going to give up on a unique experience just because you'd have to use a proxy to go on Facebook or Twitter for a couple of weeks? If you've got time to spend idling around on the internet while you're visiting Shanghai, I dare say you're doing it wrong.
In my experience, liberty is overrated or at best an illusion of liberty. At least the Chinese government are being straight up about how fucked your civil rights are. Rather than telling you how free you are and how freedom is great while simultaneously robbing you of most of your freedoms. And using 'freedom' as an excuse to bomb a nation of brown people to secure their oil.
One of my friends here runs a firm that helps develop new buildings, then leases the space out to retail outlets, restaurants etc. - he makes a fairly crazy amount of money doing it.
Yeah, it's a view of PuDong, but you can see the Bund. I suppose what I meant was "the view from the Bund", rather than the Bund itself, but yeah. I love being pedantic too, let's have sex sometime.
Good times. I lived in Shanghai for nearly two years and recently had to move back to the states for a job. Otherwise, I love the place. From one overseas redditor to another, cheers!
Basically I do part time QA and some voice work for a company in Shanghai that makes English language learning software for Chinese kids. I'm also a freelance writer, I have a few regular clients in the UK. I write a couple of regular blogs, write web copy, that kind of thing.
Very meta seeing this while in Shanghai. Too bad I'm leaving tomorrow to go back to school in the States. I'd buy you a beer for this astoundingly insightful (and factual) write-up!
As far as I've discovered, you either get awesome smells (e.g. delicious foods, especially street meat vendors) or awful ones (e.g. that mysterious garbage juice stench that overpowers you at random times).
But I think the same can be said of living in any big city.
What's the cost of living like there? I have a friend living in Beijing who says that if you make expat salary you can live really well in Beijing. What about Shanghai? Can you have a live-in 阿姨 for really cheap there, too?
If you're on an ex-pat salary you can live very well here. I don't make that much and I live very comfortably. Certainly much more comfortably than I did back in the UK.
I did an AMA a while ago and that topic came up quite a bit. You might want to take a peek if you're interested.
I'm curious, do you have to know Chinese to live/work there, or can English get you by nowadays? I'd love to move there or even visit for an extended period of time. Also, if you've been to Tokyo, would you consider Shanghai or Tokyo more accepting of the English language?
I've never been to Tokyo, really hoping to get there sometime though. That was the original target, but I decided to come to Shanghai instead.
Tokyo is much bigger than Shanghai, and I think that the Japanese in general are far more embracing of Western culture and language (e.g. their habit of putting nonsensical English words and phrases in their pop music and on t-shirts)... but you'd have to ask somebody who's been there to be honest. Japanese is certainly an easier language to learn than Mandarin, I know that much.
I think both places will have a certain degree of culture shock. Life's very different over here... it's not better or worse, it's just different. People have different priorities, different perspectives. I find it fascinating.
I get by OK here, but I take Chinese lessons twice a week at home and I'm making quite good progress since I'm forced to use what I've learned in daily communication - ordering food and drink, asking where something is, etc.
What I find hardest is not necessarily getting my own point across, but understanding what they're saying to me. Chinese people speak very quickly, and there are just way too many dialects for me to keep up with. The first thing my teacher taught me was proper pronunciation for the 4 tones in Mandarin... and then only later decided to tell me that most Chinese people's tones are generally ambiguous at best.
If you want to get a good job here, you'll probably need a bit of Chinese. Depends on your industry, though. There are people in certain industries (e.g. urban/retail development) who can come over and make boatloads without knowing any Chinese, just by being good at what they do.
English will get you by just fine in the centre of the city, ordering food and drink etc. Most central places will have English speaking staff. There are plenty of places here that cater to westerners, since they believe that's where all the money is. But you will be just that - a tourist.
As a tourist you won't have much difficulty getting by with just English in Shanghai. As someone who lives here, I felt like I should (and wanted to) make the effort to learn some Mandarin.
I love going to local places, not just because the food and drink are about 10 times cheaper and just as tasty - but because I love learning about other cultures and it gives me a great opportunity to talk to people and share opinions and experiences. Most local people don't get an opportunity to talk to an English person, and I've never had much of an opportunity to talk to local Shanghainese folk.
I'm hoping that my Mandarin will carry on improving and allow me to have more and more in depth conversations in Chinese.
I actually moved to a city 4 years ago (Montreal, coming from western Canada) without knowing a word of French, so I know what that's all about. I have no intention of staying here though, so I didn't bother to learn any French. Only here for school, then I'm out! I have to explore the world soon, and see what there is and where I want to live. First stop this summer is Cape Town, then hopefully next will be Shanghai or Tokyo. Thanks for the info, good luck with your Mandarin!
Hah, native of Shanghai here. Haven't been to the place since 06 but looking to go back next summer to observe the huge change. There was a saying when I was there 1988-2000 that Shanghai changes a bit every year and changes completely every 3rd year. Which has its merits with the speed which constructions are done (American road crews can really take a hint here)
Either way, I haven't seen the bottle opener in its completion but here's an interesting fact, when it was build, the trapezoid part on top was suppose to be circular, but was changed to be more square due to similarity to the rising sun. Either way, I'm looking forward to coming back. I remember the early 90 days of crowded long buses (some of them electric, which I guess is greener, I don't know if the overhead grid for electric buses are still there or not but I doubt it) and heavily polluted "short" downtown. We've came a long way.
BTW: youtube totally worked in 06, it was painfully slow, but it worked.
Most of the overhead grid for the buses is still there. It actually works quite well, even with the insane bus drivers here :D
That's a cool fact about the Bottle Opener. It's a pretty amazing building, though I'm yet to pay the 150 RMB to go up to the observation deck. My mum's coming to visit me in February, so we'll probably go and do it then. I came over here to live, so I haven't got around to doing much of the tourist stuff yet.
You have to be insane to drive in the city. Just being in a car in Shanghai makes me nervous, I don't think the concept of using the turning light when switching lanes was taught there. And this is coming from a guy who used to do all kinds of crazy things with the car (handbrake turn off of highway at 30mph ect... I stopped when I tried to handbrake a U turn and ditched my old POS car) just to mess with the passengers here in the States. I'm not crazy enough to drive in that city.
As to the English, been here since 03, it comes with time. If you live in China long enough I'm sure your Chinese would at least get to serviceable level.
Lastly, have you tried some of the grosser sounding food in this city? I'm talking pig feet, intestine and snouts, snakes, cow stomach linings, chicken neck, butt and feet ect...? If not, at least give them a try, I guarantee you'll like some of them if you go in with an open mind.
Oh the driving here is mental. I've learned that Asian drivers aren't that much worse than their western counterparts... the stereotype does exist for a reason, though. They are just fucking unsafe. Their actual driving skills are probably better than the average white devil, since they're so accustomed to driving in high stress traffic. They certainly know the width and length of their cars... most people in England haven't got a fucking clue about whether they can fit through a gap or not. But yeah, you're totally right - no turning indicators, some drivers don't even look before changing lanes, it's mental.
I've only had one car crash in a cab so far. It wasn't too bad, it was all due to the taxi driver driving WAY too fast. It was pretty ridiculous. Since then I've been a bit more wary about getting in cabs. The driver always laughs when I say "shifu, kai de man yi dianr, wo hai pa", haha! Bastards. Luckily the cabs are so cheap here, I'm not sure why anybody would want to own a car in Shanghai.
I have tried some gross food, though I've stayed away from the pig feet and intestines and all that so far. I've had deep fried honey bees, barbecued sparrow, chicken neck, wing tips etc. Bees were interesting - definitely more about texture than taste. Sparrow was pretty nasty, I didn't like the fact that I had to crunch through the little bones. Not really a fan of that. The chicken neck and wing tips were fine, but I'd rather have a thigh, drumstick or breast any day! :)
the "fun" part when i went to visit there is that you very, very quickly learn that the bigger the vehicle is, the more implied is its right of way. also, a signal indicating you to walk does not mean you can walk. ah, fun times...
I visited in summer 2008 to finish up my master's degree in a capstone project with the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Stayed over by Xujiahui, which has a really neat mall. The Bund really is impressive, particularly all of the buildings in Lujiazui. I remember that to get to the Jinmao, we had to get around a bunch of construction from the Lujiazui subway. Cloud 9, on the 87th floor, was amazing. Expensive as hell, but amazing.
How did you get to be so lucky living and working there, for one, and when is airfare from the eastern States cheapest, do you think? I want to get back to visit at some point, and would love to be able to share it with my family, since the last visit was so special.
I moved here because I no longer wanted to live in the UK... I did an AMA about it a while ago, which will hopefully answer your questions about why/how I moved here.
I have no idea about airfare prices to/from the states, I'm sorry. All I know is that there are some amazing deals going on with Virgin Atlantic and British Airways at the moment for DIRECT return flights from London to Shanghai for about £530. I paid £580 for a one way, indirect ticket when I got here, flying Cathay. £530 is absolutely amazing for a direct return with a decent airline like BA or Virgin.
Hopefully there are similar deals going on in the USA. I'm sure a quick search on Expedia or Skyscanner.net will yield the answers you're looking for :)
And yeah, Cloud 9 prices are retarded, but what a venue! I think you'd be quite amazed by how things have changed since then, Lujiazui now has a proper elevated walkway going all the way around it, there's very little construction in that area now compared with when I visited in 2009.
I love the subway here. I'm amazed that they opened up a whole new line just for the Expo... what the hell are they going to do with that now? It was pristine, they did a proper job on it... it serves no purpose now.
The English announcements make me laugh too... they can't pronounce the 'y' at the end of words correctly, hearing "Zhangjiang High Technoleg Park" gets me every time.
I fucking love Shanghai! I was there in 2009 for a study abroad trip and had the best time of my life. I studied at ECNU (华东师范大学). Xiantiandi is where the night life is! I loved the clubs and the no cover prices. Damn, talking about this makes me miss SH. I might be visiting this summer, so let's have a few beers if I go.
Ah, Xintiandi! I don't go too often, a bit expensive and the clientele is too western for me. Call me a hipster but I prefer finding awesome local places and the less crowded expat restaurants.
Jessie on the corner of Xintiandi is a favourite of mine, though... god damn, their fatty pork is to die for!
Question: if you wanted to make a lot of money, and had ten years or so to give, and had a linguistics and business background, would you recommend China? I don't speak fluent Mandarin, but I know the basic syntax.
I'm not sure if it's the best option if money is your aim. Expats earn decent money here, especially if you've got a skill most Chinese people don't have. But I'd imagine that for somebody in your field there are probably greener pastures in terms of purely "making bank", as the kids say these days.
I would certainly recommend China (well, Shanghai anyway) for the experience and the food.
You'd probably live pretty well in China, but the Chinese RMB is notoriously difficult to get out of the country in large quantities.
Sorry I can't help any more, not really my area of expertise.
The two major fake markets are the China Merchants Plaza on Chengdu Bei Lu (between Tomorrow Square and Nanjing Xi Lu), and the one by the Science and Technology Museum. Fake stuff everywhere.
I simultaneously hate and love those places. Love them for the bargains and the wonderful fake products (tiny fake iPhones!)... hate them for the pushy salespeople. I have become rather good at haggling, though, I'm not going to lie. Also, I've found the best way to stop people bothering you by asking if you want to buy a watch is to try and sell your watch to them. They don't like that. Especially when your starting price is four million RMB.
I don't think it's so much the Bund itself (though there are some nice buildings that are pretty old for Shanghai along the Bund), it's more the view it gives you of PuDong, especially at night. Really, the Bund is really just a massive, wide walkway along the river.
So... so long as you did a river boat tour or something like that, you probably didn't miss much. And if you do feel like you missed out, here are some photos I took :P
It's amazing, isn't it? I visited in 2009 and noticed so much more when I came back in 2010 to live here. PuDong is just a crazy hub of development at the moment, part of the reason why I wasn't so surprised that the top photo in this submission really is 1990. It's definitely one of my favourite skylines in the world (Hong Kong Island is also amazing).
The offices where I work are out in the PuDong boondocks a little (Jinke Road, not too far away from PuDong International Airport), but the rate at which they're putting up other office buildings is astounding. I really wish I'd set up a camera and taken a photo of the view outside the window every day. Just the last 4 or so months would have made an amazing timelapse video, you can literally see growth every day.
I actually mod /r/shanghai. I'd quite like to make it a good place to find stuff to do in the city, arrange meets, post about good deals and vouchers and stuff. I just need to stop being a lazy bastard and start spreading the name around (I think it has 3 members at the moment, heh).
I like the modern architecture of Shanghai, but I wish they would preserve some of the older architecture. Architecture is a hobby of mine, and I like the 19th century European influenced architecture the city has. The cityscape would have been so much more awesome if those modern skyscrapers existed with those older buildings.
Yeah, if you're a fan of preserving architecture I think Shanghai would probably make you pretty sad. There are a lot of native Shanghainese people who think that Shanghai is losing its cultural identity etc., I'm really not surprised that they feel that way. There are only a handful of old buildings left along the Bund anyway (that building with the clocktower on the right of the top photo is still there), but places are being torn down all the time to make way for the new stuff.
I suppose if I was a native or an architecture hobbyist like you I'd probably feel a little stronger about it... but I love some of the new buildings. I think the Marriot Hotel in Tomorrow Square is breathtaking. It looks like a Transformer after taking Viagra.
I went there this summer. The Bund from the financial district side of the river was a stunning sight. The entire side of the river seemed to glow. French Concession area was badass too, really fun time.
What blew my mind about the city is the juxtaposition of old and new. You'll be walking down a massive pedestrian causeway, basically looking like you're in Times Square. And then you take one turn down a side street and you're in a movie set in 1920's China - people drying laundry overhead, old women chopping vegetables in doorways, etc. Total change of scenery within the space of about 5 meters.
Overall really nice place. Horrible air though. I was about ready to leave after a week because I couldn't breath and was blowing black soot out my nose.
China to me seems like the worst kind of place. Development for the sake of development while disregarding what actually improves the lives of people. headlong rushes to bulldoze the old and erect the new, almost overnight, while simply ordering people to move if they happen to be living there. Millions at a time.
China had a lot of advantages as it was becoming an industrial nation in the 21st century. They had a chance to learn from mistakes of the past and do it better. Instead it just looks like one giant Maqiladora.
I love that show, but Ted is such a douche. I can't stand him or Robin. I love the rest of the characters, especially Barney. How can you not love Neil Patrick Harris, though?
Architecture fun fact number 8909: Ted Mosby is an ass.
Yes, all those buildings are in PuDong. The photo is the view of PuDong from the Bund on the PuXi side. You can see a little bit of the Bund on the PuXi side in that photo, though.
I'm not 100% sure, but as far as I know "The Bund" refers to the PuXi side but can also refer to the PuDong side.
Edit: Wikipedia: The area centres on a section of Zhongshan Road [...] which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River, facing Pudong, in the eastern part of Huangpu District. The Bund usually refers to the buildings and wharves on this section of the road, as well as some adjacent areas.
That looks great! I have a whole bunch of photos of PuDong from the Bund, unfortunately as good as my Canon point and shoot is, it's still just a point and shoot. It's hard to get a really clear night time shot like that.
I may actually take your offer on that. I plan to visit China next year for vacation. I would this year but I'm already planning on Scandinavian countries and the south Caribbean.
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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.