

Buy Shanghai! - byrneseyeview
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_marx?currentPage=all

======
maxklein
The truth about Shanghai: I spent a few weeks there just mingling and trying
to understand the people, and what I dislike about Shanghai is this elitism
that seems to exist among the foreigners living there. I went to some clubs
and it was ALL foreign people - and mostly young. Not even the chinese
girlfriend on the hand.

For the young and foreign, Shanghai is a playground. A place to live 10 times
better than back home for half as much.

The chinese people and the foreigners seem to be living in different worlds.
Shanghai seemed to me a bit like how one would imagine it in the 20s - with a
cream of English expatriates and large mass of locals, both of which do not
mingle with each other.

It was so different in other parts of China. In Sichuan, there were very few
foreigners, and those that were there would be in groups of chinese people. In
Shenzhen, the foreigners would be clearly business men looking to buy
electronics or strike some deals and go home. In Kunming, the foreigners would
be tourists.

Shanghai reeked to me of old world colonialism. The people were less friendly,
less open and more jaded.

Through my travels in China, Shanghai was very frankly the place I liked the
least.

(Hong Kong was great though, it has more foreigners than Shanghai probably,
but people seem to have more of the attitude of do-your-thing-I-do-mine)

~~~
joshwa
Yeah, there was definitely a surplus of snotty expat i-bankers (even compared
to NYC). Shanghai is the ultimate party city.

~~~
poutine
China has some of the best party spots on the planet. Especially if you have a
little Mandarin you can have one _hell_ of a time and as much XYZ* as you
could possibly want.

* Where XYZ includes women, liquor, food, music but not high speed Internet, political freedom, clean air or urbane conversation.

------
joshwa
I just got back from Shanghai last week. Curious urban planning-- whatever you
want, there's a street for it. My personal favorites: the industrial supply
street, dye street, and the outdoor (!) air-conditioner market.

One of the side effects of this policy (pointed out to me by an architect
acquaintance) was that when you go to the new "residential" areas (post-1985
or so), there is literally _nothing_ but residential nearby. No stores, no
cafes, maybe a kede (chain convenience store) if you're lucky. This is in
stark contrast to the older, more integrated shikumen/hutong style of living,
where residential and commercial are well-integrated (see nick ourossof's
article in the nytimes about the demise of the hutong in Beijing).

~~~
Caligula
I keep reading how pollution/smog is a major concern for the upcoming
Olympics. Was it that bad?

~~~
poutine
Shanghai is not Beijing, it's reasonably clean. Beijing takes pollution to a
whole new level and then once more.

/lives in Beijing //hack, cough, sputter

~~~
daniel-cussen
Well, at least it's helping your hacking.

------
biohacker42
The development of China is a fascinating subject, but this article isn't
about that. It's shopping porn.

