Shanghai-Style Culture
By admin on 2014-12-29

Lying on the west bank of the Pacific Ocean, the east edge of Asian continent and the tip of the Yangtze River delta, Shanghai is a fair leap port strategically well-located. Shanghai is one of China's largest economic centers and a city of historical and cultural relics. It has three islands in its territory: Chongming, Changxing and Hengsha Island with Chongming Island as China's third largest island.

Known as "Shanghai-style culture", the Shanghai Culture has gradually taken shape from integrating China's traditional culture of Jiangnan (Wu Culture) as its historical basis with European and American cultures, which were introduced since the opening of Shanghai and had far-reaching effects. Thus, the Shanghai Culture is ancient and modern, traditional and trend, open and unique.

Since reform and opening up, Shanghai has hosted several large-scale cultural activities and built up a number of national-class cultural facilities, including the Shanghai Grand Theatre, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai Library, Shanghai Movie Center. Shanghai has a lot of places of attraction such as Xintiandi, Nanjing Road, and Yu Garden well-known to visitors at home and abroad. Buildings in Shanghai are a big attraction as well. The Bund, Shanghai Shikumen houses as well as modern facilities in Shanghai style, as the convergence of various ancient and modern architectural styles, are a product of integration of the native Shanghai culture and foreign cultures.

The most dynamic city in the world's fastest- changing nation, Shanghai is an exhilarating, ever-morphing metropolis that isn't just living China's dream, but is setting the pace for the rest of the world.

Once a playground for foreign adventurers and socialites, the one-time whore of the Orient is now where home-grown tycoons build soaring monuments to capitalism and the locals party all night. But despite a past as evocative as it is notorious, Shanghai has dispensed with the rear-view mirror, pushed the pedal to the floor and is roaring towards its imagined future so fast that keeping up is almost impossible. New developments spring up weekly, while the rapidly growing middle classes work seven days a week in the hope of graduating to the big-time.

Recently featured in many business and travel magazines and newspapers, Shanghai has seemingly once again become the latest "It" city of the world. Much like in the first half of the 20th century, visitors from around the world are flocking here, drawn by curiosity, a sense of possibility, the lure of potential professional and financial success, or perhaps simply a desire to be in the coolest, brashest, and most exciting city in the new century. While Shanghai lacks the classical Chinese monuments of Beijing, its colonial legacy gives it a character all its own.

This museum of East meets West on Chinese soil is also China's capital of commerce, industry, and finance, and the one city that best shows where China is headed at the dawn of the 21st century.

Favorite Sights & Experiences: 
 
Strolling the Bund: The most widely known street in Asia, with its gorgeous colonial buildings that were the banks, hotels, trading firms, and private clubs of foreign taipans (bosses of old Shanghai's trading firms) and adventurers past, deserves to be walked over and over again. See up close the exquisite architectural details of the Peace Hotel, the Customs House, the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and scores of other buildings, some lavishly restored, others closed awaiting development. Then head across the street to the Bund Promenade, where you mingle with the masses while admiring the splendor and grandeur of old Shanghai. After you've seen it by day, come back again at night for a different perspective.

Admiring the Collections in the Shanghai Museum: China's finest, most modern, and most memorable museum of historic relics has disappointed almost no visitor since it opened in the heart of People's Square. Make it a top priority, and allow a few hours more than you planned on.

Surveying Shanghai from Up High: After crossing the Huangpu River from old Shanghai to the new Shanghai), enjoy the ultimate panorama from either the sphere atop the Oriental Pearl TV Tower or the Jin Mao Tower, two of Asia's tallest structures. On a clear day, you can see forever.

Cruising the Huangpu River: A 27km (17-mile) pleasure cruise from the Bund to the mouth of the mighty Yangzi River, past endless wharves, factories, and tankers at anchor, gives substance to Shanghai's claim as China's largest port and the fact that nearly half of China's trade with the outside world travels these same waters.

Shopping 'til You Drop: To paraphrase a local saying, if you haven't shopped, you haven't been to Shanghai. Savvy local shoppers know if you want greater choice and better deals, Huaihai Lu with its slew of international boutiques and large department stores is the place to shop. Branching off and parallel to Huaihai Lu, Maoming Lu, Xlngle Lu, and Changle Lu are also home to a number of delightful small shops. Even if you're the kind of person who only shops once a year, a visit to Nanjing Lu, the "Number One Shopping Street in China" is practically required, if only for a chance to marvel (or shudder) at the sheer numbers of people, people, people everywhere! A pedestrian mall makes strolling and browsing that much easier and that much more crowded.

Bargaining for Fakes: Shanghai has any number of antiques markets where you can hone your bargaining skills, but none more colorful than the Fuyòu Market in the old Chinese city (at the western end of Shanghai's restored old street, Shanghai Lao Jie). Half the fun is in rifling through all the personal collections of memorabilia and antiques that the vendors seem to have scavenged; the other half is in dramatically protesting the high prices quoted, walking away, then being called back by a vendor newly willing to deal. The same process and joys of bargaining apply when trying to purchase knock-off designer goods, but caveat emptor.

Tackling Hairy Crab: The name says it all. The signature dish of Shanghai is absolutely scrumptious, but it is seasonal (autumn), and it is best enjoyed at a big local restaurant.

Rediscovering Shanghai's Jewish Past: In the mid-19th century, Sephardic Jews from the Middle East helped make Shanghai a great city. In the mid-20th century, thousands of Jewish refugees flooded the International Settlement north of the Bund. Today, this history can be encountered at the Ohel Moshe Synagogue, where the curator, Mr. Wang, has vivid accounts of this little-known but important Jewish ghetto.

Watching the Acrobats: This has "TOURIST" stamped all over it, but it's nevertheless a totally worthwhile pleasure, especially since Shanghai's dazzling troupes are rightly considered China's very finest at this ancient craft.

Sampling Shanghai's Jazz Scene: The Peace Hotel Jazz Band's nightly performances of New Orleans-style jazz, with some members who have been playing here since before the Revolution (1949), are the ultimate piece of colonial nostalgia, but if this doesn't grab you, modern and more improvisational jazz can be heard at a number of true blue joints: the Cotton Club, Club JZ, and the House of Blues and Jazz.

Drifting in a Gondola through a Water Village: There are any number of picturesque "water villages" near Shanghai where you can be paddled in a gondola along streams and canals as you pass traditional arched bridges, quaint stone houses, and classical Chinese gardens. Two villages stand out: Tongli and Nanxun.

Eating Xiao Long Bao: Unless you're a vegetarian, not trying Shanghai's favorite (pork) dumpling while you're here is tantamount in some circles to not having been to Shanghai at all. The "little steamed breads" spill broth in your mouth when you bite into them. You can find them everywhere, but Crystal Jade Restaurant serves up the best in the city.

Best Dining Bets: 
 
Tackling Hairy Crab: The name says it all. The signature dish of Shanghai is absolutely scrumptious, but it is seasonal (autumn), and it is best enjoyed at a big local restaurant.

Rooftop Dining on the Bund: Whether it's savoring world-class cuisine on the open-air balcony of M on the Bund, or enjoying a romantic dinner for two catered by world-renowned chefs in the cupola atop Three on the Bund, dining high above Asia's most famous street is a heady experience not to be missed.

Eating Xiao Long Bao: Unless you're a vegetarian, not trying Shanghai's favorite (pork) dumpling while you're here is tantamount in some circles to not having been to Shanghai at all. The "little steamed breads" spill broth in your mouth when you bite into them. You can find them everywhere, but Crystal Jade Restaurant serves up the best in the city.

Dining in a Colonial Mansion: These days it's easy to find a restored old mansion for dinner, but two standouts that combine just the right colonial ambiance with delicious food are La Villa Rouge, serving French/fusion delectables in the former EMI Recording Studio; and Lan Na Thai, sitting amidst the sprawling grounds of the Ruijin Hotel.

Best Free Things to Do: 
 
People-Watch: One of our favorite activities. It's free, it's fascinating, and you may learn more about today's China in an hour of people-watching than you would in a day spent on a tour bus. You can do this practically anywhere, at a park or a major intersection, but the best spots may be in People's Square, along Nanjing Lu Pedestrian Mall, on Huaihai Lu, on the Bund Promenade, or at Xintiandi, where you are almost certain to see some wild and wooly mix of beleaguered tourists, Chinese and foreign, newly minted business folk, trendy young fashionistas, uniformed school children, strolling seniors and, of course, whistle-blowing traffic cops.

Do Morning Exercises on the Bund: There's no better way to greet the day than to join the thousands of Shanghai residents in their morning tai chi exercises (and occasionally Western ballroom dancing) on the Bund and in Shanghai's parks. The Bund is preferable: The first golden rays hitting the colonial facades are truly something to behold.

Wander the Old Chinese City: The narrow winding alleys of the old Chinese city may strike some as mysterious and forbidding, but they are neither of these and are worth exploring. Here is a chance to come upon a wet market, or run into the increasingly rare sight of a night soil worker on his morning rounds (many houses in this part of town still lack indoor plumbing). See it before the bulldozer shows up.

Stroll the French Concession: This is the most interesting of the colonial districts left in Shanghai, filled with the gorgeous villas, mansions, and apartment houses of the 1920s and 1930s when the French made their mark here. Plenty of Art Deco gems abound, hidden behind years of grime and buried beneath webs of laundry poles, awaiting discovery, so keep your head up.