Where Past, Present, and Future collide

Trip Start Oct 04, 2005
1
47
62
Trip End Ongoing


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of China  ,
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Before I actually arrived there, my ideas of Shanghai were all based on what my grandfather had told me, The Empire of the Sun (both the book and the film), and the little news clips Mom had sent me while planning the trip. I thought of it as a city full of old splendor, big mansions from the colonial age now slightly worn down. Besides these remnants of the past I imagined communist block housing rising up to accommodate the exploding population. I wasn't exactly sure what the Bund was. I saw a river with lots of ships on it winding its way into the city. I knew that a lot had changed since the years that my grandfather and Jim Ballard had inhabited this place dominated by the clash of the colonial and the slum ways of life. I was fresh from the heat and passion of SE Asia, a little nervous, a little sad, but excited to see both my mom who I hadn't seen in seven months and this city that I had heard about my entire life.

My first instinct was to compare it to Bangkok, but pretty soon I realized that though they are both cities of the future where people come from all over their respective countries to find opportunity and modern adventure, they felt completely different. As Mom and I explored the French Concession, the Fake Market, the Bund, and the Old City, time seemed to fastforward, rewind, and stand still all at once. There we were walking the very streets that Papa had walked seventy years before, chatting about travelling adventures and the news/gossip of home. One day, while looking out at the futuristic buildings that now dominate the skyline across the river from the Bund, we were approached by some Chinese students. The first was Chris, an art and english student from the countryside who had come to Shanghai with her university in order to put up an art show. She told us all about the history of the city and her desire to be a tour guide someday. She showed us her incredibly well-crafted artwork and asked about life in the States. Then, as we stood looking out on the city, this time contemplating the hopeful exhuberance of Chris instead of the new age buildings, Bonny and a friend approached us. These two, just as friendly and excited as Chris, were students eager to practice their english and learn more about the western world. They showed us their book of english phrases, asked about movies and religion. We asked them about school and where they were from, the impending Beijing Olympics that had the whole country bustling with preparation. Even as we were engrossed in conversation with the students, Mom and I both knew that these exchanges, both cultural and personal, were something special.

As we wandered the back alleys of Shanghai, ate in beautifully deocrated old Shanghainese restaurants, and took in a mesmerizing acrobatics show, I think that in the back of our minds both Mom and I were still replaying our day on the Bund with the students. Talking about it later, we both agreed that our conversation with Chris and Bonny were the highlights of our time in Shanghai. Here we had come to reconnect with our family past, to see with our own eyes the city that had so captured our imaginations after years of Papa's stories. We had come to meet each other in a celebration of the present, to see each other after seven months. And we did experience those things. But neither of us will remember Shanghai as a city of the past or present. For both of us, Shanghai is a city of the future, not only because of the oddly shaped buildings scraping the sky, but because of the Chinese students so smart and so eager to become a part of the world. And as they enter the global sphere with their exhuberance, fresh ideas, and determination, I have no doubt that the world will change, for in them I saw the future. And who knows, maybe someday my granddaughter will be walking along the mall in a DC that bears no resemblance to the one I know now, and will have a similar experience of time colliding...
Print this entry Shanghai hotels