Suzhou and Shanghai
Trip Start
Feb 29, 2004
1
30
33
Trip End
Nov 24, 2004
Shanghai,
China
Sunday, November 7, 2004
in Suzhou...
THE MAGLEV
Arrival in Shanghai couldn't have been better. After chatting with a cool
young Hong Kong fashion designer on the flight over, I was in for the ride of
my life. Despite my years of geography colleges, I had forgotten all about the
existence of the high-speed train connecting Shanghai's huge new Pudong
airport to the city centre.
The airport authorities seem to want to forget about it too, as it's not
really advertised in the airport, apart from some small signs. I was still
looking at the signs to find out which bus to take into town, 40km away, when
I noticed the word MagLev and my heart jumped. The Chinese have been mad
enough, with ample subsidy money from the Germans (who are anxious to get
their top technology used elsewhere), to actually build a 30km-long MagLev
track at incredible expense - 1.2 billion dollars. It will never, ever make a
profit.
Although the airport was busy, only a handful of people made it through the
long corridor to the MagLev reception area. With a valid air ticket you pay
only 40 yuan for a single ride; four times the bus fare but infinitely
quicker. On the platform, hostesses help you on board and guards with white
gloves salute the sleek train as is zips out of the station.
The fastest vehicle on earth (it tops 530km/hr during tests), the MagLev is
a train that floats on a thin electromagnetic field, made by magnets embedded
in the raised track. Just before departure, the magnets are switched on and
the train levitates just a little; you can feel it float. Then, without any
sound, it smoothly glides out of the station, picking up speed incredibly
fast.
A counter above the door keeps track of the speed - and it's amazing to feel
yourself pushed back in your seat and see the counter clock up the speed
quickly beyond 100km/hr... then 200km/hr, and after just three minutes after
departure, its top operational speed of 431km/hr. Internally, I was whooping
with joy - this is damn fast. By then, the air resistence causes the train to
make as much noise and movements as a 'normal' high speed train does. But it's
obvious to see by the landscape blurring by that you're faster than normal,
and when it hits one of the two bends in the track, the G forces press you
down into your seat.
It's the best public transport ride I've ever had - and possibly the coolest
thing to do in Shanghai. It seems others were thinking the same, as there were
only a handful of passengers with baggage that were using the train to get
from the airport to town; the others all were tourists and western businessmen
trying it out. No wonder the prices were reduced from 150 yuan per ride to 50
yuan earlier; they'll never make a profit here anyway, so it might as well be
cheap.
The whole 30km ride takes only seven minutes, with only one minute at top
speed as it needs to start braking soon. The track ends at one of Shanghai's
metro stations and unfortunately doesn't go right into the centre. Still, it
was only a 3 yuan, 15 minute metro ride to reach Shanghai's station on the
other side of town, where I bought a ticket to Suzhou, one hour west of
Shanghai.
SUZHOU
Back to suburban working life now. On the jeep from Nepal to Tibet, I'd met David and Teresa, two beautiful West-Australians teaching at an international school in Suzhou. I'd promised to look them up, and could combine this with the typing work I needed to do for the Vietnam guide. For two weeks I camped out in their swank western Suzhou apartment - with the world's most depressing expat mall and a fancily named 'Downtown Street' full of restaurants, illegal DVD shops and brothels conveniently located a short walk away.
I visited the school to log on now and then, and found it interesting to see that teachers at commercially-run expat schools have the exact same problems that editors like me have at commercially run magazines: the eternal strife between management and sales staff (who want to increase sales/child enrolment) and the attemps of the dedicated creative staff (who want to make the magazine/teaching as good as possible for the end users). I found the banner on the front of the building, "Where leaders are made, not born", very scary. I'm more of a Chomskyist myself.
My 33rd birthday was celebrated on Halloween in Pulp Fiction, a Suzhou expat bar. Teresa found some feline costumes and David was happy to smear make-up onto his face and glue some extra hair onto his stubble, so we went out as a pair of cats accompanied by a werewolf. The unsuspecting Chinese outside the bar formed a scrum to have a look at the weird foreigners inside - they're not used to seeing dress-up parties and didn't hide their curiosity. A couple of guys came dressed as aliens wearing tights and almond-eye masks; they tok the bus to the cafe and had a blast amusing the bewildered locals. If we ever invade China, it's probably much better to all dress up in silly costumes than
to come wearing army stuff - they'll run screaming.
The Chinese here in Suzhou could actually do with some dressing tips, as they are the worst dressed people in the world; a mass of ill-fitting grey/brown jackets and floppy trousers above white socks and cheap shoes. I'm not particularly fashion-concious myself, but it's glaringly clear from a peek in any Suzhou clothes shop that dramatic action is needed to solve the problem. Again, the strange thing is that Suzhou, as a major production centre of nearly everything, probably is responsible for manufacturing plenty of top clothes brands too, but these all get sent out abroad. It's strange to think that when a Chinese person stares at some gadget you have, it's probably made just down the street.
SHANGHAI
After an excellent stay in Suzhou and finishing my writing work, it was time to slip the rucksack back on and hit the hostels; Shanghai first. I checked in to the Captain Hostel just off the famous Bund. My roommates included a few English teachers from cities across eastern China on a holiday and a Taiwanese lad who, instead of going to university, was spending the money on a few years of travelling and learning languages - I was surprised to learn that we could converse in German, English, Polish and Romanian.
As the most western city in China, it was a delight to wander around Shanghai. The locals seem to have a sense of style completely lacking elsewhere in China. European architecture is still very much in evidence here, with the Bund looking like Liverpool, the streets behind it similar to those in British towns, and with German-influenced buildings in the so-called French Concession area. Especially the Art Deco hotels and shops scattered across the city look fabulous - I sneaked into a few of them to glance at period receptions, dining halls and ballrooms.
In comparison to that, the modern Chinese architecture that has been added to the city in the past 10 years is mostly pompous and oversized and best seen from the distance. The worst is the huge skewered- pingpong-ball television Oriental Pearl TV tower (see www.emporis.com/ge/il/im/?id=114560), which has a conference centre plonked in front of it, which must be copied from Romania's hideous Elena Ceausescu-designed National Opera building (compare: www.aboutromania.com/bucharest10.html).
It was shitty weather on the day I visited the new Pudong district - 'east of the Pu river - to see the Pearl tower and the amazing Jin Mao Tower (a 421m-high colossus with inside it a 152m-high atrium) which houses the world's highest hotel (the Hyatt, on the 53rd to 87th floors. Both towers were shrouded in clouds, and persistent rain drove me to the new Shanghai Museum, which had five floors of beautiful Chinese art and antiquities - everything from sculpture to ceramics and furniture.
At Shanghai's clothes market I shopped for fake Boss shirts and a North Face coat; the same materials and good quality (probably from the back door of the same factory that makes the originals) at a fraction of the price you pay in Europe. It may be illegal, but when shopping here you realise what such products really are worth. That fleece coat you just paid €300 for is really worth about €15 in materials and work - the difference is a tiny transport fee plus a whopping amount that the brand has fooled you out of (which goes to pay the design and manager's costs). As so many tourists come here unaware of the real price, it's amazing to see prices drop quickly - ask what a coat costs and from "600 yuan, 550 for you today" they'll eagerly drop it to 300, and when you mention you live in Suzhou and will buy it there they'll grumblingly go down to 200 or 150, It's no surprise that the best English I have heard in 2,5 months of China was spoken at this market - if they can fool even just one foreigner a day in paying 500 yuan (€50) for a coat, they've already made an average month's wage in one go. These must be the richest small-time merchants around. Until one day the WTO will have them shut down, that is. Until now, the Chinese know it's bad (they even have hilarious banners up at the market warning people not to buy illegal wares, and lots of police walking around) but they know how many jobs depend on it so they just leave it be for now.
Shanghai is known as the only proper place with good food and nightlife in China, and the restaurant scene was pretty good, though approaching Western price levels too. I visited the Glamour Club, one of the trendiest places around with great views over the Bund and the river, to see a concert of a Japanese duo playing harmonica and cello. Not only was it a nice concert, I spotted a celebrity, Christopher Doyle (the Australian cinematographer behind 'In the Mood for Love' and 'Rabbit-Proof Fence') who was in town to shoot 'The White Countess'. Unfortunately I didn't recognise him until I saw his picture in a magazine a few days later - so much for my brush with immortality.
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Next up: Yangshuo dreamscapes
Currently reading: 'A prayer for Owen Meany', John Irving. Stolen from a restaurant by my Suzhou friends on my advice, I got to (re)read it first; it's still a classic and more interesting now I've been to Vietnam. Fabulous book.
