Shanghai - first thoughts

“Shanghai is America”

Or so says the really good book China Road that I read during the first few days of my trip here. It’s quite a good story of an American who worked in Shanghai for NPR for a number of years and then took the 3,000 mile trip across Route 312, the Highway 66 of China. While I am not sure that I totally agree with his assessment, I have at least one story supporting him.

When I arrived in Shanghai, I needed to get a charger for my iPod. Somehow I didn’t bring one with me and my iPod died by the time I got here. So the first night I am in Shanghai I set off, completely unsure how to go about finding a charger. A few minutes from my hotel, I found what looked like a sort of department store. I wandered inside, and began to mime the motion for “I need to buy a charger for my iPod”. For those of you who have gotten “iPod charger” in Charades, you know it is not the easiest thing to communicate without words. And of course I had left my iPod at the hotel, which did not help.

After a minute or so of watching me make headphone motions, dancing around like I was listening to music, and pointing to a power outlet, the girl at the department store giggles at me, and motions for me to follow. I trudge after her uncertainly as she leads me around the corner and out the side door of the store. Then, she points down the street, looks at me and smiles and says “try Best Buy”. Which, of course, is right down the street.

“Shanghai is not America”

Says me. So far I only have about 300 examples why this is not true. But that said, I really like it here. I will post more impressions about Shanghai later, but so far the city seems very unique and has a great feel to it. Preliminary city rating is 10 out of 14, and this comes after walking to work in the rain this morning, which is not fun anywhere in the world.