September 21, 2007

Shanghai Surprise!

This past week I had opportunity to attend a tech conference in Shanghai China with a few of my co-workers from TCIS. What a beautiful city! I simply can't believe how modern and clean it is in Shanghai, especially in the financial district (east of the Huang Pu River) where our hotel was located. The air quality isn’t all that wonderful, mind you, but the city itself blew my expectations out of the water! If I was to take all the bikes and street vendors off the 4 lane landscaped boulevard by our hotel, I would swear I was in a new development in an Atlanta or Austin suburb.

were a few of my first words when landing in Shanghai. Felt like I was flying into an airport back in the 1960s when we would board and debark planes on the tarmac – no covered walkways into the terminal here! Even saw Air Canada and United Airlines planes as we were bussed from our Eastern China jet to the main terminal which were welcoming familiar sites in a foreign land!

Throughout my stay in Shanghai, I found both ultra traditional and ultra modern elements of the city working side by side... and this contrast started right at the airport from debarking the plane to boarding the fastest train in the world! When we found out the Maglev could take us downtown, we decided to give it a try. Imagine, traveling at 430 km/hr and covering 30 km in only 7 minutes and 21 seconds!


For a city of 18 million people, it sure didn’t seem overly congested even along the river walk by the Huangpu River and East China Sea. This stroll along the water reminded me of similar walks in Vancouver, enjoying the coffee shops, restaurants and gardens as we took in the views of harbor life. Of course there was yet another Starbucks at the harbor front but, much to my chagrin, I couldn’t order a Chai Latte there - or anywhere in China for that matter. The staff at coffee shops wanted to sell me Green Tea Latte but I just couldn’t make the leap from my favorite =) What is a person to do?


The number of bicycles and pedestrians and cars and buses and carts and mopeds that share the same road is really quite mesmerizing. I noticed a definite rhythm of traffic here. Forget the dotted lines on the road (not quite sure what those are for) because everyone, and I mean everyone, weaves in front and behind one another constantly. If you’re moving, you’re weaving... and often within inches of each other.

Click on this photo to enlarge and check out the Mercedes waiting for the cart to pass...


Along most every street in Shanghai I found vendors selling everything from fruit to kites, city workers cleaning the streets with straw brooms along with others using carts to transport people and produce. It was fascinating to observe the street life of China past only now with some of the most extraordinary architectural buildings and perfectly manicured public parks lining the same streets. A few of the postmodern structures within our view included the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Aurora building (which has the largest video screen I've ever seen right on the face of the building) and the famous 88 story Jin Mao Tower. Just to 'drive home' my traditional-modern point (pardon the pun), the guide books say the Jin Mao Tower has 7,500 bicycle parking spaces in addition to its vehicle parking!



International Schools in China

The tech conference we attended was well organized, informative and highly motivating. They offered a good selection of seminars and it was a wonderful opportunity to meet tech coordinators, teachers and network administrators from other international and non-international schools... attendees from Singapore to New York.

I guess one would expect a tech conference to be held in a high tech facility. Believe me, this expectation was met. One of the international schools in Shanghai hosted the conference and I must say I was duly impressed by what I saw. There are a slew of international schools in Shanghai where most are excellent examples of the latest in technology and facility design.

At the end of one seminar, our group took a tour of an international school in another part of the city. You'll see in the following photos it was high class all the way, from the reception area to the staff housing next door!

Shopping in Shanghai

I don’t know if I’ll ever get totally comfortable bartering while shopping here in Asia. I am so used to just paying the price listed on an item and leaving it at that. But here, typically, I can walk into most small shops and haggle the asking price down by about 60-70%. But you better not be in a hurry because it may take you awhile to get there! I’ve found I can get the price I want if I don’t mind walking away from the deal (or pretending to) and not being affected by some of the most dramatic performances by sales staff seen off Broadway. Even though some staff sound as though they are going through their last agonizing moments of life, they almost always accept the customer's offer in the end.

Another hint when purchasing in Asia: watch where you open your wallet! I know this isn't the case for all sales staff, but I had a guy poke his nose in my wallet to see how much money I was carrying and then up-the-price because he saw I had 'extra cash' on hand! I've learned it's best to divide the cash and store it in different pockets.

Walking in a mall in China sure isn’t the same as walking in a western mall. You might say I'm easy prey for the Asians since I'm a typical western white guy who would rather give the sales person the asking price than barter the price down. I think most guys would agree with me on this point. I just have to walk by shops in most Asian markets and there can be upwards to 5 to 6 sales people calling out to me to visit their store to "just look" at their jewelry, watches, belts and clothes. Funny this doesn't happen when a woman is walking with me because, let's face it, the store owners know that most women will barter with them and typically end up with a bargain deal.

Then there's the famous underground market in Shanghai which is an experience all its own. I didn't witness this personally but I've heard when the police walk through these markets, 'callers' will run ahead of the police warning the shop owners to hide their cloned merchandise! It's quite a site watching all these shops scramble to shove racks of clothes and jewelry in the back room out of view of the approaching police.

There are lots of high-end Gucci-type shops with real high-end Gucci-type prices too! You'll also see your share of discount stores and specialty shops, similar to what we have in the west. These photos were taken at a department store within a few blocks of our hotel with some pretty amazing prices: designer candles for less than $1, men's dress shirts for $4, a complete meal for $1 and rice by the bucket!