The city of Shanghai is covered in smog. From our taxi, we could barely make out the iconic shapes of Shanghai’s skyscrapers, swathed in mist. Crossing a bridge over the Huangpu River, we saw only a vague outline of the distinctive China pavilion of Expo 2010, although it was not far away. Most of Shanghai’s polluting factories have been moved out of town, including the shipyard that once stood on the site of today’s Expo. But fast economic growth has brought elevated highways and millions of privately-owned cars. Thus, the smog. This is the downside of prosperity! Shanghai 2010 looks a lot like Beijing 2008, when the Olympics were threatened by poor air quality.
We had dinner with two local women who represent the New China. Both are engineers working for Paul’s business partner. They were dressed so nicely that I felt awkward in my Ex Officio travel clothing. They each have good education, fine jobs, a husband and child, a car. They travel a lot for business. They have been to the U.S. They can speak English, although we conversed in Chinese.
These women have been to Expo, and they gave us many tips on how to handle the crowds. Certain pavilions, including the Chinese one, are almost impossible to see; the lines require a wait of six or seven hours. Others require a wait of “only” two hours. You can get tickets in advance for some pavilions, but you still have to wait. The most popular pavilions are the European ones, and Japan. Also Saudi Arabia, which spent the most on its pavilion and offers IMAX movies. Most people wear sunhats, use umbrellas to protect from the sun, and buy bottled water. If nothing else, they told us, Shanghai Expo will teach Chinese people how to wait in line. Chinese are notorious for their rush-and-crowd tactics when boarding buses or buying tickets. None of this makes me eager to see Shanghai Expo 2010. Still, the crowds show that ordinary Chinese people now can afford to travel and enjoy life. So the crowds, too, are signs of prosperity.
After dinner, Paul and I walked along Huaihai Road, the busy high-fashion center of Shanghai. In the old prewar days, it was called Avenue Joffre, the heart of the French concession, in the days when Europeans controlled territory here. Lining the street are trees, decorated with lights and little lanterns, very pretty. The shops are mostly high-end international designer labels, for clothing and jewelry, including Tiffany and Cartier. One stretch had at least five watch shops, with diamond-encrusted watches on display in the windows. I saw a few foreign faces, but most people on the streets appeared to be middle-class urban Chinese, well-dressed, able to afford to buy as well as window-shop.
Back in the 1920s and 1930s, when Shanghai gained a reputation as the Paris of the East, observers wrote that these streets were filled with beggars, many of them diseased and crippled, even dead bodies no one bothered to take away. Today, you don’t see any of that in China. For all its flaws, Communism leveled everyone, took care of the poorest, and then allowed people to make money. Chairman Mao would cringe at the Gucci shops, and visitors cough at the smog, but the poor have a place to live and everybody has an opportunity to make a better life.
Crowds. Smog. Oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Are these inevitable costs of prosperity? What do you think?
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