Shanghai July 2016 - University Report

As part of blagging myself a travel scholarship grant from my university as an excuse of visiting China this summer, one of the requirements as part of accepting the award was to write a report at the end of it. So here it is, I thought I'd upload it in on here in case there's anyone out there who's bored, or gives a shit about my adventures. 

Please bare in mind that as an academic report it is pretty cleanly written by my usually vulgar standards, and I've tried to avoid being too contentious. I'm also impeded by a word limit, which is probably a good thing, given my propensity for talking complete and utter bollocks.  

Scholarship Report: China (Shanghai)

Thanks to the generosity of the University of Leicester, I was enabled an opportunity to spend six nights travelling in the People’s Republic of China – basing myself in the enormous, bustling metropolis of Shanghai. The reason for undergoing such a mammoth trip was because of my decision to take the Enter The Dragon module in my second year of university – a new, unknown area of study for me. *I truly believe that travelling is one of the most enriching forms of education that one can undertake - first-hand experience in staying in a country and learning its customs, history and culture, both its minor and huge idiosyncrasies, is the best method to truly understand the way it operates. And of course, the huge plethora of museums would also give myself a greater insight and foreknowledge of China ahead of studying the country in greater depth this year.

(*Another disclaimer: I know that sounds horrendously cliched, but it's true. My Korean War essay in the Cold War module last year attained a strong first; I had known next to nothing about it prior to my two week stay there in 2015). 

I was awarded £400 by the University of Leicester towards this trip - £325 of this was allocated towards my flights from Glasgow to Shanghai, via stops in Dusseldorf and Munich. The next hefty cost was the visa, which is eye-wateringly expensive at £150 for a one-entry visit, and required two separate visits to the centre in London to process it. Finally, the cost of my accommodation in the dorm of my hostel totalled to around £55 over 6 nights – meaning that the trip essentials accumulated to around £530. All my own personal spending money was funded by myself, as I’m fortunate to work in the leading supermarket of the United Kingdom; Sainsburys.

Day One – Arrival, Maglev, The Bund.

An exhausting journey spanning over 20 hours was one of reasonable comfort, if somewhat sleep-deprived, thanks to the excellent facilities and services of the German airliner Lufthansa. Arriving at approximately 15:00 local time, my main priority was finding my hostel and just settling myself in, so after a surprisingly swift and stress-free exit from border control, I headed towards the Maglev train station at the airport. As somewhat of a train geek, this was of huge excitement to me. The Maglev is indicative of China’s technological prowess, a bullet-style train that runs on elevated magnetism and reaches speeds of up to 430km/h (one of the fastest commercial trains in the world) - reaching the inside of the city within just 7 minutes. This was incredible to experience first-hand - it feels like you’re travelling in the future.

After exiting, I made my first foray into Shanghai’s expansive metro system, which would give me the first eye-opener into just how hectic life is in an urban jungle of 24 million inhabitants. Every single subway station is deployed with security guards and scanning machines to put your bags through. It’s totally chaotic. But I successfully managed to navigate myself to my hostel upon reaching my destination – despite a grand total of 18 subway exits to have to choose from! I checked in, pleased with my choice, not just for its handy location and comfortable interior - but also for a good way to meet fellow travellers. I made my way up to the rooftop bar for a much-needed beer, and conversed with an American English-teacher, who gave me his lowdown on the city.

As the evening skies approached, I walked my way towards the Bund – Shanghai’s notorious waterfront and shipping route. This is an incredible spectacle. On one side, the edifice is crammed with stunning Western buildings from when the city was divided by colonial rule, with French, British and American architectural influences evident. Staring opposite on the other side of the Huangpu River is the Pudong district, which is far more typical of a highly-technological Southeast Asian powerhouse. The skyscraper laden skyline features some of the world’s tallest and most innovative buildings – this rampant modernity is only enhanced by the presence of flamboyant neon lighting. Critics point out that the sheer weight of these buildings have led to Shanghai sinking by 18cm per year and that rural outside areas suffer from regular electrical blackouts as a result. But it’s undeniably an incredible spectacle on the human eye.

Day Two - Old City, Urban Planning Museum,  Shanghai WFC.

With traditional Chinese culture and heritage often being sacrificed at the expense of building numerous tower blocks and skyscrapers, I spent my morning wandering around the Old City district, preserved with quaint old wooden architecture. The highlight of this was the Yu Garden, built in 1559 during the Ming Dynasty. Despite being overloaded with fellow tourists, it still had a beautiful air of peaceful serenity about it, a complex crammed with beautiful buildings and marquees with fish-filled ponds in abundance.

My next port of call was to visit the Urban Exhibition Planning Hall, .This is a superb museum that documents the incredible growth of Shanghai from a small fishing village into one of the biggest cities on earth. Not only that, it features a complex insight into Shanghai’s future, with an entire tennis-court sized model of how the city is planned to be landscaped by 2020. There is a lot of propagandist rhetoric to how they plan to make these developments eco-friendly, but with the sheer amount of smog and pollution evident, I remain sceptical.

For the rest of the day, I took the metro to the Pudong district, gazing at the wonders of the Colonial side of the Bund for beautiful panoramic views. As evening time approached, I made my way to the Shanghai World Financial Centre (also known as the ‘bottle opener’ building) to enjoy views from the highest observational deck in the world, at 482 metres. Trust me, it can be quite daunting being at that height and is especially disconcerting with clear glass panels beneath you and signs displayed asking you not to jump! Unfortunately I chose a poor evening to do this, with clouds in sky rarely disappearing, but on the glimpses where they did, the sights were absolutely spectacular.

Day Three – Zoo, Propaganda Poster Centre, French Concession

As a lover of animals, a visit to Shanghai would not be complete without a trip to its enormous zoo. Of course, the stars of the show were the Giant Pandas, but what was most pleasing about the complex was that most of the animals were kept in clean environments and didn’t appear to be in too much discontent. Unfortunately though, very few of the locals seemed to abide by the various signs asking to not feed the animals.

Next on the itinerary would actually be relevant to my historical studies – the Propaganda Poster Centre. This small museum featured a myriad of amazing posters throughout the Communist Party’s history, in a chronological ordering. The most interesting theme was the continuous decline of
Sino-Soviet friendship relations in the aftermath of Stalin’s death, but some of the most intriguing works were brutally anti-American and anti-imperialistic; displaying pro-revolutionist messages to groups in Latin America, Vietnam and Africa. Unfortunately photography was forbidden in this complex but I did manage to snag some replica posters in the souvenir shop.

For the rest of the day I mainly wandered around the elegant French Concession district, often monikered the ‘Paris of the East’. This leafy district features several shikumen houses - a traditional Shanghainese architectural style that combines both Western and Chinese elements. Zhou Enlai’s extravagant former residence also lies in this area. I wrapped the day up with a superb Cantonese meal, devouring some delicious fried eel and dim sum.

Day Four – Buddhist Temples

One of my quieter, more disappointing touristic days, due to a mixture of poor planning and questionable map-reading, I still enjoyed the delights of two beautiful Buddhist temple complexes. 

The first one, the Jing’an Temple, has a history of more than 780 years. Sadly, the site today is totally reconstructed following a fire in 1972. Despite this, the building remains elegant and beautiful, and a good place to escape the hustle and bustle of crowds in downtown Shanghai. There are plenty of practicing monks and most visitors are worshipers, rather than just tourists. The most impressive feature is the statue of Jade Buddha, which is over 9ft tall and weighs more than 11,000 kilograms.

2 kilometres north houses the Jade Buddha Temple. This building was constructed in the late nineteenth century, and despite the lack of history compared to its counterpart, its old-time and classical architectural style makes it unique and inimitable. In a city crammed with numerous soulless tower blocks and capitalist shopping malls, the peaceful and transcendent atmosphere of these temples adds a sense of richness to such a busy modern society.

Day Five – Communist Congress Museum, Jewish Refugees Museum, Hongkhou, Football.

The Museum of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is exactly what it says on the tin. On July 23, 1921, thirteen members held their first national congress of the Communist Party of China here, marking the birth of the Party. The exhibition cover the history of the Party's birth, the blooming of nation-wide communist teams, the photos of the thirteen members, etc. Most interestingly for me, was the English translated document of the founding appendix.

In addition, a waxworks hall inside vividly reproduces the scene of this significant meeting. The other twelve members listen and smile as Mao Zedong, founder of the PRC, makes his speech.

The museum is highly propagandist and portrays the Communist Parties activities in only a positive light.

The next historical sight of interest was something I was less clued up about from the outside world. In the Hongkhou district lies the Jewish Refugee Museum. Between 1937 and 1941, Shanghai received approximately 25,000 Jewish refugees. This moving exhibition features numerous heart-warming accounts from citizens who sought refuge there, many of whom found love, and married local inhabitants. While most refugees emigrated from Shanghai in the aftermath of WWII, the sense of gratitude was conveyed strongly from those who temporarily lived there. The site of the museum is the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue which has been protected as a cultural heritage landmark.

For the rest of the day, I explored the Hongkhou district on foot, mostly the Duolun Road, which formerly housed British and American diplomats. It boasts several artistic street paintings and an impressive bricked Protestant Church.

As a huge football fan, I couldn’t resist taking in Shanghai SIPG’s game against Henan Jianye. The Chinese Super League is withstanding an enormous boom at the moment thanks to the financial clout of the clubs being able to attract top European players. Brazilian striker Hulk was making his debut on this evening following his £46m move from Zenit St Petersburg, and scored as the hosts ran out 5-0 winners. It was a surprisingly excellent atmosphere full of enthusiasm and vigour from the home fans, definitely worth experiencing even if you’re not that fond of football.

Day Six – ‘Peaceful’ outing to Hangzhou

For my penultimate day I thought I would venture further afield to one of the outer cities for a quieter retreat. I chose Hangzhou, a city that only houses 8.7 million inhabitants! It’s renowned for its beautiful natural scenery and cultural heritage though, so I thought it would be worth the exploration. 

It should have been, but this turned out to be one of my most stressful days on planet Earth, and highlighted the severely bureaucratic, restrictive nature of travelling around China. It turns out you can only buy train tickets in China with your national identification. And thanks to a severe shortage of open ticket booths, this means that the queues for purchasing are excruciatingly long. It wasn’t so bad in Shanghai, but on the return from Hangzhou (you can’t buy return tickets) I had to queue for over 55 minutes, and was unable to board a train for another hour! Once I was back in Shanghai's main station, I had to wait another 45 minutes to buy a metro ticket because the ticket machines kept on playing up. I was honestly close to having a nervous break down on this day.

Once you’ve navigated the queues and skipped through all the airport-style security and multiple checkpoints, you will board at the platform and experience one of the most fantastic train experiences of your life. Super rapid, super comfortable, super facilities. Whistling past the swamped and run-down countryside areas it dawns on you the extent of disparity between the urban and rural areas of China.

As a result of the ticketing nightmares, plus my inability to read Mandarin-written maps, my planned time and excursions within Hangzhou was hindered. I eventually navigated my way to the famous lake though, and enjoyed its marvels, despite the foggy weather incoming. My favourite part of navigating the lakes circumference was exploring the Temporary Imperial Palace, built during the Qing dynasty.

Day Seven – Exploring, Flight Home.

The events that transpired the previous day put me off travelling further outside of Shanghai, so this was just a chilled out day before my evening flight home. I made good use of the huge fake market shopping halls and snagged myself a few bargains and some gifts for my cherished ones back in CT6. 

Staring across the famous skyline for a final time from the wall of the Bund, I was approached by several excitable schoolchildren, who were desperate to test their English on me and wanted me to teach them! They were so polite and friendly and they all wanted to have their photo taken with me. This also happened in previous days with strangers wanting to be snapped with me, then being very humble and thankful afterwards. I felt like a celebrity, just for being a white westerner! The youthful generation there are in vast contrast to a lot of the elder generations, who frequently push, shove and shout their way around you. This restored my faith in the Chinese people.

Evaluation and Conclusions

I cannot thank my University enough for enabling this opportunity. The overwhelmingly cultural experience from visiting China has given me a fascinating insight into the most populated country on earth. I have gained an enormous amount of knowledge from my travels and developed my own strong opinions as a result of spending time there. 

There were moments of difficulties, which are natural when you’re spending time alone on the other side of the world. The main struggle was the lack of access to social media and being able to contact people back at home, due to the Chinese government blocking virtually every western media outlet. If only I had installed a VPN blocker prior to my arrival.....

The other main problem was the unbearable heat. The climate in Southeast Asia during the summer months is typified by extreme temperatures and humidity but also features their heaviest rainfall. So a week of tourism was very tiring, sweaty work.

China is a country of extreme contradictions and you do question whether it can truly be classified at a Communist state. It certainly still harbours a totalitarian element, with restrictive freedom of speech and large-scale censorship remaining fundamental aspects of life. The cult of Mao’s personality lives on, both in lavish praise of his legacy in Museums and with his face featuring on every single Chinese Yuan banknote.

On the contrary though, I’ve never been to such a large-scale capitalist economy, with enormous disparity of wealth evident in everyday life. Homeless people are sadly a very common sight. And most strikingly, the conditions of manual work have not progressed to the standards you’d expect from the world's biggest economy in 2016.

Some other general points I'd like to add on the end here:

• Living standards are fucking cheap, man. The first meal I went for I ordered beef noodles, a portion of dumplings and a 660ml bottle of Tsingtao. Cost less than £4.
  Museums costs practically nothing, metro fares are fuck all, even travelling to Hangzhou was only about a tenner. Cigarettes cost from 50p upwards (cheers for helping me back on that wagon, lads).  
• If you go to China, make sure you order your currency prior to getting there. Thankfully I did, as the days passed I heard horror stories from fellow travellers about how 50% of the notes they were withdrawing were fakes. There are so many in circulation in the banks there. 
• I lost my appetite for a few days while I was out there. Make sure this doesn't happen to you (my advice would be to not get into a relationship with a girl who will cheat on you and scarcely contact you when you're on the other side of the world). It was incredible when I could muster up the enthusiasm though. You need a strong stomach for some of the stuff you see though!