Dominion Post web editor on a city of endless energy

Dominion Post web editor Patrick Crewdson travelled to Shanghai in October and November 2009 with the support of Asia:NZ. He reports back on his time in a city of endless energy.

Shanghai is the most intense city I’ve ever visited – even more so than Manhattan.

On the streets the Shanghainese and the city’s millions of migrants are all hustling, striving to get ahead, and most of the time trying to sell you something. The chaotic traffic never abates. The construction goes all hours of the day and night. It feels like the whole city is being rebuilt. It’s partly the preparations for hosting next year’s World Expo, but it’s also the upheaval that accompanies the pace of progress.

I travelled to Shanghai to meet New Zealand business people and officials operating amid this endless energy and to ask what difference the New Zealand-China free trade agreement had made a year after coming into effect. I also wanted to catch up with interesting Kiwis making their mark in China’s biggest city.

Before departing Wellington I started keeping a travel blog on the Dominion Post and Stuff.co.nz websites. My blog ran from 28 September to 26 November, attracting more than 17,700 page impressions and a good number of reader comments, both supportive and critical.

Many journalists travelling to China do so on a business visa, but I wanted to be upfront and legitimate so I applied for a J-2 visa for a non-resident journalist. My wife would accompany me.

I started my interviews before I left, talking to Trade Minister Tim Groser, Labour leader Phil Goff (who was trade minister when the FTA was negotiated), NZTE officials, the head of the NZ-China Trade Association, and several New Zealand-based business people with interests in China. Combined with the other research and reading I was doing, I found that a useful way to get a grasp on the some of the key issues early on.

I also set up a business schedule of interviews and events in Shanghai. Over the course of three weeks I had 36 appointments, ranging from hour-long interviews to full day site visits.

I met a wide range of interesting people: New Zealanders, mainland Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, Americans, Australians, importers, exporters, entrepreneurs, farmers, consultants, an academic, an artist, a chef, a baker, factory managers and workers, officials, a diplomat, a New Zealand mayor, and several people whose roles defied easy categorisation (like a Chinese manager for a New Zealand company who was, as a sideline, building a sports stadium).

I learnt about the luxury market, niche markets, the mass market, wet markets, the grey market, and the black market.

Among the many highlights were:

  • Flying from Shanghai to Beijing then driving 2 ½ hours south-east for a tour of Fonterra’s demonstration farm at Tangshan. I was the first New Zealand journalist to visit the farm.

  • Visiting the construction site of New Zealand’s pavilion for the 2010 World Expo.

  • Touring the opulent buffet restaurant at the Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai’s top hotel, with the area executive chef, a New Zealander who has risen through the ranks to command 380 chefs just at that hotel (he also oversees six other hotels).

  • Seeing the Kiwi community socialise over drinks at Irish pub O’Malley's (established by New Zealander Rob Young), at the Shanghai Sixes cricket tournament, and at networking events thrown by expat agency KEA.

  • Visiting several garment factories in Shanghai and an electronic components factory in nearby Suzhou.

While I was in China I had a number of feature articles printed in The Dominion Post and online. These can be viewed below.

Aside from the initial challenge of getting the visa, travelling around China was much easier than I’d been warned it would be. In Shanghai we either took taxis (Smart Shanghai is excellent for printing out addresses in Chinese characters to give to drivers) or caught the clean, efficient and cheap subway.

We also caught trains for day trips to nearby Hangzhou (China’s leading domestic tourist destination, a lakeside city renowned for its natural beauty) and Suzhou (a manufacturing powerhouse).

When we left Shanghai to embark on the personal travel part of our trip we flew to Xi’an for several days of sightseeing (including, of course, the Terracotta Warriors), then flew down to Hong Kong. From there we crossed back over the border by train into Shenzhen, then caught one of the frequent commuter trains over to Guangzhou. While in Guangzhou I conducted several more interviews and visited the factory and the stores for a Kiwi fashion label that not only manufactures in China but now also has its own branded stores there. From Guangzhou we caught a 20-hour overnight train (with soft-sleeper berths – highly recommended) back to Shanghai.

Our two border crossings – entering originally at Shanghai then coming back in at Shenzhen – were both hassle-free, and despite receiving warnings about the scrutiny journalists can sometimes come under in China I had no interactions at all with any authorities.

The only real impediment to my work was the Great Firewall of China, the internet shield that blocks various websites – including those of some news organisations, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and some search engine results. I had intended to use Twitter to augment my blog coverage but although I could post tweets (using a Twittermail account) I couldn’t see any responses or follow any other users’ tweets, meaning the service was of limited use. Similarly, some of my research was stymied by search results being blocked.

Fortunately, the Stuff.co.nz and Dompost.co.nz sites were available so I was still able to blog and to follow New Zealand news. Locally I read Shanghai Daily, the Shanghaiist, ChinaSMACK, and to a lesser extent China Daily.

On a good day, Shanghai’s relentless hustle and bustle is exciting and invigorating. You might breakfast on a delicious spring onion pancake from a hole-in-the-wall stall; catch the subway to People’s Park and check out the miniature models and historical shots of the city at the urban planning museum; lunch at one of Shanghai’s innumerable high-end hotels or restaurants; ride the metro again to Xujiahui and wander the gigantic shopping malls or detour down a side street to explore a peaceful park; rebuff the hawkers and touts flogging fake Louis Vuitton, Prada and Gucci, then marvel at all the genuine luxury products on sale in the Lamborghini showrooms or the European boutiques; dine at a dirt-cheap family restaurant in Zhabei or some other colourful district, washing your meal down with a giant bottle of Tsingtao beer for 80 cents; then finish the evening with a cocktail at one of the ritzy bars on the historic Bund, gazing past the waving People’s Republic of China flags across the river to the bright lights of Pudong.

People disparage Shanghai saying it’s a soulless city that lacks the culture or character of Beijing. And it’s true that a commercial, consumerist culture is evident. But we also found Shanghai to be an endlessly fascinating city, with plenty of colourful neighbourhoods to explore, a vibrant street life, and more cultural and historical attractions than its critics give it credit for. It’s also a gastronome’s paradise, with a limitless range of superb food in every price bracket.

It’s often said that Shanghai isn’t the real China. And its relative youth, wealth, and cosmopolitan nature mean that’s probably true. But it’s not just Shanghai that seems to be under construction – everywhere we went seemed to be in the process of rejuvenating. If the country’s development continues at anything like its current pace, the rest of urban China will start to look more and more like Shanghai.

Read more:

Read Patrick's travel blog

Read his articles from China:

Photos:

  1. The Pudong skyline as seen from a restaurant balcony on the Bund.
  2. A street food vendor ignites his work in one of the backstreets of Shanghai's Old Town.
  3. Heifers on Fonterra's demonstration farm at Tangshan, near Tianjin.
  4. New Zealand's under-construction pavilion for the Shanghai 2010 World Expo, right, with China's completed pavilion in the background.
  5. Patrick in his favourite local restaurant, a small place in Shanghai's Zhabei District where we could only communicate by pointing at pictures on the wall.
  6. Shanghai at dusk as seen from the 88th floor observation deck in the Jinmao Tower.
  7. The old and the new mingle at Shanghai's Jing'an Temple.

 

Last updated: 02 November 2010
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