Shanghai - Gateway To China

Shanghai - China Gateway

The Shanghai of today boasts world-class architecture and is arguably the third largest city in

the world, measured both by people and tall buildings. Apart from the sheer scale of Shanghai,

there is also the commercial and cultural development that has taken place over the last four

years which has transformed parts of the city into looking more like Hong Kong circa 1990.

One of the most striking aspects of life in the new Shanghai is the ease with which one can get

everything done. Want a Chinese mobile phone number? No problem, just buy a prepaid sim

card, activate it and three minutes later the phone is working. Want to get an internet

connection? No problem, just go to the computer centre and a prepaid internet connection

account and start surfing. This can be done in English, a sign that Shanghai like Hong Kong, is

going truly bilingual.

Sitting atop the 88th floor bar at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, it strikes one that what is happening

is that Shanghai is in fact copying Hong Kong in almost every facet. The main shopping

boulevard, Huahai Zhong Road, has been turned by Hong Kong property developers into one of

Asia's largest department store zones. Further down the road, Shanghai BMW sits next to

Starbucks, where Yale educated Chinese MBAs working for McKinseys sip frappucinos and

read one of the cities three English language daily newspapers.

So, is Shanghai the new Hong Kong, a freewheeling seaport

open to the riches of a newly emergent Chinese middle class

and the West? Not quite. The harder one looks for old

Shanghai and its connections with British Hong Kong, the

more one realises the glory days of the past were perhaps

less glorious and certainly more past than present. Shanghai

was once the world's