It takes a while to get into the swing of Shanghai, with 12.3 million people, China`s most densely populated city. What helps is a visit to someplace unexpected–the old-world Peace Hotel, where a seven-piece jazz band plays such old songs as ”Perfidia” and ”Chattanooga Choo Choo” and the newest tunes in its repetoire are the ”Tennessee Waltz” and the ”Colonel Bogie March.”
The band members, all in their 60s, played in the old 14-story Art Deco hotel (it was the Cathay then) on the Bund until the Cultural Revolution came along in 1966. Today the band, which reconvened about seven years ago, symbolizes the continuing permissive spirit here.
On this evening, a mix of Chinese, including a table of army officers, and foreign tourists, happily listen to the group–two saxophones, a clarinet, trumpet, drums, piano and bass. There is dancing, conviviality and a sense of amazement. Is this China?
Shanghai, many people`s favorite city in China, is the second stop (after Guilin) on our 10-day tour. Reinforced by the Bund, a mile-long boulevard referred to as the ”Wall Street of the Orient” from the 1920s until 1949, the city has a decidedly Western facade. The Bund`s stern-looking, gray buildings that once housed foreign businesses face the Huangpu River and the world`s fifth busiest harbor.
Our first morning`s tour, with Chen, our new, affable national guide, takes us through Shanghai`s tree-shaded streets to the Shanghai Arts & Crafts Trading Center. A virtual Marshall Field`s housed in a Stalinesque building constructed by the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, the center and the adjoining eight halls with 48 exhibition rooms that extend for about 200 yards, boggles the shopper`s mind. Shelves and showcases are filled with fans, fine linen table cloths, chopsticks, cloisonne, cashmere, silk tapestries and clothes. Even Stolichnaya vodka. Chinese screens, trunks and piles of rugs also are displayed. Credit cards are welcome. Chen lets everyone run free for an hour.
From there we go to the Jade Buddha Temple, famous for its two statues, each carved from a single piece of white jade in Burma and brought here in 1890. The temple, scented with incense, was rebuilt after being partly destroyed by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution.
After lunch we drive by the gleaming new Sheraton Hotel opposite a modern sports complex en route to the Shanghai General Carpet Factory. There we follow the intricate process of rug-making from weaving to clipping. The tour ends in a showroom where all major credit cards were accepted.
From the carpet factory, we continue on to one of the 23 Children`s Palaces in Shanghai, where youngsters from 7 to 17 can develop special skills. Visits to the palaces, some in old mansions converted into school buildings, are programmed to impress foreigners. Classrooms are set up so visitors can sit on chairs or benches to observe.
The kids are so intense and intent on what they are doing that you can`t help but admire them as you go from room to room. In a choir class, children stand on risers and sing ”Home on the Range” in Chinese. A dance class does a short ballet for us. One class works on Apple II computers; another does calligraphy; yet another paints still lifes; and a fourth makes model airplanes.
After an hour-plus visit, Chen takes us on a bus tour along Beijing Road, one of the city`s main shopping streets; along the Bund, its buildings now headquarters for the Shanghai Trading Corp., Shanghai Textile Bureau, Bank of China`s Shanghai branch, and the Peace Hotel; and along Nanjing Road.
On Nanjing Road, as crowded as Chicago`s State Street the day after Thanksgiving, are some 300 stores in little more than three miles. They include the Shanghai No. 1 Department Store, the No. 10 Department Store, Shanghai No. 1 Foodstuff Store, plus myriad small establishments. Business is booming.
After a short walk along overflowing sidewalks we gather for yet another Chinese dinner before going to the night`s cultural event, a performance by an accordionist with a ”Miami Vice” look–white cotton suit with sleeve cuffs turned up, salmon colored shirt and white tennis shoes. We opt to leave at the first intermission to make our fortunate call at the Peace Hotel.
The next morning we check out of the Shanghai Hotel, a locally run hostelry that opened in 1983 and hasn`t been cleaned since.
En route to our Shanghai Harbor cruise we pass the People`s Square, formerly a race course covering a full square mile between Nanjing and Yan`an Roads. Chen tells us the square has an ”English Corner” where Chinese gather to practice their English. This morning we see people tossing a Frisbee and kicking a soccer ball.
Our three-hour cruise aboard the Pu Jiang, a three-deck excursion boat that carries 1,000 passengers, provides an excellent view of the Bund and the skyline. As the boat moves along the Huangpu, which eventually connects with the Yangtse River and East China Sea, the vast port of Shanghai unfolds: the cruise ship Royal Viking Star, hundreds of freighters, junks and sampans;
grain elevators; dry docks; and huge gantry cranes. Our group has seats in ”A No. 1 Special Class,” but is free to roam the boat, which carries mainly Chinese on outings. One, a geometry and mechanical drawing teacher with his 3- year-old son, spots me taking notes and starts a conversation in English. We soon attract a crowd of 12 or so and exchange thoughts on U.S. Japanese trade; Chinese attitudes about the Japanese (hatred from World War II, but desire for the commerce); life in America (”Are there poor people and unemployment?”)
When told yes, he replies, ”Everyone works in China, but there`s no competition.”
After the cruise, a young Shanghai official who worked in the U.S for a brief period and is a friend of a San Francisco couple on our tour, takes the three of us for lunch at the 11th floor Sichuan restaurant in the fashionable and historic JinJiang Hotel. The restaurant, recently touted by Mimi Sheraton in Time, lives up to the billing of ”where the good food is” in China. Bamboo shoots with garlic, shredded pork, Sichuan shrimp, pepper soup, a chicken dish served with paper-thin pancakes, bean curd, fried tofu, stir-fried green beans and special Shanghai dumplings filled with soup. Every dish is a taste treat, and for about $11 a person, the lunch was a bargain.
Then we explore more of Shanghai:
— Old Town, once a hovel avoided by Westerners, is regentrified and draws throngs of visitors to its narrow streets filled with scenes of everyday life, from laundry done by hand to butchering of ducks.
— Yu Yuan, an opulent garden and villa built in 1577 by a local minister of finance is an example of the esthetic tastes of the time. A rock sculpture in the garden once was the highest point in Shanghai.
— The Shanghai Museum is filled with marvelous bronzes–wine vessels, tools, weapons from 1523 to 771 B.C.; the refurbished displays include the castings of a transparent mirror from 206 B.C. There are displays of pottery, stelles, ceramics and excavated tombs.
After a quick supper, the group is off to Shanghai`s modern airport for the flight to Xi`an.
