In Shanghai's defence, it is currently hosting the World Expo. The regular population of almost 20 million seemed to have grown exponentially during our few days in the mammoth metropolis that is China's fourth largest urban sprawl. It felt as if there was barely enough room to exhale without hitting a Chinese country mouse with my stomach (and I do not have a big tummy). Both fascinating and terrifying at the same time. I now feel like I'm closer to understanding what 1.4 billion people in one country means.
We awarded ourselves a real baptism of fire upon arrival in Shanghai. Day 1: the expo. Not sure why. My curiosity definitely got the better of me here. Such was my interest to discover the point of the expo that I was proactive in seeking out the largest mass of people I've ever seen. I still have no real idea what the point of an expo is; it's not as if any country is going out of business if it doesn't have an exhibit (except, perhaps, Kosovo). We checked out a few country pavilions, the only ones that stand out in my memory are: Iran, for being cheese-tastic and not mentioning nuclear power once but instead demonstrating how they plan to take over the world with bad music and hilariously bad carpet pictures (The Last Supper or gambolling kittens in a carpet, anyone?); North Korea for teaching me that the DPRK is actually a people's paradise; and the UK for not playing by the dull rules and creating a 'seed cathedral' in the shape of a giant dandelion. Brilliant. I'm guessing a genius smoked a lot of weed before that idea came to fruition. Truly it was inspired.
However, the pavilions were hardly the main attraction for C or me, that award goes to the people themselves and their incredible audacity and sheer enjoyment at pushing in (or just pushing) at every possible turn. As one who also likes a good push-in every now and again, my respect for their skills is marred only by my distaste of seeing a useful skill abused so frequently. The 'push-in' should only be used when truly necessary, not constantly, by everyone, it takes the beauty away when everyone's at it. We started the day by marking people out of ten but that soon grew stale. C then suggested that we join 'em at their own game and see it as just that: a game. This kept us occupied for most of the day but the star of the show appeared only at dusk.
We were in an enormously long queue for the UK pavilion when we began to hear little grunts behind us. The grunts got louder and closer until I was being shoved to move out of the way by a little country mouse clearly desperate to get to the seed cathedral before the rest of us. He had not bargained with meeting me in the queue. Oh no. Try as he might he simply could not get around me - he moved left, I moved left, he tried right but I was there too, blocking his way. After a while I got cocky, too sure I had won and let my guard down, just for an instant, on a corner, and bam, he was in front of me, leaving me cursing my rookie error. C then came into his own and tapped the mouse on the shoulder and suggested he simply hop over the barrier rather than continue barging through an extremely long queue. The mouse understood not one word but it seems sarcasm transcends language barriers for the guy quickly turned around and tried to pretend we weren't there. As he considered his options for pushing through the family ahead of us, I considered my options too. Not learning from my rookie error, he left a space for a split second, just long enough for me to insert myself ahead of him once again. Williams, 1, Chinese country mouse, 0.
Also worth noting that to the bulk of the Chinese the expo meant one thing only: a chance to get their 'passports' stamped. The expo offers a chance to buy a 'passport' that can then be stamped at every pavilion. The queues were longer for stamps than to get into the pavilions in the first place. I spent much of the day wondering what use adults have for these 'passports' but since most of the visitors seemed to be from the countryside, I guess they're never going to get the chance to visit the real countries so their stands are the next best thing.
This wonderful pushing experience left us a little bruised but ready for anything Shanghai might throw at us and we didn't have to wait long. An ill-informed decision had us queuing with half of China to ascent the Jin-mao Tower late one night. Actually, 'queuing' might be too English. We were in the middle of a scrum-cum-riot of people desperate to get in to one of the two lifts to head up those 88 floors. I thought the police might "kettle" us at one point. We eventually got to the 88th floor only to find that there was no respite from the scrum-cum-riot. Now the fight was for the opportunity to look out of the window, or more accurately, to have photos taken by the window (everyone here seems to love a good flash reflection picture). After a short while we gave up and took ourselves to the far more sophisticated and exclusive bar on the 87th floor for delicious cocktails and exactly the same view.
The other noteworthy mention for Shanghai has to be the wonderful but well hidden Propaganda Museum. This is not located where Lonely Planet claims it is, rather it's on the other side of town, which was fine, we enjoyed the wasted hours, honest. This tiny basement collection of propaganda posters was just captivating. We spent some time chatting with the owner/curator who is passionate about these posters and who believes they represent a specific period in Chinese art history and should be considered as real art. I learned a lot from him, from the posters and from a loud American girl showing off to her father.
I have particularly enjoyed watching the Chinese (yes, all of them) with their latest toys: big cameras and tripods. The vast majority seem to have no idea how to take a good picture, what makes a good picture or when to use a tripod. Most of the time it's extremely amusing to try and work out just what people are taking pictures of, sometimes it's incredibly annoying as they pose, fingers in the V sign in front of a door, the sky, a dog etc. etc. I'd like to suggest that people shouldn't be allowed cameras until they prove they know how to use them but then I'd sound like a big fat Tory so I won't.
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