In the words of the Lonely Planet guidebook on Shanghai (speaking about the city in the glitz and glamorous 30's), it is "violent, disreputable, snobbish, mercenary and corrupt - a discredit to all concerned. If God allows Shanghai to endure, he will owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology." Many others agree, here's another disclaimer I found about this energetic and vibrant city, "Shanghai is a city of 48-story skyscrapers built upon 24 layers of hell." Wow.
We have yet to find
that Shanghai but we're looking hard! :)
Until then, we did manage to find some more refined vices here in the 'tourista' side of the river. Shanghai
wine stores are combined with tobacco stores and liquor stores. These are stores of vice (wine, liquor, cigars, and cigarettes, but no sex) specializing in cigarettes, and they have more brands than I have ever seen in my life. Each box is laid out in a glass case with names like Double Happiness, Golden Dragon, and Panda. The boxes are works of art really, beautiful colors with detailed drawings or paintings, etchings, watercolors, easily as ornate as our wine labels - and the cigarettes are cheap (unless you are buying Marlboro's) at less than $1.00 a pack and American brands are about twice that.
Behind the cig counter are the liquor (which I haven't explored yet but will write about in another post) and wines. They have limited selections but the prices are not bad at all. Our first selection was a Shanghai staple for restaurants from the Marriott to the local fast food sit-downs, the
GreatWall brand. I can't figure out if the vineyard is here in China or not, but they have a Chardonnay and several levels of Cabs and Merlots and even a Pinot - we opted for a 1994 Cab. It's a 750ml bottle with such a cool name we hesitated to drink it, I had to take a pic first being the geek I am, but we know we can't send it home to friends so we quaffed it with some pork dumplings and it was delicious - rich, full bodied, with a medium finish that went well with our instant noodles too....:)
The other day while walking in the French Concession area of town (the Brits used to occupy this area and were under no Chinese laws, only Brit law, so it's named a concession), we stumbled on a store that sold only wines so we dashed in. I've read about up and coming wine in China (it is becoming popular here but still pales in comparison to tea) and
Grace Vineyard happens to be the only family owned vineyard in China (according to their propaganda., i.e. brochure). Founded in 97, it's located on the yellow plateau of Shanxi Province (Northwest China), their production is small with only 32,000 cases a year. We picked out two bottles, a Pinot (2002, $16) and a Cab (2004, $12). We also snagged a Malbec from Argentina which was even a few bucks less and ended up being very tasty indeed.
The Cab was round and rich, full bodied with strong tannins and a long finish. The Pinot was a bit thin, but not ghastly, and both were enjoyed while watching one of my favorite things about Shanghai - pirated dvd's. Rows and rows of dvd's for less than $1 a piece and some movies are playing in theaters in the states right now. So we watched Vicky Christina Barcelona, which wasn't impressive at all (why do they portray American girls as vacuous idiots and Europeans as so intellectual and worldly?), but just to keep things interesting the dialog would change languages right in the middle of a scene; Chinese would burst from the actors lips for a minute or so, then just as quickly they would revert back to English! It was great fun!
Now, I don't want to leave out everyone's favorite vice in this post, so I will talk a bit about sex here in Shanghai. Or, namely, the
absence of anything sexual whatsoever. It is creepy at first but I dare to say you get used to it after a week or two. You will see nothing, and I mean NOTHING, more risque here than a lingerie ad on a small billboard on a busy street. And another interesting twist is that these somewhat sexy ads
never show a Chinese woman - they are all European models and some obviously American girls. Even the 'sexy' ads in the department stores are all from other countries, never Chinese. There are beautiful Chinese girls all over the city, plastered on billboards, huge monitors, buses - but they never even convey a nuance of sexuality, not even a sexual look or pose.
The only sexuality I have seen at all here among the Chinese is from the numerous massage parlors they have here everywhere (indicated by either an old rotating blue and red barber's pole, or a pair of feet in the window). I haven't even thought of going in one, yet, but a long stare is not impolite here so my curious gaze is met and warmly received by several young girls, obscenely full-breasted compared to the everyday Chinese girl on the street corner, wearing black dresses or slacks, lounging around on sofas and chairs smoking incessantly and either chatting with each other or playing with their cell phones. They look mind numbingly bored, but are surprisingly attractive so I did some research. My guidebook says yes, they specialize in numerous types of massage, and if there are no feet in the window than you won't be getting a foot massage...:) That's all I could garner on short notice...that may be another interesting post for later...
And one other thing while I'm on the sexuality of the city. Young or old, men do not leer or even look suggestively at a woman whether she is alone or with other girlfriends and I mean never. And the women do nothing suggestive at all in their posture, manner, speaking, or even glancing at other men. I have not heard one suggestive or otherwise even slightly sexy bit of attention paid to any woman since I've been here. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or a good thing, I'm just making an observation and will wait until I'm here a lot longer before I draw any conclusions about what I am experiencing so far, but it is about as 180 degrees opposite from the US and other European, hell, any other country I've ever been too...Jenn noticed it too so I can't blame my chauvinistic tendencies entirely. It's also an amazingly safe city for it's size, which just compounds the shock of seeing women walking alone late at night on dark streets without a care in the world...the jury is still out but it appears other than some drinking and smokin' - Sodom and Gomorrah would be bored out of their skulls in today's Shanghai.
Bie, Bie for now...
The old French Concession stretches from the west edge of the Old City to Avenue Haig, is chock full of boulevards, cafes, restaurants and it used to be home to White Russians and Chinese. At one time, the British occupied this little area and answered only to their own laws with complete immunity from Chinese law, hence the name concession. They even used to have their own police force and in true Shanghai fashion, the chief was the leader of a famous group of thugs called the Green Gang that controlled the cities opium trade.
ancestor worship, the Jing'an Temple. Founded in the Ming and Qing dynasties, in the 30's it was Shanghai's wealthiest Buddhist temple and again, in true Shanghai fashion, the head abbott was also a gangster with a harem of concubines and White Russian bodyguards (they all probably lived in the French Concession no doubt). The temple was closed during the idiocy of the Cultural Revolution but today is the best example of an active Buddhist shrine in the city.
