Go Citybreak: With 70 million people heading its way for Expo, China's financial capital has been sprucing up its 'old' quarters in advance of their arrival, writes Clifford Coonan
FOR A CITY with its gaze so firmly set on the future, Shanghai is a terrific place to explore the past. Here you can see the World Expo in all its modern glory, a dazzling event expected to lure 70 million visitors, including five million foreign tourists, to the city.
One high-profile visitor this month was President Mary McAleese, who was bowled over by the scale of the Expo, which has infused an already energetic city with a buzz of excitement. A short taxi ride away from the Expo site you have the colonial charm of the French Concession with its unique architecture and atmosphere of nostalgia. The easiest way to get a sense of Shanghai’s downtown is to walk, and it is one of the few Chinese cities that you can say this about. But then Shanghai, China’s biggest city and its financial capital, has always been different.
It’s a sprawling city, you can drive for hours across it, and it embodies China’s dramatic rise better than anywhere else in the country. But it’s also a surprisingly manageable city if you focus on the downtown areas.
The western visitor’s attention is automatically drawn to the Concessions, areas of the city granted to Britain, France and the United States in the 19th century as part of the humiliating terms that ended the Opium Wars.
The French Concession is home to some of the city’s most beautiful buildings, each with a rich history. Hengshan Road, which used to be called Avenue Petain, features some of the city’s top residential buildings, many of which have been converted into bars and nightclubs.
The commercial centre of the Concessions was the Bund. This is a row of dozens of historical buildings, lining the Huangpu River, that once housed numerous banks and trading houses from the United Kingdom, France, the US, Russia, Germany and Japan. Here you found the consulates for Britain and Russia, the Freemasons and numerous clubs. Walk along the Bund on a rainy day and you are transported back to how you imagined the wild city of Shanghai in the 1930s.
The city’s foreign residents, who became known as Shanghailanders, were made up of thousands of refugees – White Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks, Jews fleeing Hitler, but also young Irishmen and Americans looking for adventure. “Paris of the East”, “The City of Blazing Night”, “Whore of the Orient” – Shanghai was all three in its heyday, as the Shanghailanders plied their decadent lifestyle.
As part of the sprucing up of the city before the Shanghai Expo this year, the Bund was given a refit. There are lots of great new clubs and bars, including the elegant and achingly hip Bar Rouge, probably Shanghai’s most famous bar, and the excellent M on the Bund restaurant.
Located on the corner of busy Nanjing Road and the Bund, the recently refurbished Peace Hotel, formerly the Cathay, is an enduring monument to Shanghai’s glory days, but also a great place to visit today.
Noel Coward finished off his play Private Livesin the penthouse suite of the Peace Hotel in 1930, and Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard stayed in Room 51 in March 1936. George Bernard Shaw and the Nationalist leader "Generalissimo" Chiang Kai-shek have all stayed here.
The hotel was built in the Gothic style of the Chicago School, by Sir Victor Sassoon, a British Sephardic Jew who built his business empire selling opium and guns and put his money into real estate in Shanghai. Sassoon was one of the richest men in Shanghai, and owned nearly 2,000 buildings in the city.
The writer JG Ballard watched the Japanese take Shanghai from the balcony of the Cathay Hotel, and he described growing up in the city and his subsequent internment in a Japanese camp during the second World War in wonderful detail in Empire of the Sun. This book was later filmed by Steven Spielberg, in the first Hollywood movie to be made in China after 1949.
Lots of Ballard's Shanghai is gone, but for elegiac depictions of the areas of the city as they are shifted to make way for more development, see Greg Girard's wonderful photographic essay, Phantom Shanghai. But having seen the scale of development in other Chinese cities – Beijing, for example, has been filleted and turned into a completely different city, with only traces of the original left at its heart – what is astonishing is how much of Ballard's Shanghai remains intact.
THE BUND LOOKSacross the Huangpu River to Pudong, where Ballard's father had a cotton mill. There was little else there for decades, but these days the Pudong side is the go-go part of Shanghai, where building are going up at a furious pace and where breakneck growth has led to the construction of one of Asia's signature skylines within a few short years.
It was in the Shangri-La hotel here that President Mary McAleese stayed during the Shanghai leg of her China trip, and from the upper floors of this hotel you have some breathtaking views across the Huangpu to the older, Puxi side of the city.
Time was that Pudong was a lot quieter, more residential than the Puxi side, but in recent years it has really come on, and the Expo has brought fresh life to this side of the river.
Beijing has the government and the Forbidden City, the weight of imperial history and the heft of Communist power. For many years, Shanghai was seen as tainted by its past as a western concession area, as a city that gave up its charms too easily to foreign suitors.
At the same time, the city was instrumental in bringing the Communists to power, and you can visit the museum where 13 ardent ideologues met in secret in 1921 to found the Communist Party, which still rules today.
The museum is in the Xintiandi district in what used to be the French Concession, and these days the area exemplifies socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Here you can see the distinctive old buildings known as Shikumen, a type of tenement you can only find in Shanghai. Refurbished in grand style by a Hong Kong property tycoon, Xintiandi has its critics – some people say it presents a Disney-style version of Old Shanghai, and the relocation of the original residents caused a lot of resentment.
The alternative would probably have meant knocking down these beautiful old buildings and throwing up more skyscrapers, so in some ways we can be grateful that Xintiandi is there at all. This shopping and entertainment district hosts western staples such as Pizza Express, a Paulaner brewery and Starbucks in elegant Chinese buildings, while there is also the postal museum.
Beside Xintiandi you have the Taipingqiao man-made lake, where people do their tai chi exercises in the morning and stroll at all hours of the day. A rare moment of calm in a city where change is part of the tradition.
Where to stay, where to eat and where to go in Shanghai
5 places to stay
JIA.931 West Nanjing Road, 00-86-21-6217-9000, jiashanghai.com Translates into English as "home", and indeed this must look like home to those lucky enough to live in designer luxury. In the eminent position among Shanghai's boutique hotels, this historic 1920s property is on the main luxury shopping and business artery of Shanghai. Doubles start at around €150.
The Grand Hyatt. Jin Mao Tower, 88 Century Avenue, Pudong, 00-86-21-5049-1234, shanghai.grand.hyatt.com. Again at the upper end of Shanghai hostelries, the Grand Hyatt has all the luxury bells and whistles you would expect, but it is the view that sets it apart. It is in one of Shanghai's tallest buildings, the Jin Mao Tower, and you can see both the newly constructed part of Shanghai in Pudong and the old city in Puxi. Doubles from €275.
88 Xintiandi. 380 Huang Pi Road South, 00-86-21-5383-8833, 88xintiandi.com. Eight is a lucky number in China, making Xintiandi 88 a highly auspicious name to conjure with. The Victor gramophone, antique tiles and classic Chinese screens in the lobby, allied with ultra-modern down-lighting and cool grey lines signal early on that this boutique hotel, with 53 rooms of different shapes and sizes, is about combining the elegance of Old Shanghai with the appeal of contemporary design in the city. It overlooks the beautiful Taipingqiao Lake and park. Doubles from €400.
URBN. 183 Jiaozhou Road, 00-86-21-5153-4600, urbnhotels.com. Located downtown near the French Concession, URBN prides itself on its sustainability – carbon neutral, developed from a renovated factory warehouse, with all the interiors made from 100 per cent local materials, recycled wood and reclaimed bricks.
URBN allows you to offset the carbon footprint of your flight by buying a tree in its URBN forest in Mongolia. Doubles from €220.
Mansion Boutique Hotel. 82 Xin Le Rd, 00-86-21-5403-9888, chinamansionhotel.com. This is a great place to experience a taste of Old Shanghai. Built to a French design in 1932, the Mansion Boutique Hotel blends classic French and Asian architecture. It is located in the building which was originally the clubhouse of Du Yue-sheng, one of the most famous gangsters in pre-revolutionary China. Doubles from €130.
5 places to eat
Din Tai Fung. 123 Xing Ye Lu, Xintiandi, 00-86-21-63858378. Din Tai Fung is actually a Taiwanese restaurant with branches all over Asia, but its Xiao Longbao (soup-filled dumplings) are so good it's worth recommending a visit. It's always packed so you have to wait, but it's worth it. Kick off with cold dishes, ideally tossed tofu with seaweed and bean sprouts, or cucumber with chilli and garlic, then head for a selection of the soup-filled dumplings or some pork and shrimp dumplings, and a freshly sautéed green vegetable. You will not be disappointed. €18 per person.
M on the Bund. 7/F, No 5 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu, 00-86-21-6350-9988, m-onthebund.com This is one of the truly great venues in Shanghai, the menu cleverly mixes European and New World and is terrific, especially the salted leg of lamb and the suckling pig, followed by M's Very Famous Pavlova. The wine list generous, the atmosphere warm and comfortable, and the view from the roof over the Bund is spectacular. About €40 per person with wine.
Sasha's. 11 Dongping Lu, 00–86-21-6474-6628, sashas-shanghai.com. Sasha's is a restaurant and bar in the centre of the former French Concession in what used to be the home of the Soong family, one of China's most famous political dynasties. Three daughters of Charlie Soong – Ai Ling, Ching Ling and Mei Ling – married HH Kung, the richest man in China, Sun Yat Sen, the first president of the Chinese Republic, and Chiang Kai-shek, the nationalist "Generalissimo". The bar and restaurant are great, but if you get the right weather, the garden is the place to hang out. Brunch at €22 a head is a great deal.
1221. 1221 Yanan Xi Road, 00-86-21-6213-6585. This is a classy and tasteful Chinese restaurant serving great Shanghaiese food, including classics like drunken chicken, crispy tofu and smoked fish. The price is astonishingly inexpensive for what you get.
Three on the Bund. 3 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Lu, 00-86-21-6323-3355, threeonthebund.com. This is a classy French restaurant, boasting great food from the cuisine of Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The wine menu is comprehensive and the food sophisticated. As to price, well, it's upwards of €50 per person.
5 places to go
Expo. It's running until the end of October, so if you're in town before then it's worth seeing. On the banks of the Huangpu river, 190 countries, 30 Chinese regions plus Hong Kong and Taiwan, 48 international organisations, five large thematic pavilions and 18 corporate pavilions are cheerfully ensconced and ready to welcome 70 million visitors with the theme, "Better city, better life".
The Bund. You get the oddest feeling sometimes standing on the Bund, the line of commercial buildings between the colonial Concession areas and the Huangpu River, because the style of building is so familiarly European. But the sight of Pudong's towering skyline leaves you in no doubt that you are in China.
Xintiandi. Refurbished by a Hong Kong developer in the 1990s, this Temple Bar-style area offers a Paulaner brewery and Starbucks in elegant Chinese buildings, while there is also the postal museum and the building where the Chinese Communist Party began.
French Concession. One of the areas granted to the European powers at the end of the Opium War. Many of the buildings have survived the boom intact, and it is a lovely area to go walking in or to sit and watch the world go by.
Taipingqiao. A man-made lake beside Xintiandi, where people do their tai chi exercises in the morning and wealthy Chinese and foreigners sip coffee in sidewalk cafes.
Hot spot
Bar Rouge. 1 Zhongshan Dong Yi Rd, 00-86-21-6339-1199, bar-rouge-shanghai.com. Throbbing music and pricey drinks characterise Shanghai's trendiest bar, but if you want to see what the young and beautiful in Shanghai are up to, it's fun to visit.
Shop spot
Nanjing Road. The city's main shopping street has much on offer, from cheap knock-offs to high-end items. Huaihai Road is where you can buy all the top brands, while North Sichuan Road sells the more inexpensive goods.
Go there
British Airways (ba.com) and Air China (airchina.com) fly to Shanghai from London Heathrow. Air France (airfrance.com) flies to Shanghai from Paris.