Travel China: A Walk along the Bund in Shanghai

Travel China: A Walk along the Bund in Shanghai

Shanghai wasn’t my cup of tea. I hated it, and it didn’t like me either. Saying the city huge is an understatement. With 23 million, Shanghai is the largest city by population in the world. Combine that with big streets, vehicles, the heat and a massive influx of Chinese tourists flocking to Shanghai during China’s National Day period which lasted one whole week, Shanghai should not top anybody’s vacation list, but somehow it did. Like the other tourists, I had to see one of two cities (Beijing was the other) China was known for, but unlike them, I wanted to know about the city long before I even heard of China. Blame inconsiderate neighbors cranking up their stereo volume or TV stations broadcasting singers dressed in Shanghai dresses crooning the love-lorn, cheesy, classic Chinese song “Blood Spilled Over Shanghai’s Harbor.”

Unlike the culture-rich Beijing where I could visit many sights, design my own routes, bike on spacious biker-friendly street lanes, travel at my own pace and discovered nice things visible on every street corners together with secret hideouts in Beijing’s hutong, Shanghai was not suitable for those who wandered off, at least not on their first visit. I stuck to recommendations from my guidebook rip-off, and that still required an exhausting effort to find their locations. As I could not bike, I relied on Shanghai’s Metro system, efficient but still needed 15 minutes just to change from one line to another. Then I walked from sights to sights within the neighborhood around the metro stops which took half of my day.

At least orientation in Shanghai was the easiest with street names clearly marked North, South, East, West so I always knew if I was on the right track. I don’t have to look for anything specific when sight-seeing Shanghai. I just needed to get off at East Nanjing Road and followed a huge crowd walking on Shanghai’s most famous shopping street or located the Pudong river, spotted a unique tower then strolled along the bank, looking at Shanghai’s iconic Bund.

The Bund is “an embankment along the muddy waterfront,” defined by the dictionary. I found the name rather boring, and after rereading the Bund’s description and looking at it a few times, I still failed to register “Bund” in my head. Compared to the more visual and prose-prone Chinese, the English certainly lack the creativity and imagination when it came to names. Chinese could easily name it like “High-rises over Pudong”, “Mini Manhattan in Shanghai”, “Jinmao Tower Hidden in Smog”, “Tall Buildings Mirroring the Moon”, “At This Spot, Photo 10 RMB”, “View from a British Balcony”, “Promenade For Crowds, Wanderers Beware” or something similar.

There you have it, Shanghai’s famous symbol.

Blood Spilled over Shanghai’s Harbor

What does this symbol of Shanghai have anything to do with China’s bad reputation regarding its low records of respecting human rights. When I think of the Chinese government, I often associate them with Tibetan oppression, the illegal usurp of territory belonged to small countries like Philippines or Vietnam, their cooperation with corrupt African governments in exchange for getting a hand on natural resources or alliance with “bad” leaders, thus blocking disciplinary actions by the West.

But what is new?
Shanghai in the 19th century was an opium den, infested with criminals, drug dealers, drug addicts. The British demanded the right to freely traded in Shanghai. Chinese rebelled dumped opium, imported by the British, over the harbor which incited the British who started and won the war. As a result, China was forced to concede some of their territories to Great Britain, granted them more right to trade in Shanghai and let them setting up their own settlements in Shanghai. Shanghai at the time was controlled by the Gang of Europe, America, and Japan rather than being a Chinese city.
As I walked along the Bund, I realized China doesn’t behave any differently than the older powers which gave the Bund its identity a century prior.

The only difference is that China has now become the old West, the world’s economical and political power. It is free to write its own course of action and in turn, dictate how the rest of the world responds. Like any world power, it carries on whichever methods suitable for its own interests.

If the West needed a long time to progress and reach the ‘moral’ level it is today, why do we expect any difference from China unless there is such a thing as the fast-track course to democracy and humanity?

Asking China to respect human rights and follow moral codes upheld by the West is perhaps done a century too soon.

Photo credit: meet-in-shanghai.net

Shanghai photos

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