North Shanghai

I crossed Suzhou Creek, which flows into the Huangpu, to reach an older part of Shanghai.

Here are some dwellings from the 30s.

Another look at Suzhou Creek facing east. The landmark Pearl Tower is near the left edge.

There are several clothing supercentres in this area around Qupu Street. I was approached several times by vendors asking me to look at their wares. Shanghai is very fashion conscious so apparel stores are abundant. I don't mean that every female on the street is a walking model but they dress in casual chic and wear good shoes or boots. Stockings are popular, even little girls wore them. Also, the taller young signified that they had better nutrition than their parents did.

I found an eat street and for dinner I had a bowl of wheat noodles with preserved mustard and meat strips, followed by a meat mooncake. There were more elaborate and expensive establishments on the same street. I was glad I had brought my jacket; the evening was cool. I had come at the right time of the year, with daytime temperatures in the low to mid 20s and nighttime temperatures in the high teens. The air pollution was not as bad as I had feared, perhaps the westerly breezes helped blow the irritants out to sea.


Perhaps the recent Expo had helped remove the most egregious examples of Chinglish, but there were still the occasional misspellings and odd phrase constructions. Young people keen to get ahead seemed to be studying English, usually in the evenings. There was the Disney English School which might produce better or at least more entertaining graduates than the Wall Street English School, given the recent Global Fried Chicken. I also wondered what Disney Corp thought of this use of his name.


(Coming up, the Bund.)