Shanghai on my mind -1

AT THE chic restaurant M on the Bund (7 Fl, #5 The Bund on the corner of Guandong Lu), one of Li Ka Shing’s top executives at the Chinese website Tom.com, told me that Shanghai could easily do better than Hong Kong in the next five to ten years. It would have been hard for me to believe this if not for a day’s sightseeing (and not to mention eating) where I was sold on the bright future of this fabled (yet polluted) city.

In the Twenties, there were two other important cities aside from New York. One was Buenos Aires and the other, Shanghai. There is a romance about Shanghai that made me block off the noise and pollution, not to mention the sight of some of the ugliest modern buildings I have ever seen in my life. Probably because of the books I’ve read and the stories I’ve heard from old Chinese relatives, the idea of Shanghai in its heyday from the Twenties to the Forties is imbedded in my imagination. Now, the city has captured my heart.

Maybe I was so taken with Shanghai because I was only there for a weekend; not long enough to really see what it is like to live there. Unlike Rome, which I visited for 10 days and which I do not intend to visit again (and that puts me in the minority) unless threatened at knife point (and that makes me the only one), I intend to visit Shanghai again very soon. If you want to witness the spirit of Shanghai, take a walk down the area called the Bund (pronounced boont).

The Bund is a row of historic buildings facing the river. These imposing buildings house major institutions like Citibank, HSBC, AIG and most of their lobbies are open to the public for viewing during business hours. On one side of the street, the Bund looks like any major European street.

However, upon gazing across the way, towards the river, you will see an entire panorama of modern buildings, including some that look like space ships and gift boxes. The Bund is where history lives together with modernity and it is what Shanghai is all about. Shanghai is very much like a woman of style who wears modern designer clothes yet carries her grandmother’s purse. And the total look is just fab!

Social whirl

The Peace Hotel, formerly known as the Cathay Hotel, is also on the Bund. Built in 1929, this 12-storey hotel is known for its jazz bar and elegant 1930s Chinese interiors. The hotel has played host to the Clintons, Henry Kissinger and George Bush, Sr. The hotel was the center of the Shanghai social whirl before communism. Thus it earned its reputation as the "Number one mansion in the Far East."

Even more stunning is the luxurious Art Deco Grosvenor House in the Jin Jiang Hotel complex on 59 Mao Ming Road South, in the heart of the French Quarter. For over 60 years, Grosvenor house has welcomed over 300 members of royalty and heads of state such as the King of Spain, the Queen of Denmark, Francois Mitterand and Georges Pompidou, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and Lee Kuan Yew. There are 26 suites including the palatial USD 3500 a night five bedroom Presidential Suite.

All around Shanghai you will find history and modernity living together. Like the Bund, Fuxing Park, on the corner of Si Nan Road, also epitomizes the Shanghai spirit. In the park itself you will see Shanghainese masa (very stylish, I have to say) fishing, playing cards and mahjong, or just strolling. Meanwhile, in a corner of this park is Lan Kwai Fong at Park 97 (#2 Gao Lan Road, Fuxing Park, www.LKFgroup.com), a small development of Lan Kwai Fong restaurants consisting of Baci, Tokio Joe and California Club.

This is where fashionable Shanghai comes to party. You will wonder whether you are truly in communist China as the crowd is full of stylish women and cute guys downing Moet Chandon throughout the day, into the night and onto the next morning. Literally a few steps from Park 97 is Shang Art (#2A Gao Lan Road, www.shangart.com), where you can find stunning work from the best of China’s contemporary artists.

Since a large part of Shanghai’s charm is its history, a visit to Soong Ching Ling’s residence on 1843 Huai Hai Road (M) will give you an idea of the glory days of this very cosmopolitan city. Soong Ching Ling belonged to the family that owned the bank of China, one of the most illustrious Chinese families of all time.

The Soongs were a powerful business and political family and one of the first Chinese families to educate their children in America. Ching Ling went on to marry Sun Yat Sen and her older sister Mei Ling married Chiang Kai Shek. Ching Ling moved into this house in 1948 and in 1981, the house was designated as a cultural landmark.

Food and sex

If you want to savor local food in a place of history, the Mei Long Zhen restaurant on 1081 Naijing Road (W) serves not only the best Sichuan cuisine but has the most elegant and palatial Chinese décor. In its heyday, this 60-year-old institution was the restaurant of choice for famous artists, intellectuals and opera singers.

By far, the most remarkable dining experience in Shanghai is Building No. 4 in the Rui Jin Hotel on 118 Rui Jin 2 Road. Off the beaten track, but totally worth every minute of travel, Building No. 4, now known as Face, echoes the glamour of Shanghai in its heyday. This red brick and stone mansion is set on 20 acres of gardens and brings back the memory of old Shanghai.

The mansion has a bar called Face on the ground floor and an adjoining tent-like room called Hazara, where they serve Indian food. Upstairs is the Thai restaurant Lan Na Thai where you can sit in the terrace in a romantic setting at dinner or look out into the vast gardens at lunch.

The city of Shanghai may be rich in history and culture but little do you know that sex also finds its history here. Nowhere is the sex act chronicled with such detail in art and history as at the Exhibition for Chinese Ancient Sex Culture (8Fl, 479 Nanjing Dong Road). The sex museum illustrates everything from prehistoric animal sex to fetishes and homosexuality. I’ve been to many a weird museum but it was only in this one that I saw the mind-boggling figurine of ---and I quote---"a monk receiving oral sex from a duck." This piece of work was carved from no less than jade!!!