Chic Shanghai All that glistens is good as this city of lights catapults itself into its latest incarnation as the Pearl of the Orient WORDS BELINDA JACKSON This page: the sparkling 30-ﬂoor atrium of the Grand Hyatt Shanghai. Opposite page, clockwise from top left: overlooking The Bund; a shopfront in dowtown Shanghai; tea served ceremoniously at Shanghai’s Yu Garden; festive traditional lanterns for sale at a street market. 142 FEBRUARY 2007 HB PHOTOGRAPHY (OPPOSITE PAGE) GRAND HYATT SHANGHAI, (TOP RIGHT) BELINDA JACKSON, ALL OTHERS GEOFF LUNG HB TRAVEL Mao Tse-tung ticks unevenly, trapped behind a pane of glass in a red alarm clock, his hand counting down the seconds. His Little Red Book is stacked in neat piles nearby, while plastic effigies of the former Chinese communist leader lounge comfortably alongside those of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky. In Shanghai, all things old are new again on the streets – for the foreigners, at least. Both sides of Dong Tai Road, one of the city’s modest side streets, are lined with Mao-pop paraphernalia, and we westerners hoover it up, stuffing bags with postcards of his sayings. Classic symbols have moved off posters and onto T-shirts and bags, hilariously reworked into a 21st century ideology: ‘Worker, peasant and soldier – let’s kiss!’ Alongside the propaganda posters, twisted wire lanterns and yellowing mah-jong sets are reproductions of cards and posters of glamorous 1920s Chinese flapper girls, extolling the virtues of smoking. These are just a few incarnations in Shanghai’s long and lurid life, earning it a new image each time: the ‘Paris of the East’ for its culture and gentility, a title that slid into something more degrading as the tawdry trade of prostitutes and con-men swelled to feverish proportions in the 1930s, to today’s far more sedate, but no more modest, ‘Pearl of the Orient’, referring to the Orient Pearl TV Tower, set across the river in the suburb of Pudong. The tower dominates the city skyline – among skyscrapers which formed the setting for the ubiquitous Tom Cruise to hang from his shirt tails in the action film Mission: Impossible III. At night, Pudong’s forest of spires is tipped with red flashing lights, which pilots use as navigational tools as they slip into the new airport. The brightest of them all, the Orient Pearl, naturally, is awash with colour that draws admirers from across the globe. Local tourists line the promenade along The Bund, set on the opposite shores of the Huangpu River, to watch the sluice of colours travel down its bulbous form. Alongside, another highrise competes with a neon-light display of European artworks – a blindingly bright Mona Lisa, Sunflowers by Van Gogh and Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy chase each other across its facade. Such glittering signs of modernity are in stark contrast to Shanghai’s rich history: The Bund, Shanghai’s most fashionable strip, features a string of European buildings along the riverfront, most dating from the early 1900s. They hark back to a time when each nationality set up camp, or ‘concessions’ in different parts > dining out BLOW THE BUDGET Laris Don’t mess around with dinner; go straight to dessert with Aussie chef David Laris’s sensational offerings in the marble-encased Chocolate Room, where you can watch chocolatiers deftly spin the elixir of life into intricate, handmade creations at one of The Bund’s most chic addresses. The restaurant stands on 1700 square metres and includes its own decadent Vault bar and lounge. Laris, Three on The Bund, 3 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road, (0011) 86 21 6321 9922, www.threeonthebund.com. MID-RANGE Silver Tree It’s the most fun you’ll ever have with a menu. Aside from the traditional offerings of dumplings, noodles and sensational green spinach in shopping garlic and oyster sauce, you could also try anything from bullfrog to bighead fish. The restaurant is a typical Chinese institution set at the top floor of a department store, serving Shanghai specialities washed down with lashings of pale, cold, Tsingtao beer. Silver Tree, 6th floor, Man Ke Dun Plaza, 465 East Nanjing Road, (0011) 86 21 6322 2088. BUDGET Hit the street Some of Shanghai’s best and most authentic food is being cooked on street corners, including piping hot skewers of chilli octopus, steamed dumplings stuffed with greens or red roast pork, wontons, cuttlefish and even corn on the cob, which cost just a few cents. CLOTHING Find silks, linen and tailoring services in the Dong Jia Du fabric market, but be prepared to haggle: 168 Dong Men Road. Then, pop in to Suzhou Cobblers for exquisite handmade shoes and handbags: Room 101, 17 Fuzhou Road, www.suzhoucobblers.com. ShirtFlag has funky, cleverly reworked Mao-pop T-shirts and bags: Lane 210, Taikang Road, www.shirtflag.com. BEST INTERIOR YongFoo Elite Located in the consular district, this Italianate terrace is the spot for afternoon tea. There are opium beds in the garden, a 1960s Gucci sofa in the greenhouse and vintage Fendi loungers. Call ahead for reservations. 200 YongFu Road, (0011) 86 21 5466 2727, www.yongfooelite.com. Above: the view from the Grand Hyatt Shanghai. Opposite, top (from left): Nanjing Road by night; the city skyline; the People’s Republic of China ﬂag. Middle: Communist paraphenalia; Mao Tse-tung’s Little Red Book; Tai Chi in the People’s Square. Bottom: steaming buns on Wu Jiang Road; local antique markets. PHOTOGRAPHY (THIS PAGE) GRAND HYATT SHANGHAI. (OPPOSITE TOP LEFT, MIDDLE LEFT, CENTRE AND BOTTOM CENTRE) BELINDA JACKSON, ALL OTHER PHOTOGRAPHY GEOFF LUNG HB TRAVEL FEBRUARY 2007 HB 145 HB TRAVEL then shop for designer versions of Mao-pop paraphernalia. Visit Ye Shanghai or T8 to fill the belly, Shanghai Tang or Simply Life homewares for a retail hit. And there lies the great Asian dichotomy: you can feed your appetite with three fresh, puffy steamed dumplings stuffed with spinach for about 20 cents on the street, or pay $20 for a raspberry martini atop one of the many cocktail bars looking down over The Bund. Snap up an exceptionally good faux designer handbag at the markets, or browse the Dolce & Gabbana emporium, a monument to all that glitters. Doss deep in the hustle of Shanghai on Nanjing Road, a main shopping strip, or sleep in one of the new, tallest-on-the-block five-star hotels in Pudong, looking down over the smoggy sprawl of snarling traffic. Home to 18 million, Shanghai should feel bigger, meaner, denser and more threatening. But it’s a surprisingly gentle city, curious but not intrusive. Expat exporters of everything from tent pegs to sofas rub shoulders with wealthy Hong Kong suits and chic Shanghai locals in new bars and the private clubs set in revived manors in upmarket leafy streets, their names the epitome of this joyous mood of nouveau capitalism – Glamour Bar, New Heights, Cloud 9 and YongFoo Elite. While it cleans up its city centre, Shanghai is adding the green spaces that are a feature of old Europe – city parks where people gather each morning to exercise to the sound of wavering Chinese violins on tinny ghetto-blasters, where young and old pyjama-clad men (a quirky habit picked up from the days of indolent British masters) wander in conversation and couples catch a few minutes’ calm before the horns start blaring again and the city pushes forward to achieve its goal of a better city and a better life. Shanghai, there’s no need to rush ... ■ chic china < of the city. The French and the British concessions collide on the urbane waterfront where, later, locals would add their own decorations to the buildings – a red star here, a pentagon there. Always ready to embrace European trends, but adding its own special Shanghai touch, this is today a city in transition, and a designated ‘go now before it all changes’ destination. Communities of close-knit shikumens (apartments in narrow alleyways) were once the pulse of Shanghai but have been largely reworked into newly sanitised neighbourhoods. Xintiandi is one such example, with another dose of the city’s finest restaurants located here. Tourists eat Shanghai delicacies in up-market cafes, BLOW THE BUDGET Grand Hyatt Shanghai, Pudong. The shiniest of the city’s new hotels, the lobby is on the 54th floor of Jin Mao Tower – which really sets the tone for this sky-high hotel, the highest in the world. Rooms curl around a dizzying 30-level internal atrium and the views from the iconic Cloud 9 bar are mindblowing. From $365/double, 131 234, www.shanghai.grand.hyatt.com. MID-RANGE Sofitel Hyland Shanghai, Nanjing Road. Set in the pedestrian section of Nanjing Road, you can’t get much closer to the action. As soon as you step out of the hotel, you’ll be 146 FEBRUARY 2007 HB swept up into Shanghai’s bustle of neon and humanity. Lash out and join the Club Lounge on the top floor for their magnificent breakfasts and unhurried service. From $243/double, 1300 656 565, www.sofitel.com.au. BUDGET The Park Hotel, West Nanjing Road. Step outside this Art Deco hotel into the People’s Square to join in morning Tai Chi or ballroom dancing. It’s opposite one of the city’s main parks, which also houses the Museum of Contemporary Art (restaurant pictured, above) and a great nightspot, Barbarossa. From $115/double, (0011) 86 21 6327 5225. BEST GUIDE For a list of the city’s elite hot spots, tuck a copy of style magazine Wallpaper’s guide in your pocket. Wallpaper City Guide: Shanghai (Phaidon, $12.95), call Bookwise on (08) 8444 5304 for stockists. FLIGHTS Virgin Atlantic flies from Sydney to Hong Kong daily. 1300 727 340, www.virginatlantic.com.au with connections to Shanghai via Dragonair, 131 747, www.dragonair.com. TOURS Travel Indochina runs tours of China including their 10-day Highlights of China tour from $2595/person. 1300 365 355, www.travelindochina.com.au. PHOTOGRAPHY BELINDA JACKSON essential information hot hotels