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| City Introduction |
| City name : Shanghai |
| City Pic |
City Map |
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| Climate |
| Spring and Autumn are the best months to visit Shanghai. The peak summer months (July and August) can be quite hot with temperatures in the late 30's with 80% humidity. Most of Shanghai's rain also falls during this time. September and October can be windy, with the odd typhoon. In winter, evening temperatures often drop below zero. |
| Economy |
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| History |
The name Shanghai dates from the Sung dynasty (11th cent.), but the town, which became a walled city in the 16th cent., was unimportant until it was opened to foreign trade by the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. The ensuing Western influence launched the city on its phenomenal growth. The greater part of the city was incorporated into the British concession (1843), just north of the old walled city, and into the U.S. concession of Hongkew (1862). In 1863 the United States and Great Britain consolidated into the International Settlement the areas that had been conceded to them. The French, who had obtained a concession in 1849, continued it as a separate entity. The foreign zones, which were under extraterritorial administration, maintained their own courts, police system, and armed forces. Thus Shanghai until World War II was a divided city.
In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek, at the head of the Nationalist army and with the support of the Chinese Communists, captured Shanghai. The Chinese section was immediately placed under the Kuomintang government. Japan invaded and attacked the Chinese city in 1932 to force the government to break an unofficial boycott of Japanese goods. In Aug., 1937, as part of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese again attacked the Chinese city, and resistance was overcome in November. The foreign zones were occupied by the Japanese after Dec. 7, 1941.
In 1943 the United States and Great Britain renounced their claims in Shanghai, as did France in 1946. The city was restored to China at the end of World War II, and the Chinese central government for the first time gained control of the entire city. In May, 1949, it fell to the Communist forces. Since Pudong (East Shanghai) was declared (1990) a special development zone, government and foreign investment has revived Shanghai as an international trade and financial center. |
| Culture |
Night Out in Shanghai
Shanghai has always been, and still is, The city in China for entertainment. The city not only has great restaurants and bars but also (outside of Hong Kong), the biggest selection of theatre, film and art available anywhere in China. And this selection is of a class and quality which is sophisticated enough to compete with most western cities.
On the theatre and the stage, there are regular acrobatics displays, a MUST for travelers to the city. Even the most doubtful spectator, will not fail to be enthralled and amused by the incredible flexibility and strength of these performers. The Acrobats performance in the Shanghai Center (Nanjingxi Road) and the old Lyceum Theatre (Maoming Road). It is always worth checking out the magnificent Grand Theatre to see what is on too. The Theatre regularly hosts Chinese and Western operas, classical music performances and various plays. There are also regular Western films on at some of the city's entertainment centers.
Shanghai attracts most of the big name Chinese musicians and also pulls in western and Japanese performers and DJs on a regular basis. Currently, the best bars are around Maoming Road and nearby. Park 97 is a stylish bar in the heart of the French Concession and O'Malleys is a friendly Irish joint right in the heart of things. Browse our Bar and Club Index for the latest places to hang out! Check out the Shanghai Stadium to see who's in town, or the listing's in the city magazine That's Shanghai.
The City's contemporary art scene is impressive too. Shanghai, long the center of more radical ideas is now one of the most important city's in China for young and new artists from throughout the country to display their work. Shanghai has a long list of art galleries including Shang Art in Fuxing Park and East Link on Fuxing Road. Aside from these, there are also some good exhibitions in the Shanghai Museum in People's Square.
Naturally there are all the usual Chinese favorites too. Bowling alleys, Karaoke halls and Computer Games rooms are scattered throughout the city. Another favorite Shanghai past time is Tai Chi, which is also great to watch especially after a night on the town taking in the city life! Why not take a wander along the Bund at dawn, for a taste of a different kind of entertainment!
Strolling along the Bund: A great place to do some people watching in Shanghai at night is the Huangpu Park and the Bund. Many locals come to the riverside to have a walk, or simply to escape the heat. This clear space is a treasure for the people who have to share the highly congested space in Shanghai. Some families bring kites to fly. Many adults enjoy themselves by sitting down along the side of the paths and chatting. Others are relaxing after the getting through the crowds in Nanjing Dong Lu. Tourists continue their marvel at the contradiction between the Bund and Pudong at the opposite shore. The Bund truly comes alive at night.
Old Men Jazz Bar: The Old Men Jazz Band in the Jazz Bar in Peace Hotel is the first and most reputable jazz band in Shanghai. The band consists of 6 members, who have worked as musicians for more than 60 years. Their average age is over 70. The band is specialized in playing the popular music of the '30s and '40s, with a repertory of over 300 world-famous pieces. It has formed a unique style of its own. It has been invited on performance tours of Japan, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and much applauded by the audience there.
New Heaven and Earth: Shanghai's trendiest lifestyle destination, this 2-block complex of high-end restaurants, bars, shops, and entertainment facilities, mostly lodged in refurbished traditional Shanghainese shiku men (stone-frame) housing, is the first phase of the Taiping Qiao Project, an urban renewal project covering 52 hectares (128 acres) that resulted in the relocation of 3,500 families. Busloads of domestic Chinese tourists traipse through in the evenings, Western visitors feel like they've never left home, and hip young Shanghainese flood here to enjoy the good life they feel they're due. Besides the many shopping and dining establishments (separately reviewed), there is a shiku men museum (at Xinye Lu and Madang Lu) showcasing the interiors of a typical lane house.
Shopping
When outsiders and foreigners come to Shanghai, they would invariably like to buy some of those commodities with special Shanghai flavor to be brought back home as souvenirs, keepsakes or gifts for their relatives and friends. As a "shoppers' paradise" for the world's tourists, Shanghai should be able to proffer the world's exquisite goods.
Nanjing Road has seen new features with its old face in regression in these few years. On one hand, long-established stores and old famed restaurants have "recovered their youthful vigor", and their business now continues to thrive as ever before. While on the other hand, utterly new shopping centres have sprung up like mushrooms such as Mosta, Manhattan Square, Wings Dress market and Sincere Company, providing a vast space for the buyers to pick up what they would like to have. On Nanjing Road one can find not only distinctly characterized "Homes of Famous-brand Goods", but also elegant eating houses tastefully laid out. There the mellow fragrance of hot coffee now and then is being wafted to you by the breeze; and fairly often lingers in the air the reverberations of merriment of video game players.
It is Huaihai Road that has been fulfilling this requirement for elegant articles on the highest plane. Esprit, Nick, Jeans West, Dison and some other exclusive stores or counters selling brands of goods of international fame are of "Five-Star" grade as has been used to grade luxury hotels, one of which you will find just on the same road---Jinjiang Hotel.
The Old Temple of City God wherein lies Yuyuan the Happy Garden, and the Old Shanghai County Seat City proper retain their classical or antique features in a way. As the first-stage renovation of the used-to-be "kingdom of small commodities", there you will find a complete range of varieties of tourists' souvenirs possessing the unique features of the local Shanghainese taste.
Lastly, Xujia Hui(used to be a border assembly area years ago) has now been built into a new commerce and shopping assembly area. There have gone up Oriental Shopping Centre, Pacific Department Store plus its square, Daqian Centre of Delicious Foods, Jianguo Hotel, Huating Sheralton Hotel and the like. If you go there, to be sure, you will feel the out-of-the-common breath of spirit of this metropolis in the Orient--its name is SHANGHAI!
Food & Restaurants
In the last few years, the restaurants of Shanghai have undergone a revival. The old, government-run food halls have gone and have been replaced by an exciting range of eateries, from fast food and street stalls to sophisticated international restaurants. Eating out in Shanghai is now a treat, and visitors are confronted by the vast range of fabulous dishes for which Chinese cuisine is so rightly famed. In China, cooking is known as the 'ninth art' and Shanghai is said to lead the country as far as catering is concerned. There are many restaurants of renown with chefs who specialize in cooking dishes from all eight of the Chinese styles: Beijing, Guangdong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan, Anhui and Fujian. Each of these consist of several localised styles; for example, Zhejiang cuisine is made up of Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shaoxing dishes. A diner could eat out for more than a year in Shanghai and still only try a fraction of the cuisine on offer.
Shanghai Features
Filigrees
Shanghainese are good at business and are growing wealthier by the day. Jewelry stores filled with gold, platinum, and silver can be found all over the city. The most favored metals are gold and platinum. Also, when giving wedding gifts or birthday presents, Shanghainese might give gold statues that may cost as much as USD 1,000.
Jade and Ivory Carvings
Shanghai jade and ivory carvings are relatively famous throughout China. While ivory collecting may not be of particular interest to some for its ecological harm, jade is quite another matter. Jade, a beautiful stone, comes in an array of colours and can be carved in many styles. In Shanghai, popular styles include figurines, birds, beasts, and decorated bottles. In fact, jade bottles are very Chinese and might make an excellant addition to your home's decor.
Local River Crabs
If you are looking for a real Shanghai experience, then ask a local about Dazhaxie or local river crabs. Shanghainese go absolutely insane over these delicacies every autumn. The Chinese have a saying that female crabs are to be eaten in September and male crabs in October. This saying has to do with the amount of yellow (the eggs of the female) and paste (white matter in the male) in the crabs. The crabs of Chongming Island in the Yangtze River and Yangcheng Lake in Jiangsu Province are relatively famous in the Shanghai area. The larger crabs are boiled in large pots and smaller crabs are cooked in a coating of flour or in a red sauce.
Silk
Shanghai is one of China's most important regions for silk production and export. Of course, then, the city is a great place to pick up some deals while in China. The variety of silk fabrics available is astounding. Silk of various grades, satin, damask silk, silk gauze, brocade, crape, velvet, spun silk, and sheer silk are all available. Printed and embroidered silk are also very popular and plentiful. As Chinese silk is famous throughout the world for its elegance and beauty, silk itself is an excellent reason to come to Shanghai. But always bargain when silk shopping. Shopkeepers will never give a 'Chinese' price if you have a 'foreign' face.
Weaving and Embroidery
In Shanghai, one can find excellent weaving and embroidery in many different styles. Shanghai rugs are finely detailed creations with traditional motifs and designs, and are mainly made by hand with wool. Rugs and carpets of silk are also made in Shanghai.
Silk tapestries made in Shanghai are characterized by their smooth feel and traditional Chinese scenes and subjects such as mountains and lakes.
Huangpu River Cruise
Taking a boat tour along the Huang Pu River gives visitors an opportunity to see many of Shanghai's famous sites such as the People's Hero Monument, the Bund (Wai Tan), the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the dramatic skyline of the Pu Dong business district. Also, in view from the river are the bustling International Passenger Station of Shanghai Harbor, the docks and the Wu Song ancient gun fort relics. Admission: CNY25 for one hour; CNY100 for two hours.
Shanghai World Expo 2010. |
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| City introduction |
Shanghai, China's Star
The financial go-go capital of China, Shanghai is a city of 16 million that remembers its hallucinating history. Divided in half by the Huangpu River, Shanghai's story is one of millions made and mirages lost. Pried open by British guns in the First Opium War, this once sleepy fishing and weaving village gained notoriety as the "Paris of the East" as a colonial city of commerce, vice, money and political intrigue. More recently, Shanghai has benefited the most from China's economic reforms,rapidly rising as the shining "Pearl of the Orient".
If you simply count heads, Shanghai is the biggest city in the biggest country on Earth. If you simply scan statistics, this is China's capital of commerce, industry, and finance. But numbers don't tell the whole story. Shanghai has a colonial past more intense than that of any other city in China, save Hong Kong, and this legacy gives it a dramatic character, visible in the very facades of its buildings. But the city is not only a museum of East meeting West on Chinese soil. Overnight, Shanghai has become one of the world's great modern capitals, the one city that best shows where China is headed at the dawn of the 21st century.
Shanghai was not always much of a delight to tour, but that has changed. After the building boom of the 1990s tore the city apart, new roads, highways, tunnels, and bridges, not to mention new hotels, restaurants, and sights now make Shanghai a city that a visitor can once again comfortably enjoy and explore.
Today there are large neighborhoods of foreign architecture, wonderful for a stroll, where Europeans, especially the French, once resided. Shanghai's great river of commerce, the Huangpu, a tributary of the mighty Yangzi River, is lined with a gallery of colonial architecture, known as the Bund, grander than any other in the East, much of it recently refurbished and beckoning the curious visitor. The mansions, garden estates, country clubs, and cathedrals of Westerners who made their fortunes here a century ago pepper the city. Even a synagogue exists, dating from the days of an unparalleled Jewish immigration to China. These are not the typical monuments of China, but they are typical of Shanghai.
At the same time, creations of a strictly Chinese culture prevail. A walk through the chaotic old Chinese city turns up traditional.
treasures: a teahouse epitomizing old China; a quintessential Southern-Chinese classical garden; active temples and ancient.
pagodas; and even a section of Shanghai's old city wall. If Shanghai's primary architecture and avenues recall 19th-century Europe rather than old Cathay, this is still a Chinese city to the core.
Shanghai is a heaven for shoppers -- Nanjing Road is the No.1 shopping street in all of China -- but perhaps even more importantly, Shanghai represents the future of China. Across the mighty Huangpu River, which served as old Shanghai's eastern border, Pudong, serving as the face of new Shanghai, now boasts the tallest hotel in the world, Asia's largest shopping mall, China's largest stock exchange, and one of the highest observation decks in Asia, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Not to be outdone, old Shanghai has its own legions of new skyscrapers, too, and a booming collection of fine international restaurants, several of them taking over the rooftops of the colonial gems lining the Bund and the mansions that went to seed in Shanghai's French Quarter.
Shanghai is also reestablishing itself as a leading trendsetter for fashion, design, culture, and the arts. New theaters and cultural centers attract top performers from China and abroad, while designers of every stripe are taking advantage of the mix of the East, West, past, and future by blazing their own unique styles.
Quotes
"People say the Shanghainese a certain attitude, and that's totally true. lt's a mixture of boundless optimism and confidence that makes it so fun to party here."
"Try the hairy crabs when they're in season in early autumn. They're absolutely amazing, indescribably delicious."
"Shanghai is probably the most glamorous city in China. Just head down to Xintiandi on Saturday night and you'll see all the snazziest people in this town partying it up."
"Shanghai is so full of energy it's like one big nuclear power station. This is a city that never sleeps. Walk down any street and you'll find a small restaurant or shop or convenience store. People sleep late and wake early here."
Transportation
A very accessible city, Shanghai is reachable by land, water and air. Shanghai is at the junction of the Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Hangzhou train lines, which means that Shanghai is reachable by train from almost anywhere in China.
By plane: Shanghai is a nexus for international flights and is busy day and night ferrying people in and out of the city. There are direct flights to many international cities from Shanghai. Shanghai is the only city in China to have two international airports. Pudong is the new international airport and most international airlines now fly in and out of here, and it is located 55 km from the city centre. Most hotels also supply transport to the airport. It is about an hours drive from the city centre. Buses and taxis connect the new airport to the city centre and Hongqiao airport. A taxi should cost approximately RMB 150. And why not try the magnetic train since it is the first one in the world and the fastest means to reach the International Airport! The train leaves the airport from 08:28 to 17:28 and leaves Longyang Rd Stop from 08:30 to 17:30. The prices range from RMB 160 to RMB 50.
The airport for most domestic flights is Hongqiao which is older, and located in the west of Shanghai, 15 km from the city centre. A taxi to Hongqiao airport from CBD should cost approximately RMB 30-50. Public bus No.925 runs to the airport from People's Square. Most domestic destinations can be reached from Shanghai.
By train: Shanghai is at the centre of an important rail network and there are daily trains to Xi'an (17 hours), Beijing (14 hours), Kunming (36 hours), Guilin (26 hours), Qingdao (16-20 hours) and almost all provincial capitals from which travellers can choose further transportation to their destination. There is also a train to Kowloon in Hong Kong (26 hours). There are also regular services to Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Wuxi. For foreigners, train tickets can be bought at the ticket booking office in the soft seat waiting room. Most hotels will also reserve seats for you although they will make a small charge for this service. The main train station(Xinkezhan) is in the north of the city. The easiest way to reach the station is to take the subway to Shanghai Railway Station stop. A taxi from the station to the centre of town should cost approximately RMB 20-30.
Getting Around Shanghai: In Shanghai, some international hotels have free shuttle buses to and from the Bund commercial area, but apart from those, taxis offer the easiest way of getting about town. There is an excellent and rapid subway system, but it is still being developed and extended. A few isolated parts of Shanghai offer an ideal environment for those who like to explore on foot, but be warned that road developments, building sites, packed walkways and terrible traffic conditions make walking in most districts a pastime to be avoided.
Other Information
Taxis
Shanghai Taxi -- 86-21-62580000
Tourist Taxi Co. -- 86-21-64383420
Friendship Taxi Service Corp -- 86-21 - 62584584
Dazhong Taxi Co.-- 86-21-63207207
Zhenhua Taxi Corp -- 86-21-62550880
Airlines
China Eastern Airlines -- 86-21-62472255
Shanghai Airlines -- 86-21-62550550
Russian Airlines -- 86-21-64156700
Air France -- 86-21-62688817
Asian Airlines -- 86-21-62709900
Canadian Airlines -- 86-21-64153091
Dragon Airlines -- 86-21-62798099
Japan Airlines -- 86-21-64723000
Northwest Airlines -- 86-21-62798088
Hansa Airlines -- 86-21-62481100
Singapore Airlines -- 86-21-62798000
United Airlines -- 86-21-62798009
Thai Air Ways -- 86-21-62797170
Telephones Most Commonly Used
Local Telephone Number Inquiry -- 86-21-114
International Enquiries -- 86-21-116
Weather Inquiries -- 86-21-121
Tourism Quality Supervision -- 86-21-64393615
Airline Service -- 86-21-62537664
Railway Inquiry -- 86-21-63179090
Airport Inquiry -- 86-21-62688918
Express Mail -- 86-21-63245025
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