In 2008's 'The Dark Knight', Batman unconventionally extradited a Chinese crime boss from a Hong Kong skyscraper to face charges back in Gotham City.
In 2015 the Avengers wrecked Seoul's traffic in the 'Age of Ultron'.
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| Captain America dodging traffic in Seoul |
Of course not everyone enjoyed the fun; there was some controversy as to whether Seoul's global exposure was worth the cost and disruption caused by the filming.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-south-korean-avengers-age-of-ultron-20150508-story.html
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2015/05/07/2015050701824.html
Meanwhile back in 2012's 'Skyfall' an anonymous Brit with a flair for destruction made a low key, but ultimately late intervention in an assassination in Shanghai
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| 007's only fight scene to date which is choreographed to jellyfish |
In this case the controversy was about whether Mr Bond was ever actually in Shanghai at all. Seemingly the filming was done in London and then digitally enhanced to resemble Shanghai.
https://jamesbondlocations.blogspot.kr/2015/06/the-shanghai-skyscraper-broadgate-tower.html
This is perhaps not surprising given the hoops of fire and tedious bureaucracy that one still has to leap through to get a visa to visit mainland China, or, for that matter, for the Chinese to visit abroad. Business visitors to China still require Letters of Invitation from the executive level of the company they want to visit detailing where, when and for how long the visit is needed. Tourists must not only submit evidence of hotels and flights paid in advance but also a daily itinerary of where they plan to visit and what they will do there. All in all it is not so different from trying to visit Poland before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
However, if you can negotiate the formalities hung over from the communist-era, then there are lots of pleasant surprises waiting once you finally touch down. Shanghai's Pudong airport is connected to the city by the Shanghai Transrapid, a futuristic magnetic levitation train engineered and built by Siemens and Thyssen Krupp intended as a prototype for a larger project connecting Shanghai to Beijing.
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| Blood beside the window confirms that 300 km/hr is sufficient to make puree out of anything which happens to fly by |
However once in downtown Shanghai there are more than enough distractions to focus on. Located where the Yangtze River meets the East China Sea, the city has always been a local hub for trade and administration. However it was in 1845 after the First Opium Wars that Shanghai started to develop rapidly as a hub for the entire Asia Pacific region. Only in 1949 did the pace of growth stall under Mao, until the 1990's when its phenomenal growth resumed.
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| Shanghai, meaning "Above the sea", at sunset |
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| Shanghai after dark |
The rapid changes in Chinese society make for some quite unique dinner conversation. Folks in their 50's will happily recall their childhood; like when they learned for the first time, at the tender age of 15, at high school in the '80's, that there were lands outside of China, where the people were not Chinese, who spoke other languages, and wrote with curious 'letters' such a 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. Home life then was basic. There were no comforts or luxuries, not even heating, but nobody knew it was basic. During winter time, people simply added more clothing to keep warm; the notion of heating the apartment was totally unknown. Around the same dining table, people in their 30's, just one generation younger, tell you that they not only heat their homes in winter, but they employ a house cleaner, or baby-sitter, or both. Furthermore they make shopping trips to Seoul and Tokyo to buy strollers, milk bottles and clothes for their baby because tax-free shopping and travel abroad is cheaper than travel and buying within China.
Today Shanghai is quietly and gently dropping much of its baggage from the Mao era in order to fuse new ideas with the best of the past.
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| Imposing, austere housing blocks in the commuter belts, gradually being superseded by softer, friendlier versions of the same |
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| Shanghai: new times overlooking old times |
Food for locals largely remains traditional ......
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| At a local restaurant; more soup and dumplings than you can shake a stick at |
.... although foreign fast food is inevitably gaining a foot-hold.
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| In the tourist zones; KFC and Haagen Daaz doing their best to blend in |
Happily the rich cultural heritage of the city ensures that the best of the past is preserved, despite the commercial pressure to give it a cheap face lift occasionally.
Across the river from the Yu Gardens stand;
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| Starbucks: never too shy to stand out like a sore thumb |
The best of the past surely includes the much praised Yu Gardens, next to the City God Temple in the Old City. Dating from 1559, the gardens were built essentially as a gift from a son to a father to enjoy in his old age. Sadly, ultimately the father died before the completion of the gardens and the costs ruined the entire family.
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| The Tea Rooms in front of the Yu Gardens |
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| A dragon enjoys the last of the day's sunshine in the Yu Gardens, central Shanghai |
Across the river from the Yu Gardens stand;
- the Shanghai Tower (632m/2,073 ft)
- the Jin Mao Tower (420m/1,380ft)
- the Shanghai World Financial Centre (492m/1,614ft)
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| Shanghai Tower: the worlds fastest elevators to the world's highest observation deck |
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| Looking down onto the Shanghai World Financial Centre from the Shanghai Tower |
Whether Shanghai is a gateway to China or a statement to the rest of the world, it is certainly impressive; huge, powerful and moving forward at an unprecedented speed. A must-see on anybody's list if you can bear to complete all the paperwork to get there. Changes introduced in May 2017 require visitors to apply for visas only in their country of citizenship or in their country of legal residence.
