Past and Future

“Where you visit in China?” asked the middle-aged Chinese businessman with whom we shared a table at the Beijing airport café (a not-uncommon custom in China -- in a nation of a billion people, you don’t waste seats just because you don’t know someone).

“Only Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai,” we replied. “Not too much time, too short to see such a big country.”

“Ah,” he smiled. “But you see all times in China -- Beijing present, Xi’an past, Shanghai future.”

I had never heard it put that way, but I really like it. Xi’an (pronounced she-AHN) was the capital of China from before the time of Christ, under the first emperor to unify the country, Qin Shi Huang. He was a brilliant military strategist who brought China together at sword-point, but he lacked diplomacy and was a bit of a megalomaniac. He had a massive tomb built starting when he was still in his thirties, then had the architects killed (Dale Carnegie would not approve...) and ultimately was buried there with a huge army of life-size warriors fashioned from terra cotta, each completely unique. Rediscovered by local farmers digging a well in 1974, this has become one of China’s biggest tourist draws. And it is quite fascinating.

Ever wonder how people forget there is something like this buried beneath them?

”Boy, after two millenia, I really can’t wait to get out of this dirt and have a bath...”

While Europe languished in the Dark Ages, Xi’an was the center of the world. It was the beginning and end of the Silk Road, and traders from all over the world made their way there. The present-day city walls, the best-preserved of any city in China, date from the Ming dynasty in the 1400s and stretch 14 miles around the city center. If you think that’s impressive, consider that the Tang dynasty walls in 800 A.D. were seven times larger.

Fun to walk around; scaling, not so much

Xi’an today is unfortunately a not-all-that-picturesque city of 5 million. Inside the walls it is mostly broad boulevards and high-rise hotels...

Looking toward the ancient Bell Tower

...but there are pockets of very beautiful and historic old houses built of the city’s distinctive gray brick.

A bustling market street near the walls, restored to medievaly goodness

From Xi’an, we zipped forward in time what seemed about 4,000 years, to Shanghai, China’s bustling east coast metropolis and showcase of wildly futuristic architecture.

The Pudong New Area, home to science fiction-style buildings like the Oriental Pearl TV Tower

Arriving at the airport, we took the world’s only implemented Maglev train (Magnetic Levitation for non-geeks, in which the train hovers over the track on big opposing magnets) into the city -- a 35km journey that takes 8 minutes. The cars driving toward the airport beside the track flash by so quickly, it looks like they are speeding in the opposite direction.

I am not making this up

Shanghai has a rather interesting history; in the mid-1800s it became the Chinese colonial trade center for England, France, and America, and by the 1920s it was the greatest Western city in the East after Hong Kong. Home to banks and shipping companies, brothels and opium dens, it was the Paris of the Orient (or the Whore of the Orient, depending on whom you talked to). Stretching along the west bank of the Huangpu River opposite Pudong is the Bund, a street of beautiful Art Deco skyscrapers that rivalled New York in their day.

Memories of Shanghai’s Jazz Age

Incidentally, Lynn’s sister Jane (a John Denver fan) inquired whether there were in fact “Shanghai Breezes,” as he sang about in a song. Standing on the promenade overlooking the Bund, we can categorically deny the existance of breezes in Shanghai -- gales is more like it; it was very windy.

The Roaring ‘20s in Shanghai weren’t all galas, gambling and gangsters, though. Shanghai was the birthplace of the Chinese Communist Party, which “liberated” the city in 1949 during the Communist/Nationalist civil war. The Customs House on the Bund with its giant clock tower modelled after Big Ben, once a symbol of Western colonial profit-taking, became a broadcast tower for propaganda during the Cultural Revolution.

The triumph of the people over capitalist oppression, Shanghai style

But those days are so far past in Shanghai they might as well be buried with Xi’an’s terra cotta warriors. Today, Shanghai’s streets are flooded with expats doing business and locals shopping for the latest handbags from Gucci or Coach (some of them even non-counterfeit!). Like Beijing, or perhaps even more so, Shanghai is a city firmly faced forward, proudly displaying its past, but rushing to embrace its future.

Whatever tomorrow holds, Shanghai is ready to embrace it