Shanghai is an interesting city because if contains a beautiful amount of contrast. Shanghai is one of the most modern cities in the world, with tall skyscrapers, a dashing subway system, and sprawling miles of metropolitan area. However, Shanghai also retains extraordinary elements of traditional Chinese life, with ancient buildings and unique Chinese culture. Living in Shanghai for almost 2 weeks now, I have been able to get a surface glimpse of this amazing contradiction, and have even been able to start exploring deeper into it. It's pretty fascinating. Fudan University is located a couple miles from the city center, in the rather quiet Yangpu district (however, quiet is a matter of opinion. Although many Chinese may deem Yangpu as "quiet", it is still crowded and bustling in my mind). One road, Daxue Lu (University Road), located in the Fudan University area, perfectly displays Shanghai's culture contrast. One side of the road contains a more typically Chinese atmosphere, with crowded outdoor vendor stalls selling steamed and fried traditional foods, classical restaurants with yelling customers and staff, begging vendors selling cheap, tourist merchandise on the side of the road, and cramped indoor restaurants that would not pass an American health inspection. The other side of the road looks like it has been taking right out of DC. It looks like a typical Western-style college street with cute, hipster cafes, flower-filled boutique-like brunch places, and modern restaurants and bars.
It is profoundly mind boggling walking down this street because it seems that you are walking through 2 different worlds. The first world is a developing country where people are struggling day by day for their next meal and living in cramped quarters in basements or backyards. The other world is a vibrant, modern developed world where the baristas are college students and food is ordered and styled purely for the social media post. This contrast highlights a strange reality in Chinese society. China is a country that is developing at an astounding rate, yet tragically leaves behind a large sect of society from this economic prosperity. This reality is very much shown in Shanghai, where rundown, dirty areas reside next to beautifully designed skyscrapers and 9 story shopping malls full of expensive European clothing stores. The mall closest to Fudan even has a skating rink in it!
I have found a couple of interesting places (and interesting things) that make up this contrast in Shanghai. Shanghai is a very globalized city, and although I am really enjoying living in Chinese culture, it is also nice to have many seemingly familiar places to escape to in the large, unfamiliar city. A lot of the food in Shanghai is very internationalized, with American and European chain stores. For example, like any other city in the world, Starbucks liters almost every block. There are Costa coffee's, and even, as a Bostonian, my favorite, Dunkin Donuts.
China also puts a strange new twist to many foods and products, which may be considered downright hilarious to many foreigners in Shanghai. One morning, me and my roommate decided to try out a strange restaurant on Daxue Lu, called Superheroes. The restaurant looked like it came straight out of a theme park, where all the food contained symbols of Marvel Superhero characters and the adjacent gift shop sold Marvel apparel. It was strange to be eating brunch next to characters so familiar in American culture, yet right in the heart of China. Shanghai has many of these American-influenced stores, such as "gorgetown" cupcakes. However strange, it is nice to know that sometimes there are familiar places in such a hectic city.
Shanghai is a conflicting city, but it is an amazing one to experience. The contradiction of Chinese and Western elements seems to somehow mix to create a harmonic cityscape.