atomicskate - Shanghai…

Forty things that make Shanghai tick. By SH staff.

1. Lawson’s

It’s 4.30am, and the streets lie dormant, trash blowing by like tumbleweed in the early morning breeze. You stumble into Lawson’s – open all the time – and a lifeline of packaged conveniences is spread before you in blinding fluorescence. There are treats on a stick that bob in murky water, cigarettes and Gatorade, peanuts, yogurt and beer… It starts to drizzle so you buy yourself an umbrella on the way out, and head on home with your precious late-night supplies. Priceless.

 

2. Xiaolongbao

For breakfast, lunch, dinner or a late-night snack there are precious few foods that can match up to this Shanghai staple for sheer deliciousness. Where else can you eat a thin, translucent pocket of fragrant pork fat and feel good about it?

 

3. Restaurant welcoming girls

We like to feel welcome. If a line of pretty girls makes us feel welcome in unison, then all the better.

 

4. Summer pajamas

One of the first signs of summer is when we first step out in our summer jimjams. They’re light, cool, comfy… You try wearing jeans when it’s 40 degrees.

 

5. Ayi

Cheaper than a dishwasher, more caring than you local laundry lady, it’s Ayi, the hardworking housekeeper who irons your socks and never fails to leave a little dishwater in your coffee cup. Ayis make this city work, and might make you stay here forever for fear of doing your own wash.

 

6. Dazhong Taxi

This blue and yellow fleet of cabs never rests and gets us where we need to be. Their trusty Santanas are always at our disposal (unless it’s raining– then you’d better take the bus), and we’d be lost without them. Although they’d sometimes be lost without us.

 

7. Plane trees

The lush, green trees that line our otherwise chaotic and sometimes plain ugly streets are a reminder that organic beauty still exists here, and we actually care about maintaining it. After a hectic day in the city, nothing beats taking a leisurely stroll down one of the quieter roads shaded by these testaments to European sensibility, where you can take in some precious fresh air straight from the source. Ahhh.

 

8. That skyline

It may be a relative newcomer, but the Pudong skyline is Shanghai. It’s made us world famous, created a whole postcard industry, and gets the tourists out from under our feet.

 

9. Cashbox

So the ultimate KTV palace isn’t actually called Cashbox any more, but what is now Party World has long been seared into our brain as the watchword for silly, do-it-yourself pop cheese. Grab the mic, and give it all you got.

 

10. Gao jia

Our highways are distinctive with their boy racer blue fluorescent lights and little shrubberies – a city has never taken so much pride in its expressway. And rightly so. The gao jia is an amazing feat of engineering, a masterstroke of traffic management, and a great place to see some really pretty views.

 

11. Netbars

The most curious of hideaways, these stuffy haunts are open all hours of the night and day and are inhabited by smelly residents of the Warcraft dimension. You never know who you’ll meet in there surfing the net at the dead of night, but at least it’s keeping them occupied and off the streets.

 

12. Crustaceans

From hairy crabs to xiaolongxia, Shanghai can’t get enough of tasty comfort foods with claws. It’s only too bad they’re seasonal.

 

13. Property agents

For rent: a two-year-old, fully furnished, one bedroom studio. What you actually get: a cardboard box with a hot plate and a soiled mattress pad. Good thing Shanghai has plenty of realtors to weed out most of the fleapits and keep a roof over our heads.

 

14. The gym

Dazhong Taxi is truly indispensable (see number six), but there’s a flipside to taking cabs everywhere in a city with a vast supply of great restaurants. Fortunately, there’s a treadmill out there for all of us– and besides an expanding minority of burger-chomping kids, Shanghai is still looking in pretty good shape as a result.

 

15. Fabric market/tailors.

Searsucker shorts, mauve linen blazers– nowhere is it easier to live out your worst fashion fantasies. For an eighth of the price of an ill-fitting Armani jacket and a little bit of free time, you can build your own Ultimate Dream Coat, made with the finest fabrics, fitted to a T, even bedazzled with Swarovski crystals if you want. The power is in your hands to turn your fashion fancy into that unapologetically tacky yet perfectly tailored outfit that screams Shanghai style.

 

16. Watermelon

The pick of Shanghai’s summer fruits, watermelons are cheap, refreshing and juicy and on sale at every street corner. They’re great to share, they do a whole lot of good for your skin, and are perfect for quenching the flames of a spicy dinner.

 

17. Aircon

When this alternately damp-and-freezing or hot-and-smelly metropolis gets the best of you, you can always shutter the windows, close all the doors and sit in the steady stream of your trusty a/c, as it creaks and gasps in its improvised wall mount. Hail Haier! (Now if we could only work on that insulation thing…)

 

18. 24-hour noodle stalls

Late-night munchies? No need to worry as these little noodle shops are everywhere ready to serve up a steaming bowl of mian. You will never go hungry as long as you have one of these around the corner.

 

19. Wet markets/ fruit and veg stalls.

Best visited early in the morning, Shanghai comes to life at market time. Forget about the sterile veggies in the supermarket, this is the place to get some great food and have plenty of fun getting it.

 

20. Rou chuan man

No one panders to our drunken appetites quite like the kebab man, who assures us that his prime cuts of lamb were flown fresh in from Xinjiang this very morning. We believe him.

 

21. Man with cart/slop man

These tireless individuals do the city’s leg work. No burden is too heavy, no teetering stockpile of polystyrene too precarious, no pig slop too rank. These guys keep Shanghai going, and we salute them.

 

22. Parks

Since an afternoon trip to the countryside is out of the question, the numerous green spaces in Shanghai are a welcome respite – ignoring the rusty fairground rides. Surround yourself with greenery and erhu players, and you’ll almost forget where you are.

 

23. The maglev

A great way to impress any visitor on their arrival into Pudong Airport, the Maglev is an unrivaled Shanghai status symbol – transporting you to civilization at hair-raising speeds. Know of any other cities that have one? Don’t think so.

 

24. Kuaidi man

There’s an army of men on bikes out there who take what you need from A to B and, occasionally, give you a lift to work for five kuai. Beneath the helmet, shades and yellow poncho, there beats a heart of gold.

 

25. Name cards

In this town, you’re only as good as the card stock you’re printed on. We love the ceremonial name card exchange that precedes any encounter between two consenting adults, and we take strange pleasure in watching the mound of cards from people you’ve forgotten (or wish would forget you) grow. It’s like your own private altar to the gods of popularity and cachet.

 

26. Free opening parties

What would Shanghai be without Mr Big Deal throwing a huge bash at his hot new location (and under fabulous new management)? Every weekend seems to bring an obligatory opening party offering freebies to keep the city’s most influential lushes flushed and the rumor mill spinning. And all of us non-VIPs - we just reap the benefits.

 

27. DVDs

You probably never knew how many terrible movies Harrison Ford did before you bought all of them at Ka De Club. And you probably didn’t know how easily you could convince yourself to sit through them, along with the rest of your ever-expanding collection. At around 10 kuai each, these economical time-wasters (and a fully functioning aircon) are often the only things that’ll keep you going on a 35-degree afternoon.

 

28. Surly waitress

Xiao jie, shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more sassy and more temperamental… We’ve learned to love the service person with no will to serve. Clearing our table mid-meal, yet never getting around to bringing that water we desperately needed 30 minutes ago, the waitress lives by her own rules, contemptuous of all the pesky customers that strew her path. Buss on, restaurant warrior, buss on.

 

29. Skyscrapers

Love them or hate them, these spires of technological priapism have come to symbolize our city. We’ll have the tallest building in the world when the World Finance Tower is completed next year or so. That makes us feel pretty big.

 

30. The Bund

This relic of Shanghai’s wanton past has ably adapted to become a part of its future. Half of our favorite venues are there already, with more major developments on the way. And the Bund is clearly so great that it’s begun spreading over much of the surrounding area, with new developments like ‘Bund This’ and ‘Bund That’ springing up in tenuous proximity to the riverfront. The Bundhai Special Economic Zone is only around the corner, and we’ll be right there in the thick of it.

 

31. Champagne brunch

Here’s a great idea – for just 3 or 400 kuai, you get to eat lunch and drink as much champagne as you can. All before 2pm, obviously. Long may this barmy Shanghai institution– and those lost Sundays – continue.

 

32. The umbrellaparasol combo

Come rain or shine, this is the ultimate Shanghai accessory. At the first drop of rain, or the first ray of sunshine, they’re out in force keeping us dry, protected and well… a bit pasty looking. It’s also a good weapon when it comes to pushing your way through the crowds on a busy Saturday afternoon.

 

33. Massages

We used to be so tense. But thanks to the convenience of massage parlors on every corner, we’re feeling rather relaxed nowadays. Makes for a happy ending to even the most stressful day.

 

34. Chinglish signs

So happy we are to read the Chinglish sign! So fashion is the new way to talk! Yuyang Socks so tasty I think! Pudong’s Smart Noshery Make You Slobber restaurant just makes the taste so good for you! And remember – “No shitting” in People’s Park!

 

35. Networking and dating events

Is there a friendlier city anywhere? Everywhere you turn there are groups of people who want to introduce themselves or organizations keen to fix you up with members of the opposite sex. We can’t even remember who our old friends are any more.

 

36. Water delivery guy

Shanghai’s medicine man, bringing good citizens their weekly supply of purified H2O. Without him, we’d have nothing to drink but Tsing Tao and tofu milk.

 

37. Barber shops

Whether you want to pay ¥5 or ¥5,000, you only have to walk a few yards to get the haircut for you. It’s a small part of Shanghai’s economic miracle that we have enough hair to keep them all going.

 

38. Baijiu

Long before XO and fancy whiskies and crudely-named cocktails, there was only one true drink. And as far as we’re concerned, there still is. No Shanghainese dinner is complete without a few quick cups of the hard stuff, before it evaporates.

 

39. Foghorns

It can be hard to notice, but we actually live by the seaside. Even so, most of us have as much connection to the water as an Urumqi sandpit – except occasionally, when a foghorn blast from some seafaring hulk booms out across the city from the Huangpu. It might just be our favorite Shanghai sound – an important reminder to us urban landlubbers who we really are.

 

40. Bao’an

The trusty doorman holds our wellbeing in the palms of his hands. He keeps us safe at night, lets us in when we’ve lost our keys, and always says hello if he’s not asleep.

 

Source:
http://www.shmag.cn/feature/we_couldn_t_live_without_you