Shanghai Redux: Epilogue
Shanghai Redux: Epilogue
After my two whirlwind trips to Shanghai and a few days to digest everything that occurred in that city, it is time to put some generalized, ignorant conclusions about the city.
Prior to Adam at Brainysmurf comparing here and there or there and here, depending upon your point of view, I hand planned to do much the same thing upon my return. He beat me to it, but here are my views anyway based upon my not so vast wealth of experience in Shanghai.
My Korea v. Shanghai views:
Aesthetics
Shanghai wins by a large margin. Modern Korean architecture is essentially large rectangle buildings painted periwinkle blue, slate gray, a hideous pea-soup green color, a light burnt orange color, or even a ghastly purplish color. Recently constructed buildings have made some attempt at looking aesthetically pleasing. However, even the most modern construction projects are not that impressive.
On the other hand, even the old buildings and flats in Shanghai had that magnificent 1930s and 1940s architecture, the old French Concession buildings were marvelous. Even the new buildings in the Xin Tian Di area were constructed in that old style. The skyscrapers are simply amazing and were clearly built to be functional and very beautiful both in the daytime and at night.
Cleanliness
Again, this one goes to Shanghai. The streets of Shanghai were immaculately clean. They were clean almost to a fault. There were no cigarette butts, no papers, no piles of pink ramen-soju vomit on the streets (a.k.a. “ramen flowers”), no one pissing in the streets. I did see people drop litter in the streets, but it was picked up almost immediately by the ubiquitous street cleaners or someone else. There was an enormous amount of spit on the streets, but no more than Korea.
Public Smoking
As a nonsmoker, this was a big point for me, and again, the nod goes to Shanghai. I don’t know what percentage of people in Shanghai smoke, but I counted about 8 people smoking in public. The air around me was nice and breathable at all times.
Traffic and Pedestrians
Shanghai wins for traffic, and Korea wins for pedestrians.
Unlike a huge number of Koreans, Shanghai drivers pay attention to traffic lights, road signs, lanes, traffic rules, and other such things. I found the driving to be comfortable and efficient. The one-way traffic scheme on a lot of the roads was quite nice. In Shanghai, there were not cars parked along the sides of the streets turning four lane roads into two lane roads. Korea should take note that there was significantly less traffic congestion in a city of 19 million people than there is in Pusan, a city of about 4.5 million people.
In the pedestrian department, the pedestrians in Shanghai paid little attention to the lights, cross walks, cars, or anything. I was truly surprised not to see a lot of people killed. In Korea, things are much, much better on the traffic front. People do not cross in the middle of the road in heavy traffic. Many are hesitant and most are wary even when crossing in a crosswalk with the crossing light in their favor. This is because of the general lack of drivers to behave properly as mentioned above. Pedestrians are too frightened to play dodge-car in Korea.
Women
This goes to Korea. While I saw a lot of beautiful women in Shanghai, the women in Korea are consistently more beautiful in hair, carriage, and style. Most women in Shanghai, even the beautiful ones, dressed rather frumpily. Korean women, even the not so attractive ones, usually dressed like they are going to visit the queen or some such affair of state.
However, the women of Shanghai scored major points in the minimalist makeup. Korean women generally wear way to much make up. Also, as I am hyper sensitive to perfume, I was pleased that the women in Shanghai didn’t bathe in perfume as do too many women in Korea.
Shopping
With the exception of electronics, which are only slightly cheaper than in Korea, I found the shopping for gifts, entertainment, and personal items in Shanghai to be far better than in Korea. However, Korea definitely has a wider-variety of name brand goods than Shanghai.
English Accessibility
Korea takes this one as well. It is my opinion that it would be much easier for a non-Korean speaking person to get along in Korea than it would be for a non-Chinese speaker to get by in Shanghai. There are more English signs in Korea than there are in Shanghai. I felt that a higher percentage of people in Korea speak English than in Shanghai.
Conclusions?
I found Shanghai to be a remarkable city. I felt very comfortable there. However, the lack of Chinese language skills on my part was incredibly frustrating. I think I could exist equally happy and equally frustrated in either place.