Shanghai Life

The Seed Cathedral - UK Pavilion - my EXPO winner Ever since we moved to Shanghai (August 2009) we have been surrounded by immense construction work and 'urban dressing' in preparation for EXPO. The Shanghai government have reshaped and refashioned the city in preparation for 70 million visitors (mainly Chinese). It seems that everyone has to get to EXPO. So we went last Saturday amongst 300,000 others and queued, tramped and viewed about 20 pavilions plus the Africa pavilion for most of the African states.

More

win RIBA Lubetkin Prize for best international building

More

Lu Xun Park is a memorial to the revered Chinese scholar writer Lu Xun (1881-1936). He is celebrated for his powerful diagnoses of China's social and political crisis. The park has a museum which illustrates the massive contribution he made to Chinese literature and thinking.

More

Xin Nian Kuai le
^click
Happy Chinese New Year!
At midnight last night, Pudong became a cave of echoing thundercracks, the air spitting firehail and sweet smoke as gunpowder did its work for human spirits against the evil spirits.

More

I was chatting with a freelance Canadian English teacher in a bar on Saturday whilst watching Wales beat Scotland in the 6 Nations. He told me how he had to hold the line on Oxford English in his lessons as students were picking up American spellings. There is a massive demand for English teachers in China and even the official market results show the market has doubled in the last five years.

More

Last night, I found myself in the highest bar in the world on Ladies Night on stage singing "My girl" to my wife on her birthday under the charismatic direction of jazz singer and performer Carlton J. Smith.

More

A choir from our local school came to sing carols in the large foyer of the Ramada Plaza where we have our apartment. The children ranged from 6-16 and sang with beautiful harmonies to an engaged audience of parents and onlookers.

More

Shanghai has an efficient, clean and spacious subway system (though the space is much needed at the crowded downtown stations). The stations have bilingual signs which includes a no spitting sign but one that I particularly like is one to deter people who might want to bring explosives into the Metro.

More

We recently visited the Shanghai Civilised Park (though I think the translation should have been "People's Park"). Like most of the downtown "parks" it is more of a city garden but is particularly renowned as the place for parents to publicise their son or daughter's credentials to other parents seeking a suitable spouse for their child.

More

My wife, Sophia and I, have now been living in China for three months. I feel very conscious that I have not begun to even see the real China. For China is a nation of nations with 55 recognised nationalities. We live in Shanghai which is regarded here as a western commercial centre made of expats and Shanghainese rather than real Chinese.

More