The Corporate Overlords

Yay Capitalism!!

Chairman Mao and his confederates never doubted that the world's most populous country would become the world's greatest economy under the guidance of history's finest social contract. With Western imperialist dogma eliminated, with farmers, workers and bureaucrats all united in their cooperatives, with schools inculcating first and foremost a revolutionary spirit, China would surely thrive. There are dozens of places that I want to visit before offering broader conclusions but the thriving Shanghaiese economy would appear to contradict many of Comrade Mao's guiding principles.
The torch relay came to the Minghan district on Saturday and I haven't experienced a larger corporate event since the 99X Stone Mountain Summer Concert of aught-two. Every T-shirt with a Chinese flag on the front had a Lenovo logo on the back at least as big. I'm still trying to find out where I can get one, I'm sure they're free as long as you give them your email address.

You can see all the pictures here

The guy next to me in the photos is Zhang who is the most cheerful of my officemates. I sort of get the feeling he's the most popular--his girlfriend is a student at another university. Our procession gathered in the lobby of the physics building and we were given as many brand-name nationalistic accouterments as we could carry. We only had to walk to the other side of campus to await the torch guard.
Our group was assigned a cheer honoring China and the ravaged Sichuan province. Zhang translated it for me as 'China refills, like you refill with oil.' Refuels? I asked. 'Yes, that's it.'
I didn't know how to even ask him to elaborate on this but I swear that later that day I actually saw a girl wearing a black T-shirt with the English words "China Refuels."
Zhang's supervising professor is Jie (no relation) Zhang who collaborates formally with my supervisor, Zheng-Ming Shen. In addition to being the head of the entire physics department, JZ is president of Jiao Tong University and as such held the honor of being one of the torch bearers that morning. Even then though I didn't lay eyes on him as my group stood further along in the route. Occasionally I would hear ZS mention that JZ wanted to meet with me but had no time. At this point I'm expecting to be tossed into a black sedan on my way home one night and spirited to this mad laser scientist's underground lair. Will let you know how that goes.

The vanguard of the torch relay was comprised of cheerleaders for CocaCola, Samsung and Lenovo. It's true that many of this year's athletes had to contend with rotted teeth, carpal tunnel and blurred vision caused by watching Rosie O'Donnell on 45" plasma displays. I was able to get one pretty good shot of the torch runner however.



So that was all pretty cool. I spent the rest of the morning playing badminton with Zhang and Junjian, the woman who works next door to us. I've been able to talk to her a little bit about the research institute in Osaka where she's spent nearly two years working. English is tough with her and neither of us are conversationally fluent in Japanese either but she is a wicked good badminton player and beat Zhang into the floor like a tent peg.

Sunday I took the train to the East Bank, or Pudong as they call it. Here autos have uncontested dominance of the roads and there were fewer crosswalks as I approached the commercial district from the south. There's an enormous park at one end of the main boulevard that I'll return to when I have more time-- it's the sort you pay a ticket to get into though there's plenty enough to see from the outside. I arrived early in the morning and saw kite peddlers set up their wares across the street. If I'd stayed on my side the vendor wouldn't have pounced on me but I wanted a good kite photo while the sky was still blue. Having a kite of my own didn't seem like such a bad thing so I haggled the vendor down to half his starting price. But no sooner had we made the exchange than another fellow came running up to sell me the kite string. Brilliant.

The walk to the other end of the boulevard, toward the skyscrapers and the river, grew uglier. There were still scores of gardeners tending the flora but the smog and traffic were thick. I had lunch at a three-star restraunt called Pizza Hut where I ate chicken pasta in a red cream sauce and a tall slushie made from fresh grapefruit. I'd pondered over the pizza menu but decided it was too expensive.

By the time I reached Lujiazui on the riverbank I had a bad sunburn on the right side of my body while the air was so thick that nothing cast a shadow. This is the Blade Runner district, the one I'd previously only seen night panoramas of. There's also a shot on the back of my guide book of the Oriental Pearl Tower as the sun is setting so the concrete looks rosy. During the daytime the place is gruesome and the main attractions loom like the spires of Mordor. I didn't go into the Pearl but I slipped my camera through the gate to capture the tower rules which are keepers.

Between the Pearl and the SuperBrand Mall is a roundabout with no stoplights or crosswalks. Pedestrians did their best to crowd their way to other side and having reached the mall I rewarded myself with a new pair of shoes.

Shopping centers are mainly divided into brand kiosks which makes me suspect that the sales force is paid on commission, though that would truly be anticommunist. The sneaker outlet I went into was big enough to get lost in and my limited language skills meant that I could comparison shop only before I started trying things on. Brands are generally as expensive here as they are in the states and even the national ones fall in the same price range. There would be no haggling at this shop but the laces would be thrown in for free, at least.

Far more treacherous than getting to the mall was pathfinding back south to the Jinmao Tower and World Financial Center. Here people actually climbed over two construction fences and dodged ten lanes of traffic to reach the far side. Though I'd tried getting back into shape before my trip it hadn't occurred to me to prepare by going rock climbing while someone swung bags of concrete at my head.



I didn't expect to see much in the observatory but I still hadn't gotten a good view of the river. It coincidentally cost the same as getting to the top of the Empire State Building and the elevator rocketed up the 250 meters in a bit less than thirty seconds. At the top one of the vendors gave me a free pearl that she plucked from a clam before my eyes. The only other thing to behold there was how truly hideous the Huangpu River is.

Once again I had to cross the street back to the side with the subway. Before crossing the river I hopped over another construction fence into a small park where I stretched my screaming hamstrings. The park hosted no fewer than three bridal photo shoots; maybe they were hoping to get better lighting as the sun went down. A truly interesting ornament was a bronze statue of three westerners holding their cameras up to marvel at the glorious works of the East.



The strip of land just on the west bank of the river is known as the Bund where feet and scooters are the preferred means of travel, where the subway stops have higher densities of westerners, peddlers and pimps. There was a foreign language bookstore here that I wanted to investigate and in the meantime I got dinner from a streetside wok. The owners offered me DVDs and a picnic table to eat my noodles at. I took them up on the latter.