Shanghai, the City

April 22, 2012

After breakfast in Xi’an we left the hotel to get on the plane for Shanghai.  The flight took two hours.  I needed a book so Jane loaned me the second book of The Hunger Games, “Catching Fire”.

 

After we checked into our hotel we went to walked along the Bund, the city’s waterfront promenade in the old international part of town. The buildings are about 100 years old. To the Chinese this is a new city.  Shanghai was not a city until the English came.  That is why this area has buildings that look like they are from Europe.

 

The Chinese and the English had a war over trading. The English wanted the Chinese emperor to open their trading gates.  The emperor said, “No way.  You need what we have. We have everything we need already in China.”  The British decided to try another way to open trading gates with China.

The war was called the Opium War because the English were selling opium to the Chinese.  They told the Chinese it was medicine and gave it a good name.  They called it Happiness Longevity Cream (in Chinese).  

Opium is a drug that makes you feel good for a while but then it addicts you. People started using it to feel good instead of just for medicine.  That was what the English had planned.  Worse yet, the more you have it the more you want it.  You start out getting a small amount for a little money.  Then later you want more and more. In a little while you are spending a fortune trying to get enough. They were addicted.

The Chinese lost the war so the English said they had to open up five cities for trading.  One of those cities was Shanghai. The reason they wanted Shanghai was because it had access to the Yangtze River which means they had access to all the cities on the Yangtze.  In a city near Shanghai there is a place where they make silk and another place where they make porcelain (china). These were the things the English wanted.  After the war China was not very strong.

So, Shanghai was built by the English.  When they started to build an English city, other countries wanted to come too.  So the Americans, the Spanish, the French and others came and built their parts of the city.  This is now called the International Section of Shanghai.

 

There is a road like a ring around the International Section.  Outside of that road is the new Shanghai built by the Chinese.  On the Bund we could see the new Shanghai with all the tall modern buildings.

 

Pop Pop and I decided to have ice cream.  

 

We watched people walk by us.  In Shanghai ladies wear fancier clothes than in other parts of China.

 

After a rest at the hotel we went back to the International shopping area to find dinner.  

 

We had a good pizza for dinner.  I had pepperoni and cheese. 

 

After dinner, Pop Pop had a good idea.  We bought ice cream at Cold Stone.  

It was already dark and Shanghai was lit up.  The Chinese government spends one million dollars a night to light up the city.  We decided to get on a boat to see Shanghai from on the Yangtze River at night. 

 

It was another long day so we went to the hotel and got right into bed!