Shanghai makes an amazing impression. No, of course, we know about the rapid economic growth, about the wonders that the Chinese do in this city, but to do so ... It is impossible to believe it. However, in common sense, where else, if not in Shanghai — the historic capital of Chinese capitalism — the best way to demonstrate what the country is capable of, not constrained by any economic dogmas.
More recently, Shanghai has been almost as good as foreign concessions made it in the early 20th century. Today, everything has changed in an instant. The central embankment and quay on the Huangpu River, where ships stayed for decades, turned into a granite walking ground, from where the best view of Pudong — the city of the future. It is there, on the western bank of the Huangpu River, that the best view is of what the Chinese have achieved in the last few years. The unprecedented economic growth has made it possible to create all this. For example, the Pearl of the East is the highest television tower in Asia with a height of 468 meters. From afar, all this is reminiscent of the scenery of the eighties for a fantastic film about the distant future. The pearl of the East is the third highest in the world. Metal detectors are installed at the entrance to the tower. Precautions are never superfluous. Speed elevators are raised to a height of 350 meters. There is a circular observation deck, or rather two whole ones — open and closed. From here it is most convenient to observe the city, hundreds of the newest skyscrapers and old buildings of European concessions on the Bunda embankment. However, the Chinese government probably wanted to achieve such an effect, because Shanghai is a special city.
Its history embodies both the greatest pride and the greatest shame of the Chinese people. In 1842, the Chinese Empire suffered a crushing defeat in the first opium war. The signing of the Treaty of Nanjing means that from now on the vast country is open to Western capital. In addition, the Chinese were obliged to establish customs privileges for foreigners and open five new ports. Shanghai was the first among them. By the way, at the same time the British were given Hong Kong, but that's a completely different story.
Since then, Shanghai has actually become a Western colony. The British, the French, the Germans, the Americans — they all divided the city into spheres of influence. So came the Bund, the core of the city, a foreign district built on the swampy bank of the Huangpu River next to the old Chinese Shanghai. Thanks to the billions of dollars in injections from Western countries, the city is becoming a real center of South Asia — financial, industrial and economic. It is no coincidence that Shanghai has been dubbed Eastern Paris — thousands of adventurers and entrepreneurs are eager to get here. Residents know neither sleep nor rest. At the beginning of the XX century, urban skyscrapers lined up here, the same ones that are now lost in the new urban development. Of course, who would notice the former buildings of the Indochina Bank, British consulate or Glenn-Lin Building, when the highest skyscraper in Asia rises on the other side of the river, the hotel has 88 floors. And the whole city is entangled with hundreds of kilometers of above-ground multi-layered highways. The Chinese simply couldn't think of a better historical background for their phantasmagoria new buildings.
In the pavilion of heavenly kings, Milefu, a cheerful fat Buddha, Maitreya, is smiling happily.
In a small hall on the second floor there is a stunning two-meter statue of a jade Buddha. It is carved from a single piece of greenish smoky stone.
Another solid jade statue is located in the side pavilion — the rest of the dive — and depicts a Buddha immersed in a nirvana. There is always silence here.
Despite all the new buildings and reconstructions, there are still areas of European influence in Shanghai. Some neighborhoods are surprisingly similar to Paris or London. This is probably why the Chinese call Shanghai the most non-Chinese city in the country. In one of the quiet Europeanized streets we came across a monument to Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. He has a very difficult fate. He was put up three times and demolished twice. One time it happened during the Second World War, and the other — during the cultural revolution. What Alexander Sergeyevich did not please the young Red Guards, we can only guess. But today all this is in the past, as well as concessions, and Red Guards, and the Gomindan, and the Shanghai Triad, and much more. There is only a huge, cosmopolitan city left, which has absorbed all the best of all the periods of its difficult history.