KEY POINTS:
The old stately Victorian and art deco buildings along the Bund have gone funfair-electric. Gothic towers and Roman domes are luminous green, faux Greek columns submarine yellow and grand arched entrances are pearly white.
The fountain at the junction of Nanjing Road is hot pink and behind it
Chairman Mao, face kindly and wise, is forever set in stone. He is a golden ghost escorted by wildly bright trees that alternate between lurid green and electric
purple.
Above it all, pulsing beams of light pierce the sky. Great rays of blue fan out from behind the Peace Hotel and gold, green and white rays rocket from the
roofs of other ancient buildings. The criss-crossing kaleidoscope of colour slices through the steamy summer air and stretches across the Huangpu River to Pudong.
Pudong is also a surreal vision - a Star Trek city from another planet. The frosty pink bubbles of the Orient Pearl Tower and the 88 stories of the silver
Jinmao Building, sparkling like a stack of diamonds, are beyond modern.
Trading boats and barges slide up and down the river - slow and steady -
dark shadows on shimmying water. They are barely noticeable next to the dinner boats - four stories of nautical nuttiness with top decks resembling Chinese
temples. The curves and swoops of temple eaves are outlined in red, green and gold strings of fairy lights. Strands of jazz slip across the water from on-deck bands. Bright light illuminates people feasting in the decks below.
On the Bund a million people stroll along the wide tiled walkway between the
road and river. Old ladies with bandy legs lean on the arms of their daughters and beauties dressed in the very best of Shanghai-chic totter on high heels - slender, elegant and magazine immaculate.
Couples courting, tour groups following cerise flags held high by their leaders, an Elvis impersonator, people posing for instant pictures and cool, swaggering teenage boys; its all there on the Bund.
Soft rain comes from the direction of Pudong. It increases and space-city
merges with the mist. In an orderly helter-skelter a million people move. Many
disappear into the earth like ants. There are entrances to subways and tunnels under the road.
I shelter, huddled with others, under one of Mao's plastic trees. It's real I discover, but like most else here its gold and purple colouring is a trik with
lights.
The lights catch the raindrops like moving bead curtains. Mao looks on.
He would hate this, the excess, the razzle-dazzle, the ostentatious, opulent,
gorgeousness of a Shanghai night - everything he battled against.
The rain turns to a fine drizzle. I walk back to the lolly fountain and now, with the wet, everything has an extra coat of shiny. Light bounces off the road, the smooth pavement tiles, Mao's head and, in the micro, even the leaf-ends have tiny emerald drips.
Nanjing Road joins the Bund at right angles. Nanjing Road is main-street gone mad. Pedestrians and traffic share a road not designed for a city of 16
million people. Footpaths overflow and, at intersections, people-power
beats the traffic. The numbers build up and, at a certain critical mass,
crowds move forward as one, and the bicycles, busses and taxis stop.
A few blocks on Nanjing Road has been blocked to traffic and people reign
supreme. On Sunday afternoon there are millions of people here, shoulder to
shoulder in a frenzy of shopping, walking, laughing and looking. On this night, after the rain, there are not so many.
Lights of every colour dance, blasting Chinese characters on vertical shop-
front banners. Size, colour and brightness compete for eye-space. Some of the
blinking billboards are stories high. To the locals this neon extravaganza has
meaning; advertising brands, restaurants and shops. To me the squiggles
and dashes of Chinese characters are an unintelligible part of the exotic Shanghai night.
It's 10pm now. I'm hungry and sensory overload is getting to me. I find an upstairs restaurant where women wearing red qipao dresses, with shy smiles and red lips, greet me. I read the red and gold menu.
The selections are in characters with English translations below. Yes, pig's lung stew, cow's windpipe soup, pig's tripe with lotus seeds, spicy baby
turtle, and chilled sea slug salad. No, thank you.
I hail a cab. The driver navigates his way through the web of vehicles, driving
carefully on a slippery night.
At the hotel I try to tip him five yen. He looks at me accusingly, as if I am
offering a bribe and refuses to take it.
This is all part of the giant exotic enigma that Shanghai is to foreigners.
On my first night I find the Far East is seriously far out.