30 May 2005
8:36am
Spent most of last night wandering around along Nanjing Lu Road, a pedestrian-only avenue flanked on both sides by malls, hotels and restaurants for a good 2.5 kilometers. They have this cute mock-locomotive shuttle service that takes you from end to end for 2 RMB (or about 14PhP). This strip has 4 McDonald’s and 2 KFC’s as far as I can tell, and I spotted at least 2 BreadTalks and 3 big Haagen Dazs outlets as well.
There’s a crackling kind of energy here that’s hard to describe. People come at you from all directions and it’s hard to maintain a conversation when you’re constantly sidestepping runners, cyclists and other pedestrians. I’ve gotten propositioned once already, while dodging cabs and electric buses. Two local girls came up to me and asked me if I was alone, and if I wanted to hang out with them. I guess that must happen a lot here.
Can’t really imagine what it’s like to be living in a city that has new buildings the way most gardens get weeds. None of the buildings along Nanjing look older than a few years. One of the malls, The Shanghai Landmark, has a relatively small footprint but has over 10 floors of shopping.
Being a high-end kind of district means most of the stuff you see along Nanjing Lu could be found cheaper elsewhere, but the place is still packed with people. It’s more surprising when you consider that the minimum wage is only 800 RMB per month, but it also explains why most of the workforce has to make a daily hour-long commute from their residences in the city’s outlying areas.
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11:22 am
I’m at the Jade Exhibition Center getting my ass sold piles of overpriced jewelry.
Out on the street, 10-year-old kids throw little cardboard flyers in your face while you walk, or into your car as you drive by. Street vendors are on you as soon as you glance down at their wares. It’s the land of the Hard-Sell, and it scares the living crap out of me. These people could probably sell the proverbial ice block to an Eskimo.
It’s a different shopping culture altogether; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place that lets you haggle for up to 50% off of the sticker price, let alone an entire city.
I only gave myself a 500RMB allowance today, ended up spending most of it at the Exhibition, and it’s not even lunchtime yet.