How high? ShangHAI!
Having never been to Shanghai before and eager to escape the Eskimo’s meat locker that is Beijing, I was thrilled when my friend Tao Yang invited me to wayfare around Shanghai for the weekend. We’ve walked miles around the old city, eaten the most unbelievable soup dumplings, and taken the requisite pictures in which Pudong Tower appears to be growing out of our heads (coming soon…).
As they say in Shanghai, 生活蛮好。 Life is pretty darn good.
oh RLY?! (lolz, by the way. Serious lolz.)
What I find so thrilling about Shanghai, apart from its reasonable temperature and welcome walkability, is the amazing cinematic quality of this city. Maybe it’s because my associations with Shanghai are all from movies (Admittedly, this is case with most places. My entire geographic knowledge of LA is based on the conversation Cher and Josh have in the car in Clueless.), but Shanghai’s reputation as a historic, romantic, dramatic city becomes strikingly apparent as you stroll through the old city. Shanghai has a charm (no matter how reproduced or manufactured, in some cases) that is rare in Beijing and the crowds of moter-bikes, low, stacked houses, and sprawling courtyards are more vivid and visual than any cinematic simulacra.
This Zhou Xuan is not the same as that Zhou Xuan…
This is a total film nerd’s dream*: We’re staying right on Suzhou River, have seen the Paramount Theater where the stars of the 1930s and 40s flocked, the 新世界 signs of old Shanghai, and seen the old gongyu (apartment) of many a famed Shanghai star, including Zhou Xuan. (It’s right beside the old residence of Eileen Chang, FYI. In case you were, you know, really curious about the proximity of residences of, like, famous Chinese women from the 40s involved in the arts…)
Zhou Xuan is looking fierce.
Maybe we’ve lucked out with exceptionally sunny weather, but the light has been soft and beautiful and hits the river and peeks through the clothes hanging out the dry everywhere in an incredible way. I’m certainly no photographer or cinematographer, but I’m all swoony over this light.
It’s all very touristy and fun and the perfect city for a bunch of cinephiles to go roaming around in.
*Okay, a Chinese film nerd, probs. On that note, I am totally missing meeting Jia Zhang-Ke by being here in Shanghai this weekend. I’m trying not to think about it.
This entry was written by , posted on November 22, 2009 at 7:09 am, filed under Uncategorized, adventures, art, chinese, film, style, travel and tagged chinese cinema, shanghai, suzhou river, zhou xuan. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.