The greatest of all these colonies was Shanghai. Where the great Yangtse River finally comes to the sea, Shanghai was an ideal trading port for greedy imperialist foreign nations, and the city they built has become the most powerful and rich city in China today. To Chinese people, Shanghai's success represents a victory over the colonists. To me, however, as an initiate of China uncomfortable with my own inheritance from a culture of thieves, Shanghai is the most striking symbol of the defeat of Chinese morale in a country which, despite the glories entitled to China, is still somewhat under the spell that the Europeans cast there: that if the Chinese are to succeed in the world, they must think like Westerners. Shanghai is to me a place where China is ashamed of being Chinese. It is the symbolic capital of the lack of confidence that holds China away from world pre-eminence.

This is not to belittle the accomplishments of the people of China, or of Shanghai. Shanghai's emerging power is indeed a testament to the perseverance and strength of China's people. But there is an important difference between Shanghai and the other major Chinese economic centres I'd visited. Whereas in a city like Beijing there is also an atmosphere of development and relative wealth, it is an atmosphere that is unmistakably Chinese in flavour. I saw a cultural continuity between small towns like Zhangjiakou and with the capital. In Shanghai, however, the atmosphere of a rapidly growing economy has none of that, and I rather fear that when Shanghainese suggest that people from other Chinese cities are a little too backward, they are essentially saying that those people are a little too Chinese. It's almost as if Shanghai people see China's future as being transformed into something foreign.

By the time I reached Shanghai I had lived in China for almost nine months, had visited a total of 17 Chinese cities, and had a solid command of basic Chinese. But in every place I had seen, I had been dogged by a deep awareness of distance from China, that this country that I had grown to respect and love was one that would always see me with suspicion and mistrust. Every country has some sort of bias towards foreigners, but with China this is a barrier on the scale of the Great Wall, impossible to scale from the outside, and one that is largely the fault of the arrogance with which foreigners have treated China for centuries. As Steve and I walked along the world famous Bund on the morning of our arrival, and witnessed its intoxicating parade of old European architecture, I found myself growing increasingly uncomfortable. The fascinating thing about the Bund is the contrast between the century-old colonial constructions on the left bank of the Huangpu river, and the space-age modern skyrises on the far Pudong bank; what is most striking, however, is that the architecture on neither side is characteristically Chinese. I knew the basic history of the city, and to see American businessmen in expensive suits wandering self-importantly between these buildings that were once central to Chinese oppression, I had to wonder at their gall. Why hadn't these buildings been torn down after Chinese liberation? Did the Chinese people really think so lightly of their history? The Bund seemed to be resonating with the weight of European shamelessness.

At the centre of the Bund is the old Cathay Hotel, now called the Peace, which has long been the symbol of everything decadent about Shanghai. A century ago, the spiritual arteries of Shanghai were giddy with toxins: countless brothels and opium dens neighboured gambling houses supervised by an emerging Black Society. Wealthy Chinese were ruined there, and the poor were exploited as coolies, ever subservient to the Japanese Bluecoats, British Tommies and American Navy boys, all boozing their way through wretched whorehouses, undoing China's lost and beautiful daughters. The Cathay was where foreign aristocrats, celebrities and wealthy traders could take champagne and watch the splendid decay from behind high glass windows. It was an opulent palace of the abhorrently immoral, the creation of a British Iraqi weapons & drug baron called Victor Sassoon, whose criminal empire had subjected much of the city. The guests of the hotel, however, preferred to remain oblivious to their responsibility for the moral chaos outdoors, instead spending their evenings getting tipsy and swaying in frivolous dance to the nightly jazz performances in the parlour. Walking past the Peace hotel, I could almost hear the jazz strains echoing still across the marblework, anthem to a freedom for Westerners based on the humiliation and degradation of the Chinese. Nowadays a jazz band still plays there in evening shows that wistfully reinvent the history of the hotel, evoking imaginary lost days of former glory. Tourists who come to listen are probably unaware that for every brick upon which the jazz swiftly reverberates and plays, there is a whole Chinese family lost to opium. They had no choice in their addiction: when the Chinese tried to refuse the import of opium, British ships shelled Chinese ports until they accepted the trade.
 
 

After liberation in 1949, the performance of jazz had been banned until, in the 90's, Shanghai began to invite the foreigners back. In opening her economy, China has reversed track once again, attempting to repair years of insularity and foreign distrust. But in doing so, China has had to face again the arrogance of a league of presuming foreign faces. Now, Shanghai hopefuls idolise foreign countries with two-car families and two-storey houses filled with gaudy trinkets, and forget that the foreigners of those lands spent centuries removing this wealth from Chinese shores, loaded onto galleys moored at the Bund, and imported in return the opium that their great-grandfathers wasted themselves on. Ask any of these young disciples of the West who is to blame for China's slow development, and they will point to their own people for not being 'open minded' enough. Nowadays in Shanghai, the most coveted jobs are in those companies owned by foreigners, attracted to doing business in China by the prospect of cheap labour. Once again, the value taken out exceeds the value returned. The graduates who take these jobs are grateful for the advantage over other Chinese job seekers. But the party most disadvantaged is still China Herself.

We checked into another old, stately hotel now renovated to include backpacker accommodation, the Pujiang, formerly known as the Astor. The foyer retains the pompous colonial ostentation of the time when it was built, high ceilings and dark wooden panelling, chandeliers and pillars. We booked a dorm and took the old lift and winding corridors and a thin, out-of-the-way staircase up to the room, where a few other unshaven European travellers were reading thick travel guides on the bunks. I was exhausted and was pleased to find an adjacent bathroom, tiled over in white, with a bathtub. There was no plug, but Steve discovered that the water glasses in our room fit snugly into the hole, so I ran the piping hot water and locked myself in. I stripped as the room filled up with steam and opened the window a crack to look outside. It was a foggy morning, and I could see over the sloping roofing of the hotel, across over the neighbouring Russian embassy, also of colonial design, and through the thick mist over the Huangpu River of the Yangtse Delta. In the fog, I could just make out the orbs of the Oriental Pearl Tower on the distant bank; otherwise, there was nothing to distinguish the scene from that of a century gone by, and little to distinguish me from a British guest who might have bathed himself then, in that room, himself too looking out over the river in the mist. I lay in the hot bath, trying not to kick out the glass tumbler in the plughole, and wondered about the attitudes towards the Orient of my grandfather's time, and how much of my own passion for China perhaps resembled them.

The East has always been exoticised for Westerners, represented as a strange and mysterious continent of unfathomable mystery. Centuries after it came about, this rather simplistic myth still holds power in the Western world. We still depict China as being populated by wizened old men and subservient girls in pigtails, and we still regard a Westerner's ability to use chopsticks as a sign of erudition. In travelling through China, I had resolved to be open to the reality of the country rather than impose my own preconceptions, and so I am as uncomfortable with exoticised accounts as I am with uninformed criticism of China. Indeed, the most striking aspect of all of my experiences in China was that there was never anything that seemed especially incomprehensible about life there. Both Westerners and Chinese like to assume that a foreigner can never truly understand Chinese culture - this is patently untrue. Different circumstances give rise to different cultures, and understanding between nations requires much patience. But there is nothing that can be done by humankind that cannot strike a harmonic in a foreign heart that comes to learn. Those who can't understand are those who just can't see the real value in trying.

Throughout my travels in China, people had stared at me as I passed, sometimes with surprise, sometimes with envy, and at times with disapproval. At times I had been seen as an opportunity, but I was rarely seen as just another man. I never liked being looked at, but in a way I felt it was deserved, for I am ultimately a product of a civilisation that has caused China great disadvantage. There were times when I wanted to apologise for my own privilege: but there, soaking in a steaming hot bath in a century-old hotel, I was enjoying yet another luxury at a cost that seemed inexpensive to me, but was unaffordable to most Chinese.

The only defence I could make was in my study of the Chinese language. In my mind at least, to attempt the language of the place you have travelled to is a mark of respect. I had taught English at Guan Ya in Shenyang, and if I had not made a genuine attempt to study Chinese as well, I would have been just another one of the troops keeping up the work of the colonists who wanted to make everywhere England.

I respect linguists, they're useful in that they can open real channels between otherwise isolated cultures. To learn a language is really to take away from oneself some of the ignorance that is the root of friction between nations.

Complete knowledge of humanity is a fantasy, and a foolish goal. And yet, where one might take the opportunity to unearth further data, where one might choose to seek instead of remain with a prescription of knowledge lazily achieved, where one might attempt experiences wider than those immediately accessible, then surely this is to allow oneself to be a more able channel of the civilisations of the Earth.

A while later, Steve and I were back on the Bund and ready to take a closer look at the city. I had to admit that I knew more about the history of Shanghai than I did about the city as it is today, and neither of us had much of a clue on what we wanted to see there. After half an hour of wandering along the riverside dodging hawkers selling knick-knacks of no value whatsoever, we sat resting near a flower garden at the roadside, looking again at the line of European facades. The garden was near a large air conditioning duct that sucked fresh air into the car tunnel beneath the rivers. The grate over the duct was covered with what looked like little white flowers - and two young girls were leaning over it picking them off. On closer inspection, the white flowers turned out to be butterflies trapped by the airflow. The girls were gently lifting the butterflies by the wing and tossing them into the air.

We headed for Nanjing Road, the main shopping mall of Shanghai, hot and teeming with tourists. The side streets proved to have more character, but we decided to get on the subway and head further out in search of the French quarter, which a guidebook had described as very picturesque. We were not sure we'd got off at the right station, and couldn't see anything particularly endearing about the buildings in the area which may or may not have been the site of the old French colony in Shanghai, and so we instead tried to walk our way back towards the river. We were a couple of hours in wandering through the streets: it may have been seen as wasted tourism, but we tried to enjoy something of the pulse of genuine Shanghai. Long, grey avenues stretched out in the shadow of countless motorway overpasses. It became clear very quickly that Shanghai is far too massive to be appreciated in such a casual manner.

Then, when wandering past a bus stop, we asked directions of a young woman and got into conversation. She was a sports instructor at a local gym who was also studying at a university in the North of the city - although she had a curvaceous and feminine figure, her light summer clothing revealed her to be exceptionally muscular in build. She introduced herself as Snow. We had been planning to go back to the hotel, but Snow instead invited us to take a look at her university and have a meal together at a restaurant near campus. Without better plans, we happily agreed.

The visit was a good excuse to get out of Shanghai's city centre and see the suburbs. On the bus to the university my attitude to Shanghai warmed considerably. It was the notorious history of the city that was making me feel awkward, but outside of the central streets, Shanghai revealed a different side. Shanghai is a great city, and great cities are multidimensional. In the areas where everyday Shanghainese carry out their lives, I felt that I could detect a genuine and distinct flavour that is Shanghai's own. Perhaps it is this which attracts those travellers who fall in love with Shanghai.

When we arrived at the university, I was immediately reminded of the peaceful existence I'd just a few days before left behind in Jishou. Somehow universities manage to invoke a comfort in the presence of scholasticism that is identical on campuses the world over. It is perhaps that they represent the best of human endeavours.

Snow called by her dormitory to pick up a friend and we four of us walked through the broad, grassy streets of the university environs, busy under the evening sky with mopeds and casually dressed students, and found a restaurant that served good local hotpot. We had a filling meal and fun conversation, and the girls decided they'd escort us back to the city so that we could all visit a nightclub together. This would involve breaking their strict curfew, but my experiences at Jishou had taught me that this was not uncommon for Chinese students nationwide.

We eventually found ourselves on the dancefloor of one of Shanghai's trendier discos in a chic area not far from Shanghai's famous People's Park, the most well-known outdoor gathering point in the city and the site of the old British racetrack. Several DJs were poised above a brightly lit dancefloor, and the music was much less based on dance remixes of Chinese pop songs than that of other clubs I'd visited in other parts of the country. The young and irresponsible care nothing for history, and the huge, turning map of Japan projected onto the display screens in green laser light had nothing at all to do with the Japanese occupations and slaughters of 50 years before, and everything to do with young Chinese people's fascination with the country's crazy pop culture. We didn't need to buy any drinks and really enjoyed the dancing.

Later on we walked through the park to cool off in the night air, and with just the four of us we felt comfortable and at ease, and I forgot all about feeling like a foreigner. The mood didn't last: as soon as we left the park two floodlights switched on directed right at our faces, and five policemen leapt out from different directions, one seeming to descend upon us on a small motorbike as if from the sky. They questioned the girls intently, and our situation was not helped by the fact that I was the only person carrying ID. We'd of course done nothing wrong, but Steve and I, by virtue of being waiguoren in the company of young women, were under suspicion of whoring. The girls were scolded for breaking curfew and their names were taken, and once the police were satisfied that nothing was amiss, we were let be. We took a taxi back to the Pujiang, and I watched the passing lights of the city while feeling quite low in spirits. It was not so much that by virtue of my European face alone I had been assumed to be with a hooker, but rather that the behaviour of those foreigners who do quite openly employ the services of prostitutes gives the impression to the Chinese that white people come to Shanghai to purchase sex. It seemed that the majority of foreigners in Shanghai live as decadently as ever before.

We put the girls into a taxi back to their university once we'd arrived at the hotel. I later found out that only Snow had been strong enough to climb herself over the locked university gates: her frailer dormmate had stayed out the whole night at a net cafe until morning, standard refuge of students waiting out their curfew until morning.

After spending the night at the Pujiang, we decided to make a visit to the new high-tech Economic Zone right across the river, the sub-city of Pudong. Opposing the Bund, Pudong represents the new Goliath of Shanghai's economic power, with an unmistakable skyline of that features some of the world’s tallest buildings scattered out on the flat riverside territories like chesspieces. The King and Queen are the Jin Mao tower, at the time the world’s third tallest building and resembling both a jagged needle of broken metal and a space ship, and the Oriental Pearl Tower, a communications mast skewering two gigantic violet glass spheres. It was 50RMB to ascend either, and we elected to go for the Jin Mao, for the simple reason that it was taller.

The most appealing way to cross the river seemed to be by ferry, and some way down the Bund we found a terminal where a boat that was more a floating concrete platform than anything else crosses the waters every ten minutes, crowded with passengers and bicycles. For a few kuai we set out on the river, floating slowly away from the Bund. Ferries that had come down the Yangtse all the way from Chongqing were drifting on the river, white layercakes of wood and metal. It had been only a fortnight since I'd made my own journey through Central China's heartland on one of them.

The contrast between Pudong and Shanghai proper could not have been more pronounced. For a start, as Pudong is a relatively new area, it seemed to be largely unpopulated. We walked from the ferry terminal to the base of the tower, passing relatively few people. The architecture of the area is astonishing, and I was reminded of the megacities shown in Science Fiction films: Pudong beneath the Jin Mao Tower seemed to be a piece right off the Death Star.

Maybe the conspicuous lack of people around revealed an underlying pretentiousness about Shanghai that also disturbed me. The spectacle of the view of Pudong from the Bund is often touted as the face of China's new economy: if those awe-inspiring towers are in fact empty of people actually doing business, then the implication for me was that the Shanghai government had invested billions in structural development way ahead of schedule for the sake of that old Chinese obsession with gaining face, this time on an International scale. What use is face when there are people starving to death in your own country? Ten years ago, the Chinese were protesting about reform coming too slowly; in retrospect, rushing things can sometimes be just as damaging.

Soon, the elevator doors opened to the viewing level at the top of the Jin Mao. I walked to the window with great interest and was rather taken aback by the view. I make a point of visiting communications towers and the like wherever possible, as the aerial view of a city often gives a humbling perspective. But in all China I had never seen such an enormous metropolis as Shanghai, and until that moment had still not conceived of just how extensive the city network is. In every direction, Shanghai was a network of twisted roadways, massive asphalt cables, a grim lattice of wealth. Looking out at Shanghai, I felt a great respect for a city that has survived countless foreign intentions to overcome Her. However, it was obvious to me, as is often said by Chinese in other parts of the country, that Shanghai is infected with a tendency to over esteem all things foreign. In Chinese, this tendency is called chong yang mei wai, and this conveys the suspicion of many Chinese that Shanghai is starting to turn its back on the rest of China. In my eyes, the blame rests on those charlatans of civility who built the city in opium and stone.