Shanghai is a spectacular city in many respects.
As a showcase of China's economic development over the past two decades, there is probably no better example than the Pudong district of the city, just over the Huangpu River from the Bund, the old centre of town. Pudong was not there a decade ago, at least not in its present form. Then it was just a swampy farming district that supplied vegetables for the millions of woks across the river. Now it is home to the city's financial district, the world's tallest hotel, a spectacularly ugly television tower and a forest of skyscrapers. One problem in China's most populous city is that it is more often than not wreathed in dense, humid smog.