On weekdays, scores of Shanghainese sit on benches eating box lunches in front of a giant video screen that documents the roller-coaster ride that is the city's stock exchange. One sculpture depicts a Western family, including a woman in a sundress, a man with a video camera hanging from his neck and a child on his shoulders holding several balloons. The man's arm is polished and shiny from the perspiration of all the Chinese tourists who have grasped it while posing for pictures. Nanjing Road's recent makeover mirrors the evolution of Shanghai, which has long been overshadowed by the capital, Beijing. With the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and a picturesque stretch of the Great Wall, Beijing is usually the first stop on any tourist itinerary in China.
Shanghai is sometimes an afterthought.
The city of more than 14 million lies an hour and a half flight south of the capital near the mouth of the Yangtze River and the East China Sea. With ambitions of becoming the New York of Asia, Shanghai is a sprawling, muscular port and financial hub. An uninterrupted string of boats, ships, containers and factories line both banks of the Huangpu River as it winds 16 miles from the city center to its confluence with the Yangtze. Like other major Chinese cities, Shanghai radiates out in all directions from giant office towers to the mammoth apartment blocks in its decidedly urban suburbs, which bear no resemblance to their green, leafy cousins in the West. The pace of change has quickened in the past few years with the development of an eclectic restaurant scene and thriving nightlife.