Shanghai, China... help!
Swayze
14,705 Posts
I know a couple of posters here have played the city. I'm going on the 12th through the 17th with a day long excursion into Beijing. I hear there are no record stores so... Any recommends for food, shopping, bootleg dvds, communist memorablia, donkey shows, street fairs, little tiny acrobatic people that can tie knots with the legs and shit, snake head ice cream and what have you.please to hollering back.
Comments
There are no record stores. I'm completely serious. A city of 10,000,000 and no wax. Fuck the Cultural Revolution.
Holler at my boy: Gary Wang
He's mad cool, China's first DMC champion, speaks English, Japanese, Mandarin and Shanghainese fluentely and is pretty much the nicest local dude you'll meet in Shanghai. He's actually opening up a space there to teach Shanghai youth how to DJ and he's been instrumenting as a promoter in bringing over a bunch of American hip-hop DJs and other artists to Shanghai. I think Shadow might actually go out there to do a gig with him.
In fact, if you're a really upstanding dude, bring over some new (good) hip-hop 12"s or reissue funk joints. He rocks Dildo??? most of the time but appreciates any actual vinyl he can cop. In return, I promise that he'll point you out to the hot places to eat. The two times I've been out there to visit my parents, Gary took me to some of the illest eateries I've ever had anywhere. He also knows where the best bootleg DVDs spots are at.
In the meantime, here's a Shanghai primer I wrote after my first trip: http://www.o-dub.com/travel/shanghai/
Here's the Cliff Notes version:
DO GO TO:
*The Bund. It's worth it just to look at the insane Pudong skyline.
*Shanghai City Planning Museum/Building. The scale model of the entire city (which takes up an entire floor) is
*Shanghai Museum. The whole museum takes a lot of time to go through but the calligraphy exhibit is pretty impressive, as is the pottery wing.
*Xiangyang Market. It's the main one in central Puxi, pretty easy to get to. You can cop most of your Communist-era merchandise there (but most of that shit is bootleg anyway). Read my notes on haggling. Even if you don't speak Mandarin, you'll do fine with fingers. But seriously, the most powerful way to haggle is to walk away. 9 times out of 10, they'll chase you down and drop the price on whatever.
*Yuyuan Temple. I'll warn you now: it's a fucking tourist trap in a lot of ways but it's still worth the trouble. The xiao long bao place will ALWAYS have a ridiculous line but honestly? The dumplings are pretty fucking good.
AVOID:
*Pudong. There's nothing of real interest there except for crazy skyscrapers. Some decent restaurants but nothing you can't find in Puxi. Jinmao Tower might be tall but seriously, with the smog, you can't really see much on the observation tower.
*Anywhere that ex-pats hang out. Don't be there. Seriously. Hanging out at Xin Tian Di is like visiting LA and going to The Grove.
More questions: holler.
The thing is: even the records that do exist are not going to be useful listening for anyone unless you have a thing for cheesy pop or Communist propaganda LPs. If you're shopping for samples, you might find some stuff but it's not like you're going to find soul or psych heat out there.
Thanks for the info Odub! I will definitely hook up with dude. And as far as communist propaganda lps? I'm down as long as bringing them back doesn't put me on some list (which it will).
There's a ridiculous amount of money floating aboot Shanghai, folks seriously don't know how to spend it. You'll see a lot of rich folks going all oot, looking very gaudy. Also the boutiques are in full effect, all the big names have 2-3 locations in the city, so if you want to get your dapper on.....
I have a frond working there, I'll ask him for more info.
http://www.shanghaiist.com/
Its been asked before, I will ask again. Is there anything that you do not know?