Its almost like it was in Jakarta. You step out and you will become all wet immediately.
Last days in Beijing was rainy. When it rains the weather is very similar to the European climate. Especially in the early morning. When I arrived to Beijing it was 5:50am. Time of sunrise. It looked like a yellow disc on the sky but its mirror-image was deep orange in the risefields and on the roofs of some buildings.
When I left Beijing it was early morning, too. It was strange to see that huge city being so silent and moveless. Just a few people were around walking with their dogs or preparing to open their stores. Due to the rain we had last night, the air was fresh and very nice cool.
In the controversion arriving to Shanghai where the population is like 17 millions I faced the mass immediately. Gosh...almost two times more inhabitant then in Hungary...and it is just a city.
Shanghai is exaclty like I expected. In some terms its the city of the future. When I saw the downtown first time leaving he subway at LUJIAZUI I felt like: Ohh I arrived.
In front of me I could see all around large glass palaces with the strange light blue sky in the background.
The Shanghai sunset creates this blue which fits very well to the high-tech feature of the downtown. The gate I left the subway was to the east and when I turned around I almost felt down.
The huge Tower....called Oriental Pearl TV Tower was in front of me. With its lighting globes and with the loud music from there it seemed to be a temple inviting people for celebration. And people seemed to accept the invitation. Within minutes it became dark and the lights of the downtown became even more active. Thousands of people were standing along the river HUANGPU in front of the very European buildings of the Bund witnessing the night-lights of Shanghai. Looking at them I felt like in Budapest at the firework of August 20. But in this case the background looked like Geneva in Switzerland and the attraction which brought the thousands of people there were the lights of Shanghai.
Some later I was thinking why big metropolices affect me like this? The lights? The clean environment? The modern features and gadgets like huge lighting adds, modern air-conditioned subway, cars, cameras, cellular phones, ipods? The mass itself? I dont know the answer...maybe all of them and none of them at the same time.
Some says malls and modern downtowns with their lighting adds are all about to force people to buy, to spend...destroying the ancient cultures in the name of the new God: MONEY. Those by saying this are usually concern about the people who are excluded from all these. For example about the 500 millions Chinese living in the rural area dealing with agryculture with a yearly income which is likely not enough for a dinner on the top of this Oriental Pearl Tower.
So what if the tower doesnt exist? What if no lights in the downtown, no malls, no good cars, no cameras? Just next 500 millions poor Chinese living on a few yuan a day. The square in front of the tower was full of people who most likely couldnt afford the entry ticket to the Oriental Pearl. Why they were there?
Because they wanted to take part in it.
In Budapest I recognized long time ago that McDonald`s is full with teenagers who doesnt have any money. They are just sitting there over their schoolbooks with a Coke for hours at times. Why? Is it good for them to face that they cant efford the huge bigMac? is it good being frustrated? Actually they are not. They go there just like the people on the square at the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai....just like me....
To take part in it.
All these people belive what they see is their future or even their present. And they do it with a good reason. Some elder people...even some mothers with their children were standing there at the fence trying to catch some moments, to see what is going there at the tower, looking over the bushes with a realistic believe that what they were seeing was their future. Because they knew exactly what was here just 30 years ago. And who knows what will be here in 30 years?
So because of this belief I think Shanghai is the city of the future.
And you know, I love my city. I love Budapest which looks in a similar summer night like a part of a fairy tale. But being here I understood something again about our Eastern-European culture. Nice to show and being proud of our XIX. Century features.
And here I mean not only the surrounding historical buildings in the city but the whole little regressive culture we have, too.
But where is our future? I had to come to Shanghai to see it. I have created a short video of Shanghai:)
