frauke at large

Spend last weekend in Shanghai to catch up with friends and explore its streets some more. To my despair we are currently in the middle of typhoon season and heavy downpours followed me around throughout my trip; running for shelter, standing in passage ways and being forced to stop and appreciate my surroundings at length and in more detail enabled me however to find new alley ways with antique shops and observe some more extraordinary behaviour.

The view of Pudong during the day; the view of Shanghai from Pudong in the evening

On my walks through town I stumbled across two phenomena which I simply had to document and share. This first selection of pictures has the caption ‘sleeping on the job‘, something which seems to have been perfected right down to a ‘t’ in these parts of the world. It’s something that I have noticed many times in Ningbo and other parts of China before, but it was particularly photogenic this time in Shanghai. Granted it was 3pm, extremely humid and after several kilometers of walking, I felt somewhat sympathetic, still I have never seen it to be so wide spread as here.

 

The pictures were taken in Shanghai’s old town. It has several ‘antique’ streets and market stalls; a wonderful place to rummage around in and find all sorts of memorabilia, porcelain and other knick-knacks that are the left overs of China’s seemingly unstoppable change. The first one is my favourite. I have put antique in parentheses, as nothing here is really much older than about 50 years or so. The antique look has been applied to most things to ‘deceive’ the untrained eye, but really, you’d be hard pushed to find anything close to a Ming vase anywhere, particularly as almost all the ‘antique’ stalls offer the same product ranges … makes you wonder …

My next incredible discovery – well it’s not so much of a discovery as a observation – are the local barber shops which are scattered around the old town. There was one right at the beginning of the area, when you walk in from Xintiendi, right behind a big crowd of men betting on cricket fights; and the other was a little further down in amongst one of the many side streets. I found it whilst trying to find shelter from the rain. Brilliant or what? If you imagine that these guys have been cutting the hair of the people within this neighborhood for the part 50 years … imagine how many interesting stories they can tell … this is when I wish I could speak the language to delve deeper than just capturing the image.

 

 

Finally just a few more shots of Pudong’s landmarks and sky scrapers at night. The Shanghai World Financial Centre together with the JinMao Tower and the Perl Tower. The haze was extremely thick that night, but I think it adds to the flair and effect. The second image was taken about an hour after the first and already the difference of the tropical downpours are visible: less haze and pollution in the air.

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