Dear Shaded Viewers,
Beniamino Marini’s reports in from Shanghai. We will have to wait for his illustrations. I am impatient to see them.
dear d
I landed this morning in shanghai after flying over russia and mongolia. at 7 am I could see beijing from 11.000 meters above. it’s as big as Belgium.
it’s my second time in China but everything seems already bigger and more crowded. Maybe because it’s May 1st and eveyone is not working in the factory. The Bund (which is the big road on the river where the shanghaiese go walking) was unwalkable.
From the Pudong airport there’s a new train that speeds up at 430km/h meaning that it takes only 8 minutes to do the distance from Charles de Gaulle to Chatelet. It’s unbelievable. The train was empty because it’s too expensive for the average chinese…
We are a party of four: Max and I, then my mother (who in with us as the “expet” on porcelain, and Michela, who works for Max at his office. A strange mix of people.
The river is yellowish.
Houses and high rise buldings, old narrow stinky streets, brand new department stores, art galleries, restaurants on top of buildings, enormous ships in the river full of containers going in and out China with the merchandise that is invading all the world.
It seems unhuman, all these people look like ants, all walking to nowhere all screaming all working or selling.
But it is human. You can feel the humanity of chinese people if you have a massage. Today I had a one-hour foot massage from a girl who was so strong I could cry. There is something they have in the way they treat the body that is very human, very natural and deep.
Now I am at the Grand Hyatt in my room at the 74th floor and I keep hearing the booohhhhs of the huge ships in the river and I can see the lights of workers building the skyscraper next door.
It’s the factory of the world and they are all strong workers. Don’t really know exactly why I am here again. Maybe just checking.
Tomorrow I have a few meetings with a couple of art and design gallerists for a story I will probably publish in september. I will tell you better in a few days.
I am thinking of going to Beijing for 3 nights: there’s a chinese contemporary art fair these days and the weather is much better. We’ll see tomorrow.
Thank you Beniamino, it’s been 20 years since I visited Shanghai and with your post, I feel like I am still there. Not that anything has stayed the same.
Later, Diane
