Shanghai was a forgotten, undeveloped city until Deng Xiaoping relaxed development restrictions on it in the early 90s. Today it is a sprawling hyper-opolis with a vertical skyline as distinctive as New York’s and a horizontal sprawl much wider than that of Los Angeles. Everywhere you look is construction — old buildings coming down and new, bright blue glass and steel buildings rising in their place. For miles outside of the city the landscape is a forest of bamboo scaffolding and yellow construction machinery as new suburban developments rise amidst the production plants and technology factories already located between Shanghai and Suzhou.

From the top of the Jin Mao tower, one of the tallest buildings in Asia, the city seems like an advertisement for all too-familiar names: Citigroup, Mercedes Benz, Sheraton, among others. Down at the street level tourist areas are indicated by forest green Starbucks signs, while even impoverished Shanghainese live under the golden arches of McDonald's and Colonel Sander's Kentucky Fried gaze. These are not the only proof of western style capitalism; a capitalistic hedonism is also in evidence here among the city’s new middle class. On a walk through the city one might be lucky enough to come across a Victoria’s Secret-esque fashion show of underwear, nighties and swimsuits; a “fake” market of high fashion knock offs (Gucci bags, etc.); an Ikea furniture store or a bookstore where you can buy a Bible or books on investing in the stock market. Shanghai has its own stock market, though on a visit the floor was empty because all of the trading is done online (the city is considering using the floor space for something new). Street vendors’ tables display a mélange of conflicting images that all have one thing in common — they have been commodified into cheap kitsch. Chairman Mao’s little red book lies next to ceramic tiles illustrating pornographic positions and a wooden Catholic rosary. The only evidence of communism appears to be in the state sponsored slogans flying from street signs and buildings, though even these boast of Shanghai's "modernization" (aka. "globalization" or "westernization").

As an introduction to China, Shanghai demonstrated that the Chinese are more than on their way to developing a capitalist market economy; they have one already, complete with a small though affluent upper middle class (called "golden collar" workers, as opposed to the lower middle class "white collar" workers) and a growing divide between rich and poor. In talks with native Shanghainese, Communism ranked up there with Confucianism and Buddhism — an old idea that people live with and, in a way, value, but that does very little to guide the decisions of their everyday life. People in Shanghai want what Americans want: their own cars, fast food, faster technology and celebrity fashion, and Western corporations are moving in to capitalize on this desire. The Communist government controls the news the Chinese receive, but it does not seem to mind Western commercials, fashion mags, movies, pop music and culture at large setting up shop in China’s cities. At quick glance Shanghai is another international city like New York, London, or Barcelona — only the small details of life, such as the multitude of bicycles and tea shops, set it apart as uniquely Chinese.

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