8/28/2005 06:52:00 PM|||The Zen Master|||I was in Shanghai for a few days this week on a short vacation. I left suitably impressed by the city's expanse, its modernity, its vibe that stands out against the staid hesitance of most of the rest of China, even by how very different it seems from Beijing, which is somehow more provincial and backwards. I stayed on the 70th floor of Jin Mao Tower, the fourth-tallest building in the world, at the Grand Hyatt, and out the window of my room the famed TV Tower dominated the middle-ground of the panorama, while the postcolonial relics of the Bund hovered above the opposite shore of the Huangpu River. Skyscrapers of varying degrees of imaginative design faded into the distance almost to the hazy horizon. On the other side of town, the blossoming district of Xintiandi, which stands in the former French Concession, transported me with its small shops and pedestrian streets to some nonexistent European city. M on the Bund wowed me with culinary stylings worthy of a New York setting (but still at Chinese prices)--a Continental menu, impressive wine list, incredible fresh-baked breads, and desserts composed of ingredients vastly more appealing than red bean paste. Shanghai really is a whole other world from the rest of China.

Still, some things persist despite the steady flow of big money, and the Chinese worldview is one of them, albeit with certain more cosmopolitan accents. Shanghai's taxis all bear a list of rules and regulations on the back of the driver's compartment. That these appear in both Mandarin and English is one point that differentiates the city, but their content connects it to a broader Chinese paradigm. Item number seven in a list of twelve was my favorite, and the one that really emphasizes how the Chinese mindset is distinct from what we're more used to in the West. In the various translations employed by the different cab companies, I saw two versions of it, both of which make my point: "No schizophrenics or drunkards to take the taxi without a guardian," and "No psychos or drunkards to take taxi alone."|||112583237595874161|||China's greater metropolis