It’s a disconcerting scene. This morning at the Baker & Spice on the terrace at Baker & Spice; the owner drops by for a minute. café on Anfu Road, a stylishly dressed, long-haired man is How would you describe Shanghai in a word? “Fast,” he says, sipping his cappuccino on the terrace. A caviar-colored grey- and leaves as quickly as he came. hound at his feet is angling for a piece of his croissant. A child with a disability in a rickety old wheelchair appears, pushed by Full speed ahead To learn a bit more about this megalopolis, his father. They stop in front of the man to beg. The man pulls you’d have to be able to pause it, catch its silence, take its pulse. out his phone and appears to photograph them for a fewBut it’s too late for that. While others are frozen in a pose seconds, then calmly types something on his screen. You’re (Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo), Shanghai is rushing headlong stupefied. Yet he’s not being insensitive, and has merely scanned forward, elbowing its way as it goes, punching out, barely the QR code on the beggars’ card in order to send them money pausing for breath. The crush in the metro and buses isn’t a via Alipay. Welcome to Shanghai. The city plays jokes on you sign of rudeness; it’s just a philosophy of life: that of hurtling like this all the time. It certainly had you there. With a population forward, chasing the future, because what it holds is almost of 24 million already (3,800 per square kilometer), a metro within reach: happiness, wealth and health. The city is driven with 337 stations, and 46,000 restaurants (Paris has around by the special energy of new arrivals, the instinctive momen- 13,000), you begin to suspect it’s lying about coming of age tum of the elect. The year 2050 is just around the corner. around 160 years ago. Even ships have a hard time with this There will be 50 million inhabitants. The city could well be city. Once through the Taiwan Strait, it’s such a strange the leading financial center in the world. Elevators here are approach that you need to have double the number of sailors the fastest in the world. It takes just 55 seconds to reach on watch to reach the port. Navigating among the hundreds of the 118th floor of Shanghai Tower. At Longyang Road station, container ships, the shore seems close. Thousands of lights the Maglev train doesn’t need to pick up speed; it levitates— appear, suggesting you must have arrived. Wrong: it’s just magnetically—with a maximum possible speed of 500 kph (in the teeming fishing boats creating the illusion of a coastline. fact, 302 kph) on its way to Pudong airport. Shanghai is one of those cities that transports you instantly to a different world. It disarms you. It’s constantly inviting metaphor. Shared euphoria But don’t think that the city is rushing ahead At one of the many tiny restaurants lining Xiangyang Road blindly. Shanghai’s strength lies not only in its energy but in its and Fangbang Road, as you bring the bowl up to your face, openness. The port with its endless rituals has irrigated the city the pores of your skin dilate and your mouth waters in antici- with a constant flow of influences: British, Japanese, Russian, pation. Inside, the flavors continue to resonate with the song Korean and also French, whose vast Concession reflects the way of the sea, sweet mingling with sour. the city was shaped through these Which is the stronger, which will incessant comings and goings. And come out on top? You don’t need tosearch—you hold the answer to thisHurtling forward, what architecture has engraved instone is reflected in art and film. It rebellious, irreverent, cunning cityin your hands. It functions like achasing the future: has given women an insolent way ofdressing that would be unimaginable bell, constantly ringing out its past, happiness, wealth in Beijing. Fashion in Shanghai is replete with quotations, foreigners, and health. brazen, natural and audaciously passion. Charlie Chaplin loved it, impudent. Once again, it’s about probably because the people of bucking convention, staying one Shanghai loved him back. All those step ahead of the times and forging reflections with the vibrant lights can make your head spin. On your own path—always striving for accomplishment, be it in Xinhua Road, the French get a sense of déjà vu from the plane your work, the way you look, your desires, or sharing a meal of trees planted in the early 20th century by their compatriots to marinated hairy crab with ginger or durian tart. There’s a similar counteract homesickness. vibe in the kitchen. People here like to eat. They like to please and be pleased, like the variations and undulations that echo Surrounded by sounds You feel a desire to slow thingsthose of the river; and the binary resonances of hong shao pork, down, to try and make sense of things. It won’t be easy. Even braised in rice wine and spices, refined yet robust. It’s the hidden the temples are having palpitations, as people pray intensively, image of the city itself. Shanghai cuisine could be elusive and asking too much of them. Maybe a park will do. Let’s sit for dissimulated, as in Paris, but no, it’s direct (what a time-saver!). a while. No good: an amateur choir is belting out traditional It shoulders its way to the front, talks to you, shouts, laughs and ditties accompanied by a flute and a lute. Nearby, a group of breathes with panache. card players mutter to each other, while an elderly lady shouts into a phone for 30 minutes. Farther on, a flower vendor on The taste of boldness Art arrives here in furious gusts, injecting a bicycle almost gets knocked over by a car. The driver doesn’t fresh air into the city in the most singular ways. It continues to be stop, but the cyclist catches up with him: a magnificent exercise daring. The street fashion is supremely uninhibited. And then in dialectics ensues, complete with gestures and, one imagines, food, again. Paul Pairet, with his three Michelin stars, could never expletives, “as if he had a bee stuck under his tongue” (a local have pulled off in Paris what he’s doing here in a secret location, analogy). There are few onlookers—people are too busy doing a warehouse outside the city center. Here, during your three-hour other things. meal, every convention is turned upside down and inside out. This is 3-D cuisine, with all of its aromas, vapors and, above all, Keeping watch Shanghai never sleeps. As I write thesemusical vibes. As if tapping on your boiled egg could set off words, a ship in the harbor blares its foghorn. You stop for the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” In short, it’s memorable. a moment on the waterfront promenade of the Bund, but a The best thing to do is to put some distance between yourself policeman comes up and asks you to move on. He has to keep and the city. Hop on a bus—any bus—and travel to the end of things moving. In actual fact, there aren’t many policemen the line. Life returns to a normal pace. The city reflects itself in around. As in Singapore, thousands of surveillance cameras the irises of your eyes, letting you catch a glimpse of its moods, have created a disturbing paradox: policemen no longer need which are usually hidden behind its makeup. Everything’s been to blow their whistles; they just train their cameras. We’re still made clear. But can you understand what it’s saying? 153