Feedback after visiting Shanghai

Multiple reasons for me to visit Shanghai on my own. To attend industry event,to experience the Bund, to see some old friends,to learn about the ins and outs of working/living in this melting point of China, to see those Jewish community (if there’s any left!), to develop new acquaintanceship with the mainland Chinese…

Here’s a brief list of what I learn…You may judge me…I confess I don’t know many things but I promise you that I am always ready to learn what you think.

1. The Shanghai City has a huge system of underground metro, which is having around 400 of stations…New stations are under construction each day. Can you imagine the demand of transport capacity, in a city hosting a population of 25 billion?
2. The tallest building in Shanghai is the Shanghai Tower, 632m tall. It is the newbie of the skyscraper in this populous city. The industry event of which I attended here, as told by the Deputy Manager,was the first international conference ever took place.
3. It’s told that many expats working in Shanghai are polyglots. To survive here, excellent proficiency in Mandarin and English is a must. Quite a lot of young professionals working here are actually learning their third of four languages. I came and I realized this is true.
4. Everyone’s working very hard to pay their rent, including the construction workers. A lot of construction work is taking place, every day in Shanghai. Overtime of work is also common among the white collar.
5. However the public transport system doesn’t support the life style of a sleepless city, just like the way Hong Kong MTR and Kowloon Bus do.
6. Taxi drivers are pessimistic about the property bubble. Most of the taxi drivers I have talked to are non-Shanghais. They told me they felt happier to make a living here. Yet I didn’t satisfy with such. In the end, one or two of them would confess to me that salary is often failed to in line with the rising of housing cost.
7. Several attendees I have talked to, accidentally, all happened to share with me their vision of future economy in China : developing but it’s gonna to be a promising one. “Global economy looks bleak”, one gentleman sitting next to me shared his view about the world, “the world’s 500 largest companies are not growing.”
8. It’s safe for a woman to walk alone in the late evening of Shanghai City. Last trains of different route of metro are between 10:10pm and 10:40pm. Hiring a taxi on the streets of Shanghai at night is an arduous task. Get ready to use DiDi Chuxing, even Apple invests in Didi.
9. Alipay in China is just like Octopus in Hong Kong.
10. WeChat is the best communication social media in the mainland. It is told that the maximum number of WeChat contact is 5000.
11. Foreign companies are pushing into the Chinese market, you can read all the statistics online. They don’t test the water anymore — Chinese consumers are more open than before for new things.
12. Many more to talk about. I find myself not knowing many things.