Above Shanghai
May 2nd, 2007 by Michael Max
All you notice from the street is that there is a suggestion of the sun. The noise and dust of destruction mixes seamlessly with that of manufacture and construction. The extent of the manmade white fog is unknowable from the street. But, it is a different story 87 floors up.
The international trade building just east of the Yellow River, is in the new financial district that speaks Western development, but can not shake the food carts and litter. The wide boulevards with built in barriers to channel traffic are useless against the Chinese habits of wheels. The observation deck on the 88th floor sports a view of the “Pearl of the Orient”, Shanghai’s version of a modern obelisk. But, the Cloud Nine room on the 87th floor offers a free elevator ride up, a place to sit and wonder at how the power of human imagination can conjure such a structure, and a cup of aromatic coffee for a few RMB less.
On the 87th floor the sun shows as a pale yellow orange disk, and the extent of the exhale of commerce and free for all market dynamics looks like a thousand years of lost dreams.
There is no sunset, it disappears into the cotton sky, as Shanghai lights itself up like an infinite pinball machine. Nightime in Asia is the complete reverse of America, where we leave the interior lights burning bright for no one. In China, the buildings are dark within, but neon blossoms and breaths life on architecture, and floodlights spill color into concaves and curves. It is as if American buildings wear a peasant Mao jacket, while Chinese buildings dress themselves in attraction and tease, like young women wanting the lingering gaze.
Far above the gravity of the commotion of the Chinese labor day. Where the working class gets a week of vacation, instead of our weekend plus a day. Shanghai swells its millions by a factor that renders the subway ventilation system useless against the push and claustrophobia of those who have come to celebrate the holiday in a city that pulsates opportunity and hope.
The quiet 87th floor of the newest temple to commerce and exchange, offers a moment of respite and vision, gives a counterbalance of contradiction to the usual 3D chaos of Chinese streets, and lingers like the scent of a lover, a reminder that eternity is ever present.
