Xiaonanmen

   I had always wanted to come to Asia. It’s not a secret that Japan is and will always be my priority and my weakness, but I really wanted to set foot in the Asian Giant and walk in these streets so different than the ones I know. I wanted to como to China and experience it by myself, and when I had the opportunity I didn’t hesitate and jumped into this adventure that sometimes I find myself trying to assimilate.

Contrasts

   I don’t know much from China, I have to be frank, apart from Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou or Xi’An I was completely lost with this country, but that was not a reason to stop. Avoiding the advices from my good friend Flapy, I ended up at Shanghai, the most international city in China and the one where the progress in the last 20 years has been really fast, so fast than the old people sometimes get lost because they do not recognise their own city.

Market

   From the begining, something was not good between Shanghai and me, because, yes, a lot of luxurious buildings, modern, but... Where was the REAL Shanghai? Where the streets in which you can see the sky? Where the kids playing? Well, I found it, with the good help of my friends and by a mistake when we were looking for a Christmas Market, the one we still think it never existed.

   This market was supposed to be next to something called “Cool Docks”, and Google Maps told us to go next to that fake beach at the Bund, where the water from the Yanpu River is “clean”. Trying to get there we went trough this area that any laowai reached before, or so it seemed by the way people looked at us. If you want to visit this pinturesque area, just take Line 9 to Xiaonanmen and there, you have to walk a little bit and you’ll be in what should be the closest thing to the real Shangahi.

Xiaonanmen

   This is an area with old and ruined houses, some even without roofs, but it’s still alive and fighting with the clock, because that Sunday afternoon we move to the streets and it was a neigborhood very busy. Across the street, just changing to the other sidewalk , there are enormous and luxurious buildings, but they have something in common: they are empty.

   The neighborhood of Xiaonanmen will be soon the foundations for new siblings for these big buildings, because this neighborhood is a small rock in the new Shanghai,  in the race that Shanghai is racing against modernity.

  

   Most of people looked at us puzzled, because maybe a few foreigners wanted to go there, but after 2 minutes they went back to their own business. Without mentioning the famous electric bikes from Shanghai, we could enjoy what might be called a part of the Old Shanghai, where the shops are outside, the doors of the houses are wideopen, people eat at a small wooden table on the sidewalk, with the wash machines on the street…

Dinner

   You could think poverty is everywhere in this neigborhood, when you look at the houses and only with a small wind they can crumble, but then you see that they have a good car, so maybe life it’s not that bad. Only in China. You can see chicken hanging from the windows, hens on the street waiting for being the dinner, children following us everywhere…Anecdotes that made that freezing Sunday in December deserve it.

    Eventually we arrived at Cool Docks, but there was nothing, because the market was in EAST DOCKS (thanks Nate for misinformation!), So we went to the Shanghai’s fake beach, some photos of the famous skyline of Shanghai from another angle, we set out to retrace our steps, but this time we decided to try the other way, less "picturesque" and where I could take one of my favorite photos from that afternoon.

Shanghai 2013

 Family Mart signboard was the signal, because we were living in a time that was not ours, and this signal was inviting us to the reality that it is always running and will not stop not even to tie their shoes.

    Are these types of neighborhoods, of images that I want to capture, not only the tall skyscrapers that everyone sees. I’m looking for the hidden China in Shanghai, the real one, which was lost in crystals and high construction cranes, which many people hate because it’s dirty,  because it is not in a book. It’s not so hard to find, but if it is easy to overlook. This is the China that want to know. 

If you want to see more pictures from that evening, check my Flickr