It wasn't long ago, but it's really history - the 90s in Shanghai. The city has changed so much in the last thirty years that some hardly recognize it. Today the world applauds modern Shanghai, visits the city, marvels at skyscrapers and luxury consumption that is concentrated in few places on earth as here. Even people who would never have considered traveling to China 15 years ago are here now to see what everyone is talking about. The old Shanghai has been a bit lost due to the boom. Many feel this loss and you don't even have to be old for that, since the previous developments lasted less than half a human life. In 2021, a gastronomic area was set up in the basement of the modern Raffles shopping mall on the North Bund, where you can experience old Shanghai, the Shanghai City Mart. You can reach it by subway line 12, station: Tilanqiao. Dining options, food stalls, etc. are lined up there, with the associated seating in between. The rest is undoubtedly scenery, and many skeptics will chime in with the nagging comparison to Disney Worlds, but apparently there's a need to experience the old. And it's apparently well done, with many visitors taking photos and filming, parents showing their children what a telephone is or how chestnuts were roasted by the roadside, and twenty-somethings expressing memories of childhood and growing up in such an environment are. As a visitor, what strikes me again and again is the importance of bicycles, sewing machines, telephones, radios and warm containers for transporting food, called "Henkelmann" in Germany. Bicycles and sewing machines were status symbols in China for a very long time and today they might equate to a car and a condominium. The entire area is not small, but covers about 3000 square meters. It's not just a square around which everything is arranged, but it conveys the character of a small neighborhood with streets, squares and houses. And since it's winter right now, everything is covered in snow decor.
What struck me most was that thirty years ago, only Chinese lettering was used. Pinyin only became relevant with the learning of foreign languages and the keyboards of typewriters. Outside of this historically designed area, the Latin script dominates in the Raffles Mall.
But the world of glittering shopping malls is only "one" part of Shanghai. There are some parts of the city where development is more delayed. Especially if you leave the city center. Even downtown there are some districts that have been listed as historical monuments because of their particularly nostalgic atmosphere, such as Tianzifang.
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