#51 China – Life with 23 million people

Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world; its population estimated as of 2011 at 23 million, I haven’t got a chance to know all of them yet 🙂
Shanghai is probably the best example to show the transformation of China over the past 3 decades. Shanghai’s modern architecture rivals what you would see in any western city like Toronto or New York. The subway system is very efficient, 12 subway lines and there are more lines being constructed. The traffic jams are not as bad as I would have expected from a city with a huge population like this. However, the subways are always full, very few subway lines are less crowded and the train frequency just like in Taiwan is every 3 minutes. I felt life is very stressful here; the social manners or etiquette are very different than a western society. People will push you, cut in front of you just so they can get in or get a seat before you. Spitting is a frequent problem. It’s good they have signs at the train stations to discourage people from spitting but it’s very frequent scene in the streets, and many men and some women do that. When I was in Taiwan I noticed people will cover their mouth when speaking on the phone while in the subway or in the street, but here in Shanghai you can hear the conversation of someone very loud. Another thing I noticed, in Taiwan, Hong Kong or London when taking the escalator the passengers will stand on one side and will leave the other side for other passengers who’re a hurry. There are also some stairs that are marked with an arrow to go down, but you will see many people are taking it in the opposite direction. I saw many cars or scooters drive in the opposite direction and sometimes run the red lights. If you’re trying to cross the street you need to watch out, pedestrians priority is always ignored. Smoking indoors is not prohibited and it’s up to the business owners to decide allowing it on their premises, except in subway stations and public transportation. Ironically, I saw some western expats who seem to adapt to some of these bad habits.