Emptying the Haunted Air

TV is no less entertaining here than in Sydney.

So, today I arrived in Shanghai, after about two months of planning, and five years of dreaming on it. First impressions are that it’s an astonishing city, teeming with life and contradictions. Chinese militarism against the kitsch, neon Japanese katakana that illuminates some of the trendy downtown shops. Grey apartment buildings that look as deserted as something one might find in Pripyat, clashing with shiny hotels topped with jittering, animated signs. Shanghai seems more cinematic than picturesque – it’s all angles, foreground and background, shadows and light. The way colourful shadows get thrown about everywhere as cars drive past. The shadows of pedestrians getting swollen and mutated to epic proportions in the headlights of the bus that took me through the city. There’s light everywhere, reflecting and refracting in glass until you’re not sure that you can locate the source in the illusion.

There’s more trees that you’d expect, too.