---
type: Place
title: Shanghai
description: China's megacity of 25 million — the Bund, a marriage market where parents advertise their children, a 270 mph airport train, surveillance nobody minds, and the best duck Harry has eaten.
tags: [shanghai, china, city, skyline, marriage-market, surveillance, food, markets]
coordinates: {lat: 31.2313, lng: 121.4700}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Shanghai

[China](/countries/china.md)'s showcase megacity of some 25 million people.
The Bund riverfront is the classic hangout, facing the futuristic skyline
across the river — reached through a tunnel — where the Oriental Pearl TV
Tower offers glass-floor views that finally make the city's scale visible.
Young Shanghai skews single and social; the Bund crawls with TikTokers and
livestreamers running multi-phone rigs.

## What Harry did

Harry spent a day here on a rented date with a local: walking the Bund,
eating street food (his best jianbing yet), browsing a New York-feeling
Christmas market, going up the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and coaxing his
height-scared companion onto the glass floor, meeting subscribers who
recognised him, and visiting a famous, immaculately kept classical Chinese
garden.

## Practical facts

- Oriental Pearl TV Tower entry: $56 (from video – unverified), with an
  extra charge for the highest viewpoint, which Harry skipped.
- Payments are effectively Alipay-only — foreign bank cards barely work
  (see [China](/countries/china.md)).
- Police are friendly, and the city feels safe and low-crime.
- Popular spots (the tower, the garden) get very crowded on weekends.

## Arriving

- **The maglev from the airport** runs at 270 mph and covers the trip in eight
  minutes — the fastest airport transfer Harry has done, and his introduction to
  the argument that China's infrastructure is simply ahead of everyone's.
- **A six-day transit visa** is available on arrival, which is what the trip runs
  on.
- **Western apps are blocked** — Google Maps and social media included — so
  without Mandarin you are improvising unless you have a guide.

## The marriage market

Parents and grandparents gather in a park to find partners for their adult
children, who mostly aren't there. Details, from [Jim](/people/jim.md):

- **The advertisements list attributes** — age, height, weight, job, income —
  laid out on the ground and on boards.
- **Brokers work the crowd and take a commission** if a marriage results, scaled
  to how eager the parent is.
- **Locals generally want locals**, but a foreigner counts as a rare candidate
  rather than a hopeless one.

Harry tried, and was turned down repeatedly and immediately. He records the
rejections rather than editing around them.

## Surveillance

Cameras in clusters — Harry counts eight or nine on a single pole, then five on
the next — and police on every street. His own reaction is that it doesn't bother
him because he isn't doing anything wrong, and he notes that this would read
very differently in the West.

The part he says nobody covers: asked directly, locals are fine with it, and
their reason is specific rather than resigned. Crime is close to zero, and you
can walk anywhere at any hour, male or female, day or night. He treats that as a
genuine trade rather than a talking point.

## Food

- **A neighbourhood noodle place**, packed and entirely local, which is how he
  chooses it. Noodles and a deep-fried pork cutlet, dressed — unexpectedly — with
  Worcestershire sauce, which turns out to be a real Shanghai influence.
- **Slurping is the compliment**, as in Japan.
- **Roast duck**, which he calls the best duck he has ever eaten. Bought from a
  takeaway and eaten with beer.
- **Ginger and brown sugar tea**, strong and sweet.
- **On the dog-eating stereotype**, a local's answer, recorded because it is a
  better answer than the question: 1.4 billion people eat many things, some
  people in many countries have eaten dogs in famine, and in Shanghai people dote
  on their dogs.

## Massage

A full-body Chinese massage where the therapists work from overhead handrails and
walk on you — Harry's description is a human treadmill. Fast, extremely
practised, and done without oils or pills on the principle that the body is
sorted out by working the body. 260 for the pair, and neither of them knew the
word for "softer".

## Things Jim explains

- **Electric vehicles are about 40% of usage**, and Teslas are cheapest in the
  world here because the factory is outside the city. Green number plates are
  electric, blue are petrol.
- **The one-child policy is now a three-child policy**, after the population
  slowed.
- **The Communist Party is hard to join** — around 97 million members, under 10%
  of the country. The party was founded in Shanghai, and the site draws Chinese
  tourists; filming inside is not allowed.
- **Shanghai is young by Chinese standards**, roughly 250 years old.
- **Handshakes are soft.** A firm grip reads as strange; a handshake here can
  seal an agreement without paperwork.
- **Western brands are aspirational**, not resented — queues round the corner for
  a New York bagel shop, and a middle class Jim describes as deliberately
  looking for a new identity.

## The fake market

The place to buy factory-made copies. Harry's negotiation is instructive because
the seller opens by claiming she is already giving him the local price — 250 for
everyone else, 180 for him — then moves *up* to 250 when pushed. He names the
tactic, walks toward the door, and buys at 100 yuan, about $14.

## Jing'an Temple

A Buddhist temple among the skyscrapers. The thing everyone does is throw coins
into a central bowl for a wish. Harry's figures for the country's religious
makeup, given here: roughly a third agnostic or atheist, 16% Buddhist, 7%
Christian, 1.7% Muslim.

## Harry's tips

- Do one high viewpoint — from street level you can't grasp the city's
  size; the standard tower level is enough, skip the top-tier upsell.
- Eat the street food; the jianbing (savoury crepe) is a must.
- Cross under the river to see both faces of the city: the historic Bund
  and the new skyline side.
- **Take the maglev in from the airport.** Eight minutes, and it sets the tone.
- **Eat where the room is full and entirely Chinese**, not where the menu has
  English.
- **Get a guide.** With the Western internet blocked and no Mandarin, Harry's day
  works because [Jim](/people/jim.md) is running it.
- **Walk away in the fake market.** The price moved from 250 to 100 the moment he
  did.

## Source

- [I Rented a Chinese Girlfriend in Shanghai 🇨🇳](/videos/4VzMQYqcZKs.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VzMQYqcZKs
- [I Ignored the Media and Visited China 🇨🇳](/videos/K3X46veg64I.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3X46veg64I