The Wholesale Market

Yesterday we took a cab to the area of Yu Garden and got out to look around "Old Town". Now much of "Old Town" is nothing more than row upon row of what I call 'trinket shops', little places selling cheap toys and paper fans, etc. Nothing too interesting. However, as you carry on down the street, you encounter these side streets which show you the down side to all of the prosperity of Shanghai. This is where the very poor live, and it was an eye opener, to say the least. It's called, I believe, the "Wholesale Market" and I'm not quite sure why it's called this as nothing really 'wholesale' is being sold there. It's mostly little street merchants, seemingly selling to the neighborhood population, not to tourists. A woman was selling one or two chickens, another young woman was making onion pancake things and selling them to locals. There were men selling eggs and vegetables and a stand for selling meat. The people on this street had the hard look of a hard life on their faces. This was real poverty, in the shadow of huge high-rise banks and hotels. Eventually, these people will probably be removed and relocated by the government authorities in the name of progress. (I have about 20 seconds of video of this area on YouTube, plus some pictures on Flckr.) From there, we walked back to the Bund for a better look taking advantage of the better weather. Actually, the Bund has been kind of ruined by the constant, and I mean CONSTANT harassment of street vendors selling "Shoes? Bags? Rolex? TShirts? You need? Hello! Hello!" Most of the tourists I've been told are from other parts of China. I have seen very few non-Chinese tourists here so far. And being Western, we are sitting ducks. It really was a bummer. From the Bund, we decided to give Nan Jing Road a try. George the other day told us that this street is very touristy, and that locals wouldn't be caught dead buying anything there. He told us we were much better off on the shopping street near our hotel in the French Concession. But, what the hell, we decided to check it out. Again, more "Hello! Bags? Rolex? TShirts?" Really nothing of interest here. We decided to go back to that great restaurant near People's Park that George took us to on the first day and had a nice late lunch. After lunch, more wandering, ending at an absolutely huge edifice on the periphery of the park called "Total Capital" Inside was a huge mall, about six stories, selling all the shit that malls sell. Nike shoes, big name cosmetics, fast food, etc. The place was crawling with young mall rats, hungry for the latest shit. Ironically, as we were leaving and crossing this huge boulevard, we saw this little old woman pushing a huge flat bed cart, the kind you see at Costco, on which was a young, sick looking man on a dirty mattress who was covered with a dirty blanket. On the handle of the cart was a little plastic bucket with a single coin inside.

Photos and video links below.

Movies on YouTube click here

Photos on Flicr, click here: