Shanghai
Shanghai was formerly a part of Jiangsu province and still shares strong cultural similarities with Jiangsu although mass migration from all across China and the rest of the world has made Shanghai a melting pot of different cultures. It is geographically a part of the Jiangnan region and as such, Wuyue culture dominated Shanghai but the influx of Western influences since the mid-19th century has generated a unique "East Meets West" Haipai culture. Shanghai is considered a center of innovation and progress in China. It was in Shanghai, for example, that the first motor car was driven and (technically) the first train tracks and modern sewers were laid. It was also the intellectual battleground between socialist writers who concentrated on critical realism, which was pioneered by Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Nien Cheng and the famous French novel by André Malraux, Man's Fate, and the more "bourgeois", more romantic and aesthetically inclined writers, such as Shi Zhecun, Shao Xunmei, Ye Lingfeng and Eileen Chang.
Shanghai is located on the Yangtze Estuary of China's east coast, with the Yangtze River to the north and Hangzhou Bay to the south. The land is formed by the Yangtze's natural deposition and modern land reclamation projects. As such, it has sandy soil, and skyscrapers are to be built with deep concrete piles to avoid sinking into the soft ground. The provincial-level Municipality of Shanghai administers both the estuary and many of its surrounding islands. It is roughly equidistant from Beijing and Guangzhou, bordering the East China Sea to the east, Zhejiang to the south, and Jiangsu to the west and north. The municipality's northernmost point is on Chongming Island, which is the second-largest island in mainland China after its expansion during the 20th century. However, it does not include an exclave of Jiangsu on northern Chongming or the two islands forming Shanghai's Yangshan Port, which are parts of Zhejiang's Shengsi County.
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Our travel journal
Surprising Shanghai – drinks in books and pigs in cafes
Jetlagged, I tell Linzy I need a coffee. She takes me to what used to be an abattoir – an interesting place called 1933 Old Millfun. Now it's a trendy mall. The only cafe appears to have dogs – some kind of puppy cafe. I notice one of the dogs is actually a pig and
The Mount Mogan Green [I]
What do you do when your city is under shelter-in-place order? Grow emergency bean sprouts?Attempt to draw?Spread positivity in the neighbourhood? Been there, done that? How about, jumping into the past? Click onto a random folder of old travel images and let your memory run, backwards. It was the summer of 2015. Jon came to
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