4

THE BAOS

THREE ON THE BUND, SHANGHAI

The hotel’s Brewster green Rolls-Royce was waiting in the driveway to ferry Nick and Rachel to dinner, but with their destination just six blocks away, they decided to walk. It was an unseasonably cool evening for early June, and as they strolled along the legendary riverfront boulevard known as the Bund, Nick could still remember a morning in Hong Kong when he was around six years old.

His parents took him on a drive far out into the countryside of Kowloon’s New Territories, up a winding mountain road. At the top of the mountain was a lookout point crowded with tourists, snapping away at the view and lining up to use the swiveling metal binoculars that had been mounted on a rusty metal railing. Nick’s father lifted him up so that he could see through the viewfinder. “Can you see it? That’s the border of China. That’s where your great-great-grandparents came from,” Philip Young told his son. “Take a good look, because we aren’t able to go past that border.”

“Why not?” Nick had asked.

“It’s a Communist country, and our Singapore passports are stamped ‘No Entry into the People’s Republic of China.’ But one day, hopefully, you will be able to go.”

Nick squinted at the almost barren, muddy brown landscape. He could discern some roughly plowed fields and irrigation ditches, but not much else. Where was the border? He was trying to find a great wall, a moat, or any sort of proper demarcation to indicate where the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong ended and the People’s Republic of China began, but there was nothing. The viewfinder lenses were grimy, and his armpits hurt from the grip of his father’s large hands. Nick asked to be put down and made a beeline for the lady selling snacks in the concrete hut nearby. A Cornetto ice-cream cone was far more interesting than the view of China. China was boring.

But the China of Nick’s childhood bore no resemblance to the incredible sights that surrounded him in every direction now. Shanghai was a vast, sprawling megalopolis on the banks of the Huangpu River, the “Paris of the East,” where hyperbole-defying skyscrapers vied for attention with stately early-twentieth-century European façades.

Nick began pointing out some of his favorite buildings to Rachel. “That’s the Broadway Mansions Hotel right across the bridge. I love its hulking, Gothic silhouette—so classic art deco. Did you know Shanghai has the largest concentration of art deco architecture in the world?”

“I had no idea! All the buildings around us are just jaw-dropping—I mean, look at that crazy skyline!” Rachel gestured excitedly to the intimidating expanse of skyscrapers on the other side of the river.

“And that’s just Pudong—it was all pretty much farmland, and none of those buildings even existed ten years ago. Now it’s a financial district that makes Wall Street look like a fishing village. That structure with the two huge round orbs is the Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower. Doesn’t it look like something out of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century?” Nick remarked.