After setting into our hotel in Shanghai, our first initiative in China was to go out and get some late-night food at a hot-pot place. After having stayed out suitably late (and beyond) for proper adjustment to jet lag, it was off to bed after a very long day. The next morning opened with a Chinese breakfast at the hotel. Congee was prominently featured in the buffet, so I made it my goal to try it every way possible over the week (w/ salt, sugar, cream, onions, etc). Our first destination that day was the Urban Planning Museum, which was a very impressive demonstration of the planned nature of Shanghai’s transformation. Particularly imposing was the massive scale model of Shanghai that took up the better part of one of the floors of the museum.

Scale model of Shanghai

We took a bit of free time after the museum, and I had the chance to see the marriage market of Shanghai. Here I got a first-hand experience of how the Chinese notion of personal space differs from that of Americans, as there were a lot of people and I was continually getting bumped into. The marriage market also underscored some of the Chinese values surrounding descendants, as there were elderly parents at the market who came every week in hopes of finding a potential mate for their aging son/daughter.

The rest of our day was given over to a walking tour. I got my first view of Pudong (the new skyline of Shanghai) while strolling along the Bund (Shanghai’s old skyline). We also visited the Yu Gardens, and the house that was the founding site of the Communist party. Its location was particularly interesting as it was immediately adjacent to a highly commercial shopping district—a symbolic reminder of the contradictions of China. In that shopping center, we were able to find an excellent dumpling restaurant serving traditional Shanghainese dumplings, which marked a pleasant end to the evening.

Pudong skyline

Yu Gardens

The next morning took us to meet with the Vice-President of the Treasury wine Estates and his wife. He gave us a presentation introducing some of the key aspects of China’s business climate, while his wife spoke on some of the ways in which the form of the Chinese language influences Chinese thought. Afterward, we returned to the founding site of the Communist party for a more thorough exploration than the previous evening had permitted. The museum was an interesting piece of propaganda (Communism was apparently the “inevitable result” of conditions in China), but I found the interactions of the security personnel with us to be even more interesting. They were remarkably patient, even when members of our group were breaking various rules. This was actually something that I noticed on several other occasions, which leads me to wonder whether the training they receive is superb or if there is some kind of cultural difference at work.

Our class at the founding site of the Chinese Communist Party

That afternoon, I had the opportunity to visit a hospital for expatiates as well as two local hospitals and the Shanghai No. 1 Dispensary. I gleaned a wealth of information for my project, including how expatiates in China will buy even over-the-counter medications from the hospital because of concerns about the medications supplied by local pharmacies and counterfeit drugs. Some drugs are apparently not available in China, including some types of vaccinations, and thus have to be imported. Even drugs that can be obtained can have variable availability. Other drugs are only available on 7-day prescriptions, which leads to people coming into the doctor all the time and long lines at the pharmacies. Standalone pharmacies like the Shanghai No. 1 Dispensary have quite a lot of traditional Chinese medicines (a whole floor in fact) and they are displayed even more prominently than the pharmaceuticals.

A hospital pharmacy

On Tuesday, our first activity for the morning was a visit to the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, which was marked by the People’s Liberation Army soldiers that were guarding it, and its ample green space. In spite of the extravagant claims of the Urban Planning Museum, most of the Shanghai I saw was lacking such greenery. At the Consulate, we had the opportunity to speak with Foreign Service officers, and I of course questioned them on pharmaceutical policy in China. They didn’t have detailed knowledge, but I did pick out three broad themes: (1) China’s attempts at building a pharmaceutical industry, (2) its efforts to control prices at “reasonable levels” through measures such as buying in bulk, and (3) the importance of local experimentation in China, in which some provinces are given more latitude to run pilot programs. However, I was rather surprised to hear them say that Shanghai is one of the most conservative provinces in China, given the usual association between urbanism and liberalism.

We wrapped up the morning by visiting the Shanghai-based architecture firm Neri & Hu and having lunch at a Chinese pizza place that was trying quite hard to be authentic without really succeeding. Our afternoon included a stop at the Jing’An Temple, an ancient Buddhist temple in the middle of Shanghai. During our free time, I wandered around a Watson’s pharmacy, and was stuck by how much of an emphasis I saw placed on cosmetic products and the evident dearth of medications sold by the pharmacy. That evening brought us to the Grumpy Pig, a wonderful restaurant where we met with Diane Feng, a Rice alum living in Shanghai. I asked her about her experience with pharmaceuticals in China and she described bringing her own medications from the U.S. and using the expatiate pharmacy at the hospital instead of local options. She also offered to connect me with a pharmacist friend of hers.

Jing'An Temple

Wednesday was our day over in Pudong and we began with an exploration of New Century Park on multi-person bicycles. The park was fairly massive, and it appeared to be ringed with residential high-rises. I was particularly impressed by the approach to the park, however, as it linked the business district into the park in a dramatic fashion. For lunch we met with Tiffany Lee, a Rice alum who works in the fashion industry. She didn’t have much experience with pharmaceuticals, although she did tell me that non-pharmacies didn’t sell any over-the-counter medications. We spent that afternoon with Non Arkaraprasertkul, an expert on the urbanization of Shanghai. In listening to Non, I was particularly struck by his analysis of Shanghai’s urbanization as not just the duality of the old Bund and the new Pudong, but also the tearing down of Shanghai’s old neighborhoods in order to erect high-rises. Having walked through Shanghai and seen some of those old neighborhoods interspersed between modern developments, I fully agree with his point that that transition may be more significant than the aesthetic differences between the Bund and Pudong. After our extensive conversation with Non, we off to our Shanghai farewell dinner after a brief stop at the ground level of the Pudong skyline. The next morning found us on our way to the second city of our trip, Beijing.

Walkway to New Century Park

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