| Part 1 of 2 Wu Yan "Ingrid" Xin, administration officer in the Shanghai Xuhui District Tourism Bureau, is a very delightful person. We sat on the Riverwalk overlooking the Huang Po River and The Bund in Shanghai. It was an unusually warm day in Shanghai right after the Chinese New Year. Families casually walked along the walk eating Hagen Dazs ice cream and enjoying the skyline. I met Ingrid almost two years ago when she did an internship with the Wis. Dept. of Tourism. She told us to look her up if we ever made it to Shanghai and I took her up on her offer. Ingrid was born, raised, and educated in Shanghai. She loves this city and so, it is only natural that she works for one of the city's tourism bureaus. Of course, her favorite place in Shanghai is the Huhui district -- the equivalent of a borough in New York. "The Xuhui district's commercial district is my favorite shopping area," Xin said. "I can buy anything I want there. Many famous food and fashion places are there. You can do karaoke there. Karaoke is the Chinese people's favorite form of entertainment. There are big cinemas there. You can see recent western films there. I didn't like the new King Kong. I liked the old one with Fay Wray. The new one is more horrible to watch because King Kong is the rogue. So I didn't like it." Xin talks about Shanghai very optimistically. It is currently growing at over 10 percent per year. Madison, by contrast, is growing about 1 percent per year. Xin exudes a certain confidence born of an international city where almost everything in the world is just a ride away. "There is a great congregation of cultures here," Xin emphasized. "You can experience different cultures here that you can't anywhere else. That has always been very interesting to me. I can buy anything for life or fun here. I can even learn different things here. There is a lot of advanced scientific and technology discovery going on here. We are working to be the first in the whole nation in these areas. In Shanghai, I can feel everyday I am the number one in China or even in the world. I'm so proud of this city." And the growth of Shanghai is not by accident. "Shanghai has been developing faster and faster each year because it wants to become the biggest trade center in the world," Xin said. "Second is to become the largest financial center in the world. The third is to become a large shipping port. The fourth is the economic center. That is our target for our work. And then, everything is done for these targets. The government set up everything to make it come true. Shanghai does more cultural, people, and language exchange because Shanghai is the center of the whole nation. Every kind of people who come from different countries and come from different places in China and they have been helping Shanghai happen." While many of us grew up in the United States viewing the People's Republic of China as a "Red Monolith," it is actually composed of many regions that are oftentimes disparate from each other. And while the countryside has historically been cut off from western visitors until recently, the coastal cities have had long standing commercial interactions with the west. Shanghai is distinct from Beijing, China's capital, in many ways including language. And while Beijing may have been closed off, Shanghai has been more open to the international community. "I had an international perspective just from growing up here," Xin observed. "From this site, we can see The Bund. The Bund is representative of Shanghai's history. In olden times, Shanghai attracted a lot of foreign people here to establish their homes, banks and businesses. So we were able to enjoy the cultures from different countries. We now use some of the Bund's structures for commercial purposes. Armani and other European and American businesses have established their businesses and show windows here on the Bund and Nanjing Road because they think it is smart to be represented in China. They want their businesses to be established here and be located in the heart of Shanghai." And, in Xin's view, it is this openness that is spreading to the rest of China. "Shanghai is a bridge that connects China to the west," Xin said. "We can learn more things from you to make us stronger. This is happening in every area, not only in trade, not only in culture, and not only in knowledge. The government of our district, the Xuhui district, assigned us to the United States to learn governmental things. We are so open to learning things. Also we have freedom to think, to speak and to connect with western people. I think it is our intent to get more freedom and to open the politics. Western countries criticize us about human rights. There are some things we do not do well, but we will do it better." |
| An interview with Ingrid Xin Modern Shanghai by Jonathan Gramling |
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