[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/20707225[/vimeo]

Shanghai is a strange city. Most of it is nondescript modern architecture, not as ugly as Dubai but really not very attractive unless you are on the Bund. But in between the high rises are wonderfully decrepit streets where you can experience Shanghai the way it was, at least for modest people. If you want more elegant nostalgia, you need to go to the French Concession where the grand colonial mansions are. Anyway, on the poorer streets, you will see people drying their underwear on ropes hung between trees, or outside their windows, or drying their socks right on a cart from which they sell bonzai trees.

And of course you will see plenty of street food like the master noodle maker in the clips below who we happened to pass just as he expertly pulled an order of perfectly formed noodles to feed the cutest baby ever. I filmed him pulling the noodles, then making up a bowl of noodles and finally I filmed the mother feeding her baby. Watching the baby slurp his noodles made me wish I had been born in China instead of Beirut where my mother fed me raw liver and tabbuleh — not such a bad diet after all. Still, I would have liked to be fed noodles. We did not stop for a bowl. We were put off by the lack of hygiene. It was our first day but we were silly. We should have. Later we ate in far more suspect places but by that time we had left Shanghai and we couldn’t go back to our noodle guy. I will on my next visit, that is if I can find him!

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/20709769[/vimeo] [vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/20708117[/vimeo]