So I expect the city to be subdued, not tranquil.

Much of the quiet is due to China’s uptake of electrical vehicles, now 36 per cent of all vehicle sales (as well as the fact it’s now illegal to toot a car horn.) Electric cars and scooters and old-fashioned pushbikes are the favoured modes of individual transport these days, which means crossing the street needs vigilance as you don’t often hear the scooters.

We’re staying in the Westin Bund, a huge, efficient hotel in a commercial centre. We see few Western tourists, and if there are lines at popular attractions such as the world’s highest observation deck on the 632-metre-tall Shanghai Tower, they are Chinese visitors.

This is different to the last time I was here in 2018, when an influx of international businesses, from hotels to art galleries and restaurants, made it one of the most vibrant cities in the world. But many of these businesses left the city during the pandemic and haven’t returned. Restaurant entrepreneur Michelle Garnaut, the Aussie godmother of Shanghai, has closed her famous restaurant M on the Bund and the Glamour Bar, which are sadly missed by the expat community.

Luxury takeover

Shanghai was always China’s most international city, a boomtown for opportunists since the 1920s and ’30s, when it was one of the most disreputable places on Earth, ruled by drug lords, violent gangsters, Russians fleeing the revolution and fugitives from justice from across the world. Even in recent years, while not so disreputable, pockets of the city retain the atmosphere from those heady days.

In 2004, the Shanghai government created 12 preservation zones, which included the French Concession and the 26 iconic buildings that frame the Bund, a boulevard that’s a gallery of world architecture, from renaissance to art deco. However, conservation to these officials has sometimes meant tearing down old buildings and rebuilding them in new materials.

In Xintiandi, a historic neighbourhood of tall brick lane residences called Shikumen, the old houses look as if they’ve been built from scratch, they’re so neat and perfect – and they have been. The original houses were demolished and replaced by replicas. The last time I was here, restaurants and bars were opening in Shikumen, giving them new life, but sadly they’ve been mostly colonised by international perfume and fashion labels, turning the area into a kind of Disneyland for brand-obsessed adults.

Unlike Xintiandi, the shopping district known as Tianzifang, where people live in the labyrinthine lanes above little fashion and craft stores and small galleries, is authentic – to a point. People still hang their washing in the lanes over the heads of the shoppers, and a stroll past boutiques selling giant pink plastic bunnies or embroidered silk chi pao can lead you into the communal kitchens of residents crouched eating bowls of soup. It gives a glimpse of what life has been like in these lanes since 1933, when they were built. But there are precious few of them now.

Even though commercialised, it’s still a fun place to visit for souvenirs (at least they are made in China). New shopping malls have sprouted up across the road. I discover a lovely museum, Liuli China Museum, which features 260 artefacts made from glass, by contemporary artists as well as historic pieces. (It also has restrooms you can access easily; the restroom situation in the lanes is dire.)

Shanghai is still one of the best places to see contemporary art, boasting a multitude of public and private art museums, such as the Yuz Museum and Long Museum on the West Bund. While art enthusiasts flocked to the Shanghai Art fair in early November last year, there is concern that the collapse of the retail industry and stricter government censorship of art might challenge the Chinese art world’s resilience.

I was disappointed to see that the famous pedestrian boulevard, Nanjing Road, has lost some of its charm. It was once lined with big, old-fashioned department stores, but some have closed, replaced by chain stores and an upscale branch of Daimaru, the Japanese department store, which has steep elevators that snake around a glittering atrium. It also contains the biggest Starbucks in the world, and the Shanghai Edition hotel, where we stop for French-style cakes late one evening.

Elsewhere, you would be forgiven for thinking that French was the favoured cuisine in the city. Rockbund is a newish development in the former British Concession, where the Shanghai Peninsula Hotel (opened in 2009) occupies the grounds and mansion that was once the British Consulate. It is a collection of historic buildings that were apartments, offices, printing houses and banks, which form a continuous street north of the Bund.

There, you’ll find restaurants, cafes, apartments, retail stores and a contemporary art museum. The buildings have been cleaned and restored. Their ground floors are filled with chic cafes serving French food or single-origin coffees. After a day of walking, my choice of snack at Rockbund is pretty much French croissants and crepes. I opt for the sweet crepe, eating it on a bench while I watch a stream of young women in skimpy outfits pout and pose for photographers.

Everyone photographs everything in Shanghai. There are fashion shoots on almost every corner, and the narrow streets off the Bund are popular with brides, who have their wedding photos done days before the ceremony. It’s not unusual to see people photographing the people photographing the photoshoot of the brides.

Survivors

Luckily, many of my favourite places are still standing, if recast. The century-old Astor Hotel in Hongkou, where luminaries such as Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein stayed, has had a transformation. Run down and shabby, it has become the curious China Securities Museum, tracing the history of China’s commerce with the world. Its ornate Peacock Hall, once the scene of society parties and tea dances early in the 20th century, was the location of the first trading centre of the stock exchange in 1990. Nothing is in English, but one of the lovely old guest rooms has been preserved along with the possessions of a married couple.

One institution, the Old Jazz Band, formed in 1947, still performs nightly at the Fairmont Peace Hotel (formerly The Cathay), even if the original band members are long gone. You can catch them in the jazz bar from 7pm. In 1930, Noel Coward dashed off Private Lives in the hotel while recovering from influenza. The lobby is still one of the most spectacular examples of art deco in the city.

My favourite restaurant, Lost Heaven, is still open in two locations, on the Bund and in the French Concession, and the spicy Yunnan cuisine is as good as ever. The cramped but quaint Old Jesse restaurant on Tianping Road is still the place to go for lazy Susan action, its tabletops laden with shared dishes such as hairy crab or hongshaorou: pork belly served with hard-boiled eggs.

The vertiginous Flair Bar on the 58th floor of the Ritz-Carlton in Pudong, China’s highest al fresco bar, continues to be the best place in the city to see the skyline at night, followed by Sir Elly’s Terrace on the 13th floor of the Peninsula Shanghai, which has an opposing view along the river.

Shanghai has always been a great street food city for delights such as the famous soup dumplings, laolongbao. A walking food tour of the district around Zhejiang Road and Guangdong Road uncovers little holes-in-the-wall selling succulent “Muslim Chinese” lamb kebabs served on lamb-stuffed flatbreads, pancakes stuffed with spicy leeks and giant fried dumplings bursting with beef stew.

Mr Xu, the dumpling seller, tells us the shops and apartments here will be pulled down the following week so the street can be developed. The old shops don’t look “good” enough, apparently. The residents and businesses won’t necessarily be relocated in the area they’ve lived in for decades.

I’m hoping all this rampant modernisation doesn’t cost Shanghai its soul. But perhaps the horse has bolted. A chirpy, glassy advertisement playing on a loop on my hotel room TV promotes Shanghai as a city of change.

“Here we see endless possibilities. Here we are shaping the future”.

The past is a foreign territory here. All the more reason to go now.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Qantas flies to Shanghai from Sydney five days a week on an Airbus A330. The route is a gateway for Australian travellers to other Chinese destinations. See qantas.com

STAY
The landmark Fairmont Peace Hotel on Nanjing Road at the Bund is one of Shanghai’s true icons, now restored to preserve its 100-year-old- history. If your budget stretches to it, the historic river view suites, themed for different countries such as India and Japan, are beautiful. See fairmont.com/peace-hotel-shanghai

The writer was a guest of Qantas.