Word: shanghaied
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...Shanghai's architectural history-an East-West hybrid combining the modest sturdiness of a Chinese trading town with the showier Art Deco ambitions of the foreigners who began descending in the 19th century-is fast disappearing. Helping us remember this remarkable urban legacy before the last of the wrecking crews strikes is Canadian photographer Greg Girard, a longtime resident of China's largest metropolis, whose new book Phantom Shanghai was published last month. Many of the historic buildings that Girard documents-forlorn carcasses cowering below towers of concrete and glass-have already been demolished. Understanding this lends the photos...
...city stops growing, of course, unless it runs out of money or relevance-and Shanghai boasts plenty of both. But each time I return, my favorite place in China seems less itself. Many residents, too, look disoriented: Wasn't a noodle shop here just a week ago, or a tailor's atelier there, or a row of lane houses just around the corner...
...Girard accentuates this sense of dislocation by taking most of his pictures in those crepuscular moments when Shanghai reveals its private self. Behind the blinding economic razzle-dazzle and throngs of striving entrepreneurs, the city is defined by its intimate sense of neighborhood, what Girard calls its "lived-in-ness." Walk Shanghai's alleyways at night and inhale the smell of braised pork wafting out of a communal kitchen, hear the slap of a shuttlecock struck by a pajama-clad girl, catch a glimpse of a chandelier in a threadbare bedroom-once part of a ballroom in some silk merchant...
...show, but the long lines lasted for weeks. The draw was her line of trench coats, kimono dresses and catsuits for the Swedish retailer H&M, which debuted on March 10 at H&M's newest store in Hong Kong and in April at H&M in Shanghai. In these cities, shopping is as important as stargazing, and that's why the $2 billion firm made its first moves into Asia here: H&M wants a share of China's $60 billion apparel market. To do that it may have to redefine its trademark "cheap chic" aesthetic...
Hong Kong and China are only H&M's first stops in Asia. Three more stores are planned for Hong Kong this year, and two in Shanghai. As a sign of how China has come to dominate the Asian retail market, Japan has taken a backseat. H&M will open its first store there by 2008. Other possibilities, like Singapore, are in the works. "We're taking things slow to start out, but we're clearly not going into Asia for 10 stores," Persson explains. "The potential for the market is just too huge...