Word: shanghais
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...Moganshan Road Shanghai's answer to Beijing's 798 is 50 Moganshan Road, or simply M50 - one of the main cooking pots of the city's art. This rabbit's warren of former factories and warehouses is situated on the banks of Suzhou Creek, and was first used as studio space in 2000. Now it's teeming with artists, curators, collectors and hip young students, as well as curious foreigners. It also houses the local branch of the Beijing Art Now Gallery, www.artnow.cn, which opened at the beginning of the year and like its parent is tasked with identifying...
...long ago, visitors to China were told to go to Beijing for culture, and Shanghai for style. And while that was naturally a generalization, it was easy to see the reasoning. Beijing, after all, has the palaces and the history. Beijing also has one of the coolest arts quarters in the world in the form of 798 - the East German-built military factory complex now transformed into a thriving community of painters, sculptors and designers (not to mention trend-seeking tourists desperate for a taste of China's SoHo...
...boom economy, however, things change fast. Shanghai still has glam in spades. You can sip your Cosmopolitan on the Bund while gazing out at a relentlessly rising skyline. You can wander along the leafy boulevards of the former French Concession, pausing for a soy latte or a therapeutic browse in one of the fancy clothes shops on Hengshan Road. But now you can do art, too. Springing up amid the gleaming, dreaming towers are studios and galleries, large and small, testifying to the fact that where money grows, culture follows. Here are some of our favorites...
...amid the trees and ponds of People's Park, the dramatic glass Museum of Contemporary Art, www.mocashanghai.org, opened two years ago and is the first privately owned, nonprofit contemporary art museum in the city. And boy is it contemporary. Screens flickering with slick animation created from images of old Shanghai; video projections that shift from fish to pebbles to branches; a roomful of storyboards inspired by manga - when I was there, these were all part of an exhibition tying in with Shanghai eArts, the biggest digital-arts festival in the world. Call in at the café for a spot...
...resort, known as OCT East, is just the latest of dozens of foreign-themed parks springing up all over China. Shanghai has its Weimar Village, Beijing has Greek villas, and Hong Kong has its very own Disneyland--all built in hopes of cashing in on the deepening pockets of a growing middle class eager to absorb Western culture. Tourism revenue now accounts for 6% of China's GDP (or more than $600 billion), and the industry is expected to grow 10% annually for the next five years. The World Tourism Organization predicts China will be the globe's largest tourism...