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Inside the outsider’s Shanghai

From the days of Marco Polo to the reign of Kublai Khan, China has had an allure for foreigners – and nowhere more so than that least Chinese of Chinese cities, Shanghai.To get more shanghai life, you can visit shine news official website.

Exotic but not completely alien, modern but with a taste of the ancient, Shanghai attracts people from around the world who want to cash in on China’s economic boom, but without stepping too far outside their comfort zone.
In the space of scarcely one generation, Shanghai has transformed itself from a city of narrow lanes and decrepit buildings, its commerce crippled by decades of communism, into a futuristic megalopolis of 23m people, packed with skyscrapers and luxury malls, the undisputed financial capital of China. And in that time, the Europeans and Americans who made Shanghai the “Paris of Asia” in the last century, have returned (along with many thousands of Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese and Singaporeans) to help the city achieve its 21st-century dream of becoming the New York of Asia.

They come, mostly, to make money: for postings at multinational companies with Asian headquarters in Shanghai; for jobs they cannot get back home, where economies are struggling; to follow their executive husbands or wives; or to teach or study. Government figures show the number of expatriates living in Shanghai has risen by 70 per cent in the past decade, from 100,000 in 2005 to nearly 170,000 last year.

But as the Chinese economy slows, the mix of expatriates is changing, with fewer coming on lavish corporate packages (as companies save money by localising senior positions) and more coming on their own, say expat service providers. Overall, foreign resident numbers fell 3 per cent last year, but relocation company numbers and international school enrolments suggest a much steeper decline in executives coming to Shanghai on full expat packages. But Simon Lance, China managing director for Hays, the global recruitment company, says there is no shortage of applicants for the city’s jobs. It probably doesn’t hurt that, according to figures from HSBC last year, almost one fourth of expatriates living in China earn more than $300,000 a year, the highest proportion in any country HSBC surveyed.

But overall, Shanghai’s reputation as a place to live is far from stellar. Shanghai did not even make it into the top 100 of the world’s most liveable cities, according to 2015 rankings from Mercer, the employment consultants. Vienna came first and Baghdad last; but Shanghai was ranked at number 101.