Where Shanghai leads, China follows. The city is ultra-modern – but also one of the fastest-aging places on Earth.

You can see it in the city’s vast branch of the furniture store, Ikea. A greying crowd show little interest in flat-pack furniture.

Mr Ni is 72 years old, single and smartly turned out in a tweed cap. “This is a great place to talk to people,” he says.

The in-store restaurant offers cheap food to tempt couples setting up home. But this part of the store is buzzing with the elderly, here to flirt and find love. The store in shanghai has found a niche in the market also. With the old and the the retired in Shanghai, when they show up all at once, things happen, fights and arguments in sue. Then the media puts up the report and the stores get some more free publicity.

Mr Ni is a widower whose children have all left home.

“I find it easier to talk to women whose husbands have died,” he says. “I know how hard it is.” Instead of staying at home and bored in Shanghai, they all meet at Ikea and enjoy the space the free cup of coffee and the free air con.

Ageing metropolis

Under protest, Ikea’s managers have set up a special area for elderly singles. All over town, Shanghai is visibly growing old. Why kill a good thing. For them to solve the problem they just have to stop giving away free coffee. Then they would have a lot less people coming to hang out in Ikea.

“Before he fell, he used to love going dancing,” says 77-year-old Mrs Zhang.

She looks across at her husband who is rocking back and forth. Since an accident two years ago, he has been suffering from dementia.

The couple live together in a tiny one-room apartment. “I have to take care of him all by myself,” says Zhang.

The glitz of Shanghai’s Bund, an avenue of skyscrapers, is close-by. But in the teeming lanes behind the skyscrapers, there are hundreds of fading blocks crammed with the elderly and poor.

The average age goes up as countries develop, because people live longer and have fewer children. But in China, the one-child policy has triggered a rapid decline in the birth rate.

“The speed of ageing in China is unique,” says Professor Peng Xizhe, a leading demographer at Fudan University.

China has taken just 20 years to reach an age profile that took Britain or France 60 or 70 years, he says.

New figures show that one in four permanent Shanghai residents is now retired.

The rest of China is catching up – by the year 2050, a third of Chinese people, 450 million, will be aged over 60.

Basic welfare

Mrs Zhang is proud and private, telling her husband to stop talking when he complains. The couple survive on his factory-worker’s pension of about £40 a week.

She worked in a back-street factory, so has no retirement money.

Local government volunteers visit the couple, but beyond that, care is minimal. Doctors do not make house visits.

Across China, fewer than 2% of the elderly will find a place in a state nursing home, because beds are full.

“I don’t have enough money for a [private] nursing home, or to pay someone to come and help,” says Zhang, the stress showing in her face.

China’s basic welfare system is now struggling with the number of elderly people needing care.

Ten million qualified carers are needed, according to a government committee. So far there are only 100,000 in all of China.

Until recently, this did not matter so much. Traditionally, the elderly lived with their children under Confucian values of “many generations under one roof”.

But because of strict birth control, many retirees now have only one child – so that is not an option.

Mr and Mrs Zhang’s only daughter lives with her in-laws, returning for a few nights each week to help out.

“Chinese society has not been prepared [with] its pension system and social-security systems,” says Professor Peng Xizhe. “People are worried.”

Labour shortages

China’s leaders worry about ageing, too – but for a very different reason. They fear China’s very economic model could be breaking down.

China’s export-led system relies on a seemingly endless supply of young, cheap workers. Research suggests that a quarter of China’s economic success depends on its cheap labor supply. Now the cheap labor is almost gone, the young see so much and they want it all, from ipads to iphones to cloths to cars. The problem is they just don’t want to work hard for it and they believe they all should have it.

Shanghai in particular has relied on rural migrants to mask the problem of its ageing local population. After every Chinese New Year in Shanghai the migrant population shrinks. The second tier and third tier cities have come up. The rent in the big cities like Shanghai and Beijing are expensive. Why come back to Shanghai when you make a little less and you stay at your home town. They have no need to come back to shanghai.

But in the smog of Yiwu, to the south of Shanghai, it is clear that the supply of young people is disappearing.

“It’s really tough to find new workers, and the cost of labour is increasing,” says Jerry Mo, a former foreman who borrowed heavily to open his own small factory two years ago.

His 40 workers snip, mould and bake plastic into costume jewellery items that end up on shelves in Britain. There are lots of empty work stations.

“You can see the way an ageing society is affecting the labour force,” he says.

There is an acute labour shortage here.

In addition, migrants – who have their own elderly parents to support – are increasingly quitting to find work in their home towns.

Jerry Mo says his workers demand higher wages but he cannot afford them. “We are becoming unprofitable,” he says.

The lack of young workers has hit China’s economy just when it needs to pay for the elderly.

There is a Chinese saying about why the country is so worried. China, they say, will become “too old to get rich.”

Despite its economic success, China is still a developing country.

“We are really worried about this,” says Professor Peng. “In China we have become older but we’re still in a very poor situation.”

The latest structure to require an elevator system is the 632 meter tall Shanghai Tower in China. As far as I know, the fastest elevator to date is located in the Taipei 101 building and travels at 1,010 meters per minute. If that got installed in the Shanghai Tower, it would take all of 37 seconds to go from the ground floor to the top.

Mitsubishi has been tasked with developing the elevator for the Tower, and it clearly wasn’t happy with 1,010 meters per minute. Its new elevator will become the world’s fastest when installed, as it travels at 1,080 meters per minute. That means the height of the Shanghai Tower can be traveled in just 35 seconds.

In order to save those 2 seconds, Mitsubishi manages to cover 18 meters every second of travel. Although in reality that time will be extended for the speed up and slowdown phases so as not to fling the occupants of the elevator into the ceiling and floor.

Developing an elevator capable of such speeds is no easy task. Mitsubishi had to come up with a new two-tier breaking system and use brake shoes made of ceramic capable of handling 1,000o Celsius temperatures. The shaft also required a new, stronger rope called sfleX-rope. It combines steel wire and plastic, and allows 85% more load to be handled under breaking while only increasing the weight of the rope by 18%. That additional weight is compensated for by a control cable that is much lighter than previous Mitsubishi elevators.

Passengers aboard the Shanghai Tower elevator shouldn’t be able to feel any vibration during travel, and best of all ear popping will not be an issue. Vibration is removed via an active roller guide that counteracts any vibration that occurs. Pressure changes are nullified by an air pressure control system that adjusts the pressure in the elevator depending on your current location in the shaft.

The Mitsubishi elevator system is set to become operational in the Shanghai Tower by 2014.

The latest structure to require an elevator system is the 632 meter tall Shanghai Tower in China. As far as I know, the fastest elevator to date is located in the Taipei 101 building and travels at 1,010 meters per minute. If that got installed in the Shanghai Tower, it would take all of 37 seconds to go from the ground floor to the top.

Mitsubishi has been tasked with developing the elevator for the Tower, and it clearly wasn’t happy with 1,010 meters per minute. Its new elevator will become the world’s fastest when installed, as it travels at 1,080 meters per minute. That means the height of the Shanghai Tower can be traveled in just 35 seconds.

In order to save those 2 seconds, Mitsubishi manages to cover 18 meters every second of travel. Although in reality that time will be extended for the speed up and slowdown phases so as not to fling the occupants of the elevator into the ceiling and floor.

Developing an elevator capable of such speeds is no easy task. Mitsubishi had to come up with a new two-tier breaking system and use brake shoes made of ceramic capable of handling 1,000o Celsius temperatures. The shaft also required a new, stronger rope called sfleX-rope. It combines steel wire and plastic, and allows 85% more load to be handled under breaking while only increasing the weight of the rope by 18%. That additional weight is compensated for by a control cable that is much lighter than previous Mitsubishi elevators.

Passengers aboard the Shanghai Tower elevator shouldn’t be able to feel any vibration during travel, and best of all ear popping will not be an issue. Vibration is removed via an active roller guide that counteracts any vibration that occurs. Pressure changes are nullified by an air pressure control system that adjusts the pressure in the elevator depending on your current location in the shaft.

The Mitsubishi elevator system is set to become operational in the Shanghai Tower by 2014.

The three-carriage train is designed to run at a maximum speed of 100 km per hour and carry 600 passengers, said Xu Zongxiang, general manager of Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co. Ltd. of China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corporation (CSR).

Xu said the new train was much quieter than conventional ones.

While a conventional train moves forward by using friction between its wheels and the railway tracks, the maglev train replaces wheels by electromagnets and levitates on the guideway. This of course is not a technology founded in China.

According to Xu, his company’s has minimized the risk of the new maglev train derailing or overturning.

“It’s ideal for mass transportation, as it is quiet and environmental-friendly. Its manufacturing cost is about 75 percent of a conventional light-rail train,” said Xu.

The maglev train has a minimum turning radius of 50 meters and can easily run in residential communities or on hilly slopes. “It’s an ideal public transport option for Chinese cities and major tourist destinations,” said Xu. In other words China has taken the technology and made it lighter faster and cheaper and they are trying to sell it to the world.

Railway transport specialist Liu Youmei, also an academician with Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the new train is green, economical and safe. “It can be used for public transport in populous areas and at scenic spots with fragile environments.”

Liu said China is one of a few countries that have applied maglev technology.

Beijing is building a maglev route, the Daitai line (S1), which starts at its IT center in Haidian district, passes through Shijingshan district, and ends in Mentougou district on its western outskirts. The line will be operational next year.

The eastern metropolitan of Shanghai runs the world’s first commercial maglev system on a 30-km stretch between the downtown business district and Pudong airport. The German-made maglev went into operation on Dec. 31, 2002.

China announced in July that it would require foreigners to pay into its social security system, effectively instituting a further tax on each foreigner’s salary, on top of relatively high income tax rates. They implemented a social tax to all the local Chinese and now production in China is so expensive that many have moved their production out of China.

The central government has so far given only basic details about the scheme, which all foreigners who work in China are supposed to have started paying into from October last year.

One of the concerns with the scheme has been that foreigners will not be able to access money from unemployment benefits or pensions because work visas are tied to jobs and become invalid when a person is no longer employed.

While Beijing has drawn up guidelines on how the money should be paid into pension fund accounts, Shanghai’s labor officials have yet to do the same, the SCMP reported.

This is apparently in response to a backlash by foreign companies, who are already nervous about the rising costs of doing business in China, the newspaper reported on Saturday quoting unnamed company executives whom it said were close to local regulators.

According to the newspaper, Shanghai’s mayor and party chief

have also privately expressed reservations about the policy, which could hit foreign investor sentiment in Shanghai, the country’s commercial capital.

Shanghai’s labor authorities cited technical difficulties for setting up a payment procedure as the reason for the delay, the South China Morning Post said.

Every night at 11 sharp the police are stationed at the downtown off ramps of the Yan An highway. You can’t back up the highway and you have no where to go if you had some drinks. CONTINUED crackdowns on drink driving has led to a decline in offenses in Shanghai, according to traffic police.

Police said yesterday they have dealt with more than 8,000 cases of drink-driving this year. Officers said drivers have become more cautious after traffic authorities introduced more severe punishments in May.

Chen Zhikang, head of the Shanghai traffic police department, said cases of drink driving were down 60 percent compared with the same period last year. Such a driver has a blood-alcohol level of at least 0.2mg/ml. The idea of a mandatory 15 day jail sentence scares you from even thinking of driving in Shanghai after a few drinks.

Police said 900 cases, or 12 percent, were drunk drivers, meaning their blood-alcohol level was at least 0.8mg/ml. The number of drunk driving cases plunged 78 percent year on year.

Nationwide figures also declined this year, Chen said.
He said reckless driving, still common in the city, “could cause much trouble.”
Earlier this month, a drunken driver drove into an opposite lane causing a fatal head-on crash that killed five people, including himself, in suburban Qingpu District. Two other people were injured.

The driver had a blood-alcohol level of 1.42mg/ml, almost double the legal limit for drunk driving, said police.

In the states Gap’s, Old Navy, Banana Republic are closing down and shrinking the amount of stores all over America. Gap is going to the final frontier China.
Gap Inc., after opening its first Gap store in China last November, expects to launch its Old Navy and Banana Republic brands “in a couple of years,” the company’s Greater China President Redmond Yeung told a meeting of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club today.
“I would say 2013-2014,” Yeung said.

The Gap will open its first store in Hong Kong this month, and aims to open two stores a month in China and Hong Kong for the next 18 months, Yeung said. The company has eight stores in the mainland today, he said.
The company’s China business is growing on the back of strong consumer spending. China has more than 200 cities with a population above one million, and all of that group would be suitable for Gap to expand in, said Yeung, who predicted that the country would one be become Gap’s second most important market.

The company has set up its headquarters in Shanghai because the city is China’s fashion capital, Yeung said. Locating in Shanghai also facilitates staff recruitment, he said.

About 30-40% of items carried by Gap in China are similar to the U.S.; much of the remainder are higher-end fashion items sought by Chinese shoppers, he said.
Luxury U.S. retailers including Tiffany, Calvin Klein and Coach have also been seeking to expand in the country.

On August 10th, two foreign females were spotted skinny-dipping at Baicheng Beach next to Xiamen University. Too bad it wasn’t in Shanghai. Shanghai is missing a good beach.

The scene was captured by a local citizen, who later uploaded the images online, which aroused quite a heated discussion among netizens. Other locals claimed that they had seen at least five other visitors

skinny-dipping in the past. According to locals and netizens, during the past several years, skinny-dipping has not been all that rare along the Xiamen coast, and they found that “tourists

Address:
172 Jinxian Lu,
进贤路172号

Vicinity:
Huaihai Zhong Lu

Directions:
near Shaanxi Nan Lu, Metro Line 1 Shaanxi Nan Lu Station
近陕西南路, 地铁1号线陕西南路站

Contact:
• 6258-1939

Open:
11 A.M. -10 P.M.
Price:

Y100-Y199

This San Francisco-themed restaurant is already known for its authentic and excellent clam chowder in sour dough bread bowl… a great place for a chat with Pier 39’s fresh signature salad (¥58) is full of greens that seem like they’re purchased from a farmer’s market just down the street. A bed of crisp lettuce, arugula and juicy diced tomato, creamy hard-boiled egg, thin slices of red onion and generous chunks of Swiss cheese and smoked chicken. It’s all tossed with a tangy, home made tarragon-based herb vinaigrette. The aromatic herb enhances the slightly fruity olive oil with an addictive flavor. Because the space is small, there will likely be a wait in the colder months of the year. Though, if you’re craving some nice chowder in the summer heat, by all means get in their -they have AC and wireless so on line and great chowder in Shanghai. Actually it’s the best Calm chowder in Shanghai.

Address:
87 Fumin Lu,
富民路87号

Vicinity:
Huaihai Zhong Lu
Directions:
near Julu Lu, Metro Line 2 JingAn Temple Station Exit 3 or 4
近巨鹿路, 地铁二号线静安寺站3、4号口

Contact:
· 6249-5628

Open:
Mon-Sun 11:30am-10:30pm

Price:
Less than Y175 for 2 without drinks

Guyi is an institution of a Hunan restaurant in Shanghai, among both foreigners and locals, for its upscale environment and excellent fiery food, unaffected by local tastes.. Electrify your tongue with the chili-sprinkled ribs Cumin-crusted ribs (ziran paigu) are their signature and open-faced fish. Finish with sweet, sticky banana balls. Milder eaters gravitate toward the equally delicious non-spicy menu offerings.

No matter how many other restaurants i get to know and try in Shanghai, I always go back to Guyi, it is the best restaurant in town, the food is incredible, the taste unforgettable and after the first visit you will always go back for more.
The Shanghai Gu Yi will not take reservations after 6:30, then it a line, the rooms have a 1,000 RMB min. Expect to wait, and it’s not fast Chinese food when the place is packed be prepared to wait for your food.