As China hurtles forward – warts and all – with a white-hot economic swagger, Shanghai sits once again in that liminal light of change. On the surface, the visceral modernity is intoxicating. But it’s the undertow experiences in the urban vistas that thrill. They invite and reflect stories of a 13th century port city yet again on the cusp of creative reinvention.

To many, PuDong’s (浦东) postmodern towers symbolize Shanghai’s dazzling future. What this district lacks in charm, the totems compensate with chutzpah – right down to the seven lane highways that ring this newest of district, circa 1993. Here, Shanghai’s ambition is writ large; bewitching, brash, and at times bewildering. On a clear night in any of the aerial bars or along the Bund, enjoy and drink in the Party politico’s kool aid: a shock and awe grid screened off from the heaving urban life across the river. Look west across the swarthy Huangpu (黄浦江) river, and PuXi (浦西) with its collective thirteen districts comes into view. If PuDong’s triumphant towers are Shanghai’s ego, then, the changing shikumen (石库门) estates in PuXi is irresistibly Shanghai’s heartbeat.

The shock of the old

To truly know Shanghai is to appreciate these scattered estates with their lilong (里弄) alleyway culture. Many date back to the 1860s, fusing English row house design and southern Chinese courtyards. By the Communist era, these single home units became socialized. Like Beijing’s hutongs (胡同), multi-generational families are crammed into these dense collectives against an expanding skyscraper horizon. For a while, the young and the restless would’ve had none of it. That’s until XinTianDi (新天地) came along.

XTD is a real estate confection dreamt up by an American architect. The winding alleyways were recreated in a huge torn lot at the edge of the former French Concession. But instead of atypical serene courtyards, glitzy food halls and foreign brands now hold court behind intricate stonewalls. These are prime gawk spots. Keep still long enough, and you’ll spot the local rat packs, give or take the millionaire posses and free spending coal miner daughters from China’s second-tier cities. The whole complex is that carefully crafted pastiche of old spaces honed comfortably for mammon.

At TianZhiFang (田子坊), it’s a different line of sight. These lots are more organic in scale, and smacks of teen spirit. I’ve spent afternoons crawling between cozy drinking houses and vintage shops selling yet another kitschy Mao memorabilia. But the real deal here is that last chance to dive into the sights and sounds of a shikumen estate in transition. Picture laundry poles, outdoor kitchens and domestic scenes wedged in-between the confab of youthquake commerce.

For a guilty peep into Shanghai’s everyday lives, I enjoy evening strolls in the larger estates around the working class HongKou district (虹口区) or LuXun park（鲁迅公园). Here, you’ll likely see older locals shuffling outdoors in pajamas, an idiosyncratic public insouciance even by Shanghainese standards. Or, you’ll hear the local Wu dialect’s sing-song patter in teashops crammed with glass jars of the region’s best HangZhou dragon well spring tea along the estate alley ways. These architectural and social mash ups remind me of growing up in Singapore, before rapid urbanization turned similar cultural capsules into modernity’s cold postscripts.

A cultural evolution

Indeed, Shanghai seems yet another Asian metropolis of two tales: the face-off between the allegedly authentic and the prosaically modern. Few, however, can compare to Shanghai’s sprawling social kaleidoscopes, hidden between its egocentric skyscape and the shifting sands of its shikumen soul. And nothing can be as enthralling as to stumble upon these in-between spaces. They not only delight the senses, but also highlight an intriguing creative entrepreneurial spirit. Particularly, in post-industrial working class areas north of SuZhou River (苏州河), around the back lanes of JingAn district (静安区), and an emerging ShiLiuPu (十六铺) south of the Bund.

The art collective at 50 Morganshan Rd (莫干山路50号) was once a far-flung experiment in the northern wallows of a polluted SuZhou River. Behind rambling estates, resident artists today co-mingle with gallery owners in a former textile mill. Chinese contemporary art still rattles the Party cages because it’s not “representative” of well-worn genres in calligraphy and landscape brush strokes. Although the speculative contemporary art market has cooled, it hasn’t stopped this spirited model from regenerating in newer centers along other residential alleys helmed by Art Labor.

In design, Spin Ceramics and Asianera started as small porcelain artisan shops firing up the local craft movement. I always look forward to a visit to Spin to learn from young designers reinventing an old craft. The minimalist home ware is spun from kaolin – soft white china clay –  drawn from JingDeZhen (景德镇), a celebrated 16th-century Ming dynasty porcelain hub. In the same vein, ShangXia, a mashup between Hermès and local artisans, is molding this new context with old techniques into a luxury spin.  In terms of inner city urban renewal, 1933 LaoChangFang (1933老场房) is, bluntly put, architectural awesomeness. Where? In the most unforgiving yet magnificent space: a former slaughterhouse. Its ambition is to craft a conversation between past and present, toggling between an old city and new design offices.

Finding the urban slipstreams

Today’s Shanghai has an uneasy duality between communal creativity and commerce. These creative enterprises are not all entirely successful. But, they are experiments to reinvigorate old spaces for new industries. Hung Huang (洪晃), a well-known blogger and media maven, has indirectly tagged this momentum in China’s big cities as “cultural soft power,” a counter weight to the stress of hard manufacturing’s hyper growth.

Strolling between the slipstreams of alleyways and skyscrapers, you can feel the city’s liberal creative moxie. On the one hand, it’s shaped yet distanced by the Northern political discourse in Beijing. On the other, it feeds off the consumption fervor of a Southern mercantile river delta mentality. Personally, I enjoy Shanghai for its persistent restlessness; marked by its continuing tremulous love affair with the West, and a self-renewal insistence on its Chinese ways and means. It’s an exciting time now to come aboard this imaginative Shanghai Express. Fittingly, the full throttle call seems to be Design in Shanghai, Made in China.

Crave Travel,  published 2014