This video gives an insight into today’s Shanghai. It also provides you with an idea of what the city looked like in the past, what changes are taking place, and what direction it is headed. The material was collected during a one week trip in 2010. While it may not be a complete story, I have attempted to show the different faces of Shanghai in a virtual tour around the city. There is footage of people, traffic, the Expo, the city’s skyline, and much more.
Shanghai is the largest city in China when it comes to population. It might also be symbolic for the rapid changes that the country is currently undergoing. As one of the most popular travel destinations in Asia, the city offers more than just a glimpse into the future.
Although Shanghai may not have the rich cultural history of other large cities, like Beijing and Xi’an, its unique story alone is worth a visit. While European ‘colonial heritage’ can be found in ‘the Bund’, the skyline at the other side of the Huangpu river (Pudong) can be considered a showcase of modern growth and relative prosperity. In between, there are a thousand different worlds to be explored. I hope to ‘reveal’ some of these worlds with this short music video.
I have chosen to use seven different music tracks to accompany the film, in order to create a certain mood. Six of these audio tracks were taken from the ‘Creative Common’ series, and I’d like to thank the respective contributors for sharing their work: