Redruth to Shanghai

December 2025

Mindful of my comments about a man who told me about how he '...shipped cars from Shanghai to Cornwall by train', Mike Tresidder could not resist the opportunity to visit Shanghai and share his trip on this blog. Once again rules have been bent (there is not a lot of train travel!) but what a fascinating trip.

My son Merryn had been awarded an an artist’s residency at a gallery in Zhujiajiao, Shanghai so I set off to be a tourist with him when he was free. I felt some guilt at the air travel involved and would have dearly loved to have made the trip, at least one way by train, but time constraints and various political difficulties ruled this out. So, after a train journey to London, an overnight stay with a friend and a twelve hour flight, I arrived at Pudong International airport just as Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Kim Jong Un et al set off from their Shanghai conference for a 'tankfest' parade in Beijing.

Zhujiajiao is a town on the western outskirts of Shanghai. Built on the Dianpu and Caogang rivers and associated waterways, much of the town seems to have survived the westward march of modern Shanghai. In recent times it has become a popular tourist attraction for both Chinese and international visitors. Narrow streets and canals mean that walking is the most practical way to get about and I had managed to find accommodation in the centre of it all!

Merryn was resident at an art gallery in a modern compound but still only 15 minutes away, so we met up and together explored the town over the next two days. Apart from Taoist and Buddhist temples and the impossibly fascinating town itself, one of the highlights had to be the Kezhi Gardens. It was built at the beginning of the 20^th century and aimed to physically represent the importance of “learning”kè (课)and “farming”zhí (植).  In Kezhi the mind and cultivation of the land nurture each other, in Kezhi Gardens课植园 the carefully laid out planting and architecture did just that.

A few days later we went to central Shanghai. My preconceived idea was that it would be a noisy and polluted city and difficult to get around. How wrong I was! Public transport was clean and efficient and nearly every car, bus or van was electric whilst the air, for a city of its size, was remarkably clean. The Shanghai Metro consists of 22 lines and, apparently, regularly reaches 10 million rides a day. Tannoy announcements in Mandarin and English inform passengers of stops, whilst a video also shows a cartoon character informing passengers of what is and isn’t ‘acceptable behaviour’. It felt very safe and easy to use. Sadly, I didn’t get the opportunity to use the 430 kilometre per hour Maglev ...

Coming out of a metro station we walked along Nanjing Road towards the river front district known as The Bund.  The architecture seemed so familiar, with stores selling the latest IT and mobile phones, gift shops, hotels, and restaurants.  Only the Chinese signage distinguished it from an affluent district in a European city.

 Of course this should not really have been a surprise as we were entering the heart of the one time British Concession. For nearly a hundred years the British had carved out a fiefdom from which they forced a weakened Chinese Empire to trade with them. Other countries followed, including France and America. The British concession eventually became an International Concession but still run by the British until 1941. For the Chinese the concessions were a reminder of what became known as a time of humiliation. However, rather than tearing down this district, modern China preserved it and replaced the Western conglomerate headquarters with their own. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) still has a presence in the city but from 1955 onwards their old headquarters at 12 The Bund had new occupants: The Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPD Bank)..

So, we joined a sea of people all walking towards The Bund and awaited night fall for the illumination of the modern district located across the Huangpu river. This did not disappoint. In many ways, the walk encapsulated how the city wished to be seen by the world. We walked past the buildings of the colonised past and their new occupants to be overawed by buildings representing an engine of commerce; shiny modern buildings for a shiny future. Rather than ignoring its history, modern and dynamic Shanghai presents itself as a city that has embraced the past and shows off its intent with bricks, mortar, concrete, glass and steel.

Another expedition into the city took us across the river into the heart the shiny city (‘The Pudong New Area’) and a visit to Shanghai Museum East. Here modern architecture, ancient bronzes, pottery and calligraphy exhibits combine to make a similar statement. This time, however, the story is not just about Shanghai, it is about how China as a whole sees itself.  A small gallery contains exhibits from a variety of ethnic minorities, but the overwhelming message is how Han culture, over centuries, has contributed to what modern China has become today.

On another visit we stopped off to by buy some tea at Tianshan Tea City. This was a labyrinthine building housing over 150 stalls and shops devoted to selling tea and associated paraphernalia. An important place if one wants to brew tea ‘with skill’, known as ‘Gong fu Cha’.

The more I accepted what made the city ‘tick’, the easier it became to enjoy my stay. I was forewarned that a mobile phone capable of running very specific Chinese apps was near essential, and so it proved. Payment for just about everything was made using a smart phone app linked to a bank account, even ordering food in the smallest of places was done by scanning menu QR codes, and using public transport was a much speedier affair when using the official app. At first, I suspect like so many of my generation, I was uncomfortable surrendering so much of my personal data to companies ultimately controlled by the government, but the Western apps I took for granted were blocked so I had little choice. Automated payment machines were everywhere and using cash, even if a person was available to take it, was not easy. I wonder though, which is worse, a company controlled by a tech 'bro' billionaire in the USA or the proxies of the government of The People Republic of China (PRC)?

Street camera surveillance and signs exhorting people to be nice to one another such as 'don’t talk loudly on your mobile phone', 'don’t let your children annoy other people', made me realise that government and the people have evolved a sort of contract with one another. Yes, the PRC were saying 'we will surveil you on your phone and in the street, we will guide you into acceptable behaviour but in return look at what we have gained'. A colleague of Merryn’s assured me that street crime was exceptionally rare and, indeed, I don’t think I had ever felt so at ease in a major city before.

 Although my stay was short I got a flavour of what Merryn was up to. He was working towards a piece that involved a comparison between Western and Chinese colour theory in Art. As I was leaving he was planning a talk to Chinese students at a bilingual school. For his final work at the gallery entitled ‘For All the Tea In China’ he had the students from the school write Chinese characters onto tea wrappers, had his written work on colour theory translated into Mandarin and made tea for people gong fu cha style as a performance hook. He has a Chinese website featuring his 'tea making skill' with 400 followers. It seems young people in particular have rediscovered the tradition and social media clips of their performances are quite popular.

On returning to Cornwall I re-acquainted myself with the writing of JG Ballard. Born in Shanghai at the time of the British concession, he is probably most famous for his semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun. It was an important read for me not only as a fan of his work but, along with the histories of Rana Mitter, it underlined aspects of contemporary China that we may find hard to appreciate. Not least of which was, from their perspective, they were fighting WW2 long before the West. Resisting the Japanese imposition of a puppet state in Manchuria, then a full-blown invasion in 1937. Civil conflict between the Communist and Republicans, and the all-out civil war that followed in 1945 may blur our understanding of this. However, it’s easy to see how China today sees the 20^th century as a time when they began to overcome, not only colonialism, but both home grown and foreign imperialism.  

 Of course I only had the smallest of glimpses of one Chinese story, one that the PRC was happy to tell. For people living further to the west, away from the dominant narrative of a renewed appreciation of history and the shiny financial districts, I know the story will be different. For me though, as a first impression of modern China, it was impressive.

* Rana Mitter is a British historian who writes on the history and politics of modern China. Highly recommend.

Mike also posts on substack discussing Cornish language and history michaelatresidder@substack.com

Thank you Mike. Lots of food for thought here. Also great photos!

My travels have been much closer to home of late with lots of winter walks which despite or because of the rain and wind have been very exhilarating. Have also been on a writers' retreat in the Youth Hostel (certain irony) in Boscastle. What an experience! The building was devastated in the 2004 flashflood. Now rebuilt, sturdy and very warm, it still creaks at night and feels like an anchored ship in the harbour as the wind bashes past and the river and sea collide at high tide. I recommend a stay. You can hire a whole room with multiple beds. Be quick though as it is at risk of being sold off by the YHA.

Also congratulations to Helston Chamber Choir for a wonderful, spirited performance of Mozart's Requiem last week.