Shanghai is a city of staggering opposites. Of maze-like alleyways snaking through old street markets, dwarfed by monolithic skyscrapers that signal the city’s economic prosperity. Of peaceful, blossom-bearing parks beside flattened neighbourhoods that make way for the insistent hammering of construction.
Of extravagant, aspiring glamour that strains to impress amidst the smog and grime of over-population. Of sunny boulevards that succumb to nights of pummelling rain, the streets awash and shimmering beneath thousands of electric lights.
It is vast but intimate, industrial but beautiful, and utterly unrelenting.
