I recently came across a handful of photos from my last trip to Shanghai. It was 1995 and my parents, brother, and uncle flew to China for a two-week trip, which included a stop in Hubei province for my wedding banquet.
I’m intrigued by the Shanghai photos because I’ve heard so much about how the city has changed in 18 short years. Here I am walking down a street with my mom. It could be Nanjing Road.
My father is at a department store on Nanjing Road. One thing he loved to do in foreign countries was to check out household appliances and figure out how long someone would have to work to afford one. He looks quite pleased with this model.
The Shanghai subway was brand new in 1995. Here my mom and brother Jonathan are posing on the platform. What I remember most about the subway was that instead of putting your ticket through a machine to access the platform area, a person would check each and every ticket. It seemed so slow and inefficient. That’s full employment for you! Long ago it switched to an automatic system.
And finally my brother at the Peace Hotel. Nothing else was quite so glamorous back then. I wish we’d taken more photos of the interior.
But I am thankful I have these photos.
Funny that you mentioned the Shanghai subway. When I lived in Beijing (2006-2007) they also hand-checked subway tickets which seemed a bit strange to me at the time. They finally did away with that just before the Olympics.
Thank you so much for the comment! I can’t believe Beijing had those hand-checked tickets a good 10 years after Shanghai did. It’s bizarre to think that that would work in a city of millions. Perhaps they just needed to sort out the glitches of the automated system.