AMERICA, EAT YOUR BIG APPLE OUT!

            Shanghai was mesmerizing! We had two fun-filled days there. The city is stunning. And in more ways than one. Let's talk opulence first. The Shanghai skyline puts the Manhattan skyline to shame. Shanghai has bigger, taller buildings, and far more of them. The architecture is so unique, it is often breathtaking. As one of our scavenges Monday, we went to the observatory on the 100th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center and gazed (rather gaped) at the beauty of it all. The skyscrapers reach toward the heavens with many different gestures. Their numbers extend beyond the human eye, even from that altitude. Of course, part of the reason they can't all be seen is pollution. But what emerges from the smog puts everyone else's digs to shame. New York buildings seem rather mundane by comparison. We took a boat ride through downtown Monday night and the rows of enormous buildings seemed endless. But Shanghai is a city with lots of personality beyond its skyline. It has beautiful parks and neighborhoods as well.

            Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a Broadway boy at heart. While I've unfortunately lived in the Deep South (and Texas) most of my life, I'm never truly as content as when I'm booked into a hotel on Times Square with tickets to "Wicked," "Book of Mormon" or the latest off-Broadway emergence. I suspect the city that never sleeps will always surpass the rest of the world in terms of raw entertainment, but this Eastern berg has them beat on one of their past bragging rights and, given the direction in which the up-and-comer is going, I wouldn't be surprised if we hear that Tommy Tune and Joe Mantello have relocated and are in search of some fetching Asian men for their next production.

SERVICE -- SHANGHAI IS WAY BEHIND THE TIMES, THANK GOODNESS

            Shanghai doesn't seem to understand the evolution of customer service. Customer care and attentiveness are part of a bygone era in the United States. Just watch a "Back to the Future" movie depicting the '50s where, when a vehicle pulled into a gas station, seven people jumped out the woodwork to perform every task imaginable. The guffaws of the audience are priceless to those of us who remember a similar time. I remember gas station attendants cleaning windshields and windows after checking fluid levels and tire pressure, men delivering milk, butter and Charles' chips in metal cans to your front door, sackers taking the groceries out of your basket and putting them into bags when they were checked.

            All of those activities and more continue to flourish in Shanghai. The service is so good that it is sometimes maddening. I've always said that people are trying too hard to please you when you worry that you're being watched holding your external appendage. I experienced that worry during this trip. At one time, after departing the hotel and reaching the street, I realized I had left my sunglasses in my room. On my way to retrieve them, I was greeted with pleasantries at the building door by a hotel employee. I experienced the same at the row of elevators, where the woman not only pushed the "up" button for me but moved toward and waved her arm in front of the opening elevator like an Asian Carol Merrill. The maid was in my room as I retrieved my glasses, so I went to the hotel's public restroom. A smiling attendant greeted me at the bathroom door and walked me over to a stall which he opened in my honor. I half felt as though I was back in the '70s at a highway rest stop. When I exited my cubicle, he actually turned on the sink water, pressed down the soap button and handed me my paper towels for drying. Frankly, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd offered to hold my ying-yang during the evacuation. The service is that good.

            And the people are so friendly. Almost everyone we approached to assist us with our scavenges tried to be helpful, from the businessmen we accosted downtown to the older gentlemen we approached in the French Connection to the service personnel we met along the Bund. Everyone was supportive. When we announced our citizenship (and even our state of residence), no one batted an eyelash. No political discourse erupted; no obscene reference to George W. Bush was made. Everyone who could, seemed pleased to meet us in spite of our citizenship while proceeding to tell us, in the most delicate terms, why our plan for achieving a particular scavenge was doomed to failure.

            Note that I said "everyone who could." One fact I have not mentioned is that very few of the people we encountered actually speak English. You hear stories that the Chinese are taught English from elementary school on. Well, either that policy started only recently or the majority of people we met were dropouts or had weak teachers because most of them spoke either no English at all or very little. We frequently walked for several miles after failing to communicate with a half dozen or so cab drivers. The people walking weren't much more fluent in English. Of course, I must ask each of you this: if a person from China visiting America were to walk up to you on the street (or to one of your acquaintances who is a cab driver), would you (or your acquaintance) have any ability to communicate with the individual if she didn't speak English? My guess is that the answer is "no." Isn't it extraordinarily arrogant -- not to mention ethnocentric -- for me to expect that my words would be received and understood by those in the very country with a language I have at least subconsciously chosen to ignore? Certainly, many more of the Chinese speak English than Americans speak Chinese. I have great difficulty listening to comments tht America is too liberal on immigration and has no business authorizing Spanish language signs, open captioning and billboards. Every product, street sign, direction sign or advertisement in Shanghai has its message outlined in both Chinese and English. If it's good enough for them....

            We just arrived at the Caravelle Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The hotel is lovely. I'll let you know about the city in a few hours.