The city of the future ...today!

Prior to my visit, everything I read or everyone I spoke with described Shanghai as "hyper-modern" or "the city of the future." Since the city does have a levitating train to the airport, a kitschy sci-fi TV tower and the world's highest per-capita usage of mind-numbingly bright neon signage - I suppose you could make this point.

But a few blocks away from the tourist and business districts, "the city of the future" turns into a pre-industrial Qing Dynasty world of communal living, communal toilets and various animal limbs hanging about. It's like a scene from some psycho-Chinese Charles Dickens story.

But with lots more bicycles.