Yellow River Odyssey. Bill Porter

       SHANGHAI

      I asked the concierge to unlock the window so I could smell the city. I was on my way from Hong Kong to follow the Yellow River from its mouth to its source and couldn’t resist the temptation to stop in Shanghai for the China Coast Ball. This annual bacchanal was organized by and for the Hong Kong expatriate community, and it was normally held in March at the Belle Vista in Macao. But in 1991 the Belle Vista was being renovated, and the organizers turned to the Peace Hotel in Shanghai as a suitable replacement. The Peace had been boarded up during the Cultural Revolution, and the splendor of its art-deco interior had survived intact.

      From the airport, I took a taxi to the Peace, but the Peace was full, as were the other hotels opposite the river promenade known as the Bund. The ball’s organizers were expecting over 500 members to show up and had reserved all available rooms six months in advance. Revelers were coming from as far away as Europe and Australia. Fortunately, a few blocks away, the former Russian consulate-general’s residence had reopened the week before as the Seagull Hotel, and I had my choice of accommodations. The place still reeked of glue from the newly paneled hallways, so I sought relief in the lesser evil of the Huangpu River. And the concierge was kind enough to unlock my room’s window. The river flowed past the Seagull and the other hotels on the Bund, and twenty kilometers to the north it joined the waters of the Yangtze and the East China Sea. It was the junction of these waterways that was the reason for the city’s existence. Most of China’s billion citizens lived in the Yangtze watershed, and Shanghai connected them with the rest of the world. That didn’t mean much until a few centuries ago, but the city had made up for lost time. I thanked the concierge and looked out onto the Bund.