China: Shanghai and Education

From Greece, Harry Papasotiriou writes: I just returned >from two weeks of lecturing on American politics at the East China Normal University of Shanghai, in the context of its brand new American Studies program.  The Chinese students were unbelievably wonderful in their hospitality.  But they need to do much work academically - highly simplistic notions about America abound.  They are also virulently anti-Japanese, to an extent that surprised me.  It is indicative of a parochial nationalism that is at odds with Shanghai's integration in the global economy.  Still, the very fact that an American Studies program was just created is evidence that Chinese universities are opening up to the world in politically sensitive fields.  (You can hardly study American politics without studying democracy, civil rights and liberties etc).
 
Shanghai is truly bursting with new construction, as is usually reported.  What I found particularly fascinating was the intermixture of new and old, which was almost absent from Hong Kong (where I stayed for three days).  Even in downtown Shanghai, you see whole blocks of the crowded old tenements right next to super-modern hotels and corporate headquarters.  In spite of the vast wealth disparities that such an intermixture brings out in sharp relief, the prevailing mood in the city seems sunny and optimistic.  I have particularly vivid memories of crowded traditional markets, where shoe-makers occupying stores hardly larger than ten square meters make shoes to custom (deliverable in less than a week), right next to similarly tiny spice stores and food shops.