(This is Chapter 11 from Mr. Prabhakaranâ€™s book, An Indian Goes Around the World â€“ I: Capitalism Comes to Maoâ€™s Mausoleum, which we have been serializing in this space. Chapter 12, â€œA Morning Walk by the Mekong: a Restaurant Named After My Niece,â€ will appear next week. Read the series every Monday. â€“ Editor)

After spending most part of my last day in China enjoying Pudong and the Bund in Shanghai, I headed for the nearby Nanjing Road (Nanjing Lu, in Chinese). All my friends who had been to Shanghai before me, and all travel guides I read, had strongly recommended that I shouldnâ€™t leave Shanghai without spending some time on Nanjing Road.

At the entrance to the road from the Bund is the famous Peace Hotel. The hotel has a storied past. Its two wings, straddling Nanjing Road, were two independent, privately-owned hotels â€“ Cathay Hotel, to the north, and Palace Hotel, to the south â€“ before Shanghai and the rest of China came under Communist rule, in 1949. Cathay was opened in 1929. It was part of the Sassoon House, built by Sir Victor Sassoon, a British-Sephardic Jew of Iraqi origin. He had made a fortune in Shanghai, trading in opium and weapons. After the Communist takeover, the hotel became government-owned. It was renamed Peace Hotel in 1956.

The history of Palace Hotel goes back to the 1850s. Built as part of the Palace Building, its original name was Central Hotel. Among Palace Hotelâ€™s celebrity occupants was Sun Yat-sen, who stayed there during the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. It may be added that it was the Xinhai Revolution that eventually ended the rule of the Qing Dynasty in China and established the country as a republic. The hotel also boasts of having hosted the first meeting of the World Anti-Narcotics League, in 1909. It shouldnâ€™t surprise anyone that such a meeting was held at Palace Hotel, not the nearby Cathay. It would be inappropriate for a hotel built partly with the money made through illegal opium trade to host an anti-narcotics event. During World War Two, Palace Hotel was occupied by the invading Japanese army. It became part of Peace Hotel in 1965.

The history of Nanjing Road dates back to 1851. At that time, it was called Park Lane. It got the English name because it was part of the International Settlement (discussed in Chapter 10), administered by the British and the Americans. In 1865, the English-speaking administrators renamed it Nanking Road. Nanking is the anglicized form of Nanjing.

The road gets its name from the city of Nanjing. Nanjing became known all over the world, not because it was the capital of China for a long time, but because of the large-scale looting, raping of women and massacre of innocent people that took place in the city in 1937. The atrocities were committed by the invading Japanese army, and have been graphically described in a 1997 book, The Rape of Nanking, written by Iris Chang.

Extending all the way from the Bund to Jingian District, Nanjing Road is said to be the longest (more than three miles long) street in Shanghai. With over one million visitors a day, it is also reputed to be the busiest shopping area in the world.

The part of Nanjing Road that is called Nanjing Road East is reserved exclusively for pedestrians. It reminded me of Calle Florida (Florida Street) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the difference that this one is busier all through the day and most of the night and that it is much longer. Also, while only part of Nanjing Road is reserved for pedestrians, the entire Florida Street is kept that way.

Most of Shanghaiâ€™s oldest and largest department stores are located on Nanjing Road. There are also small stores, overflowing with merchandise suits varied tastes and budgets. As I walked along, I could see in some of them glittering arrays of Chinese silk. There were also teeny-weeny stores and kiosk-like outlets selling antiques, handicraft, trinkets and curios. What was once the hub of European-style restaurants and cafes, Nanjing Road is now a preferred shopping place for the rich and poor alike. Some stores were also overflowing with saleswomen, by which I mean that their numbers were far out of proportion to the quantity of merchandise in them. Salesmen were rare.

Saleswomen Acting as Matchmakers

As I was passing by a ready-made-apparels store, a jacket that was on display on a mannequin caught my attention. Two saleswomen from the store, who might have noticed my more-than-casual interest in the item, came out and grabbed my hands. â€œCome look, no buy,â€ they said and dragged me into the store.

Before I could say no, they pulled the jacket off the mannequin and put it around my shoulders. Then they pushed me toward a mirror and said, â€œLook, you good.â€

One of the women pressed some numbers on a calculator to show me the price. By then, I had decided that I liked the jacket and that I was going to buy it. I told her, using my ten fingers to emphasize it, how much I was willing to pay. After a few minutesâ€™ haggling, we decided on a price and I bought the jacket. Though they wanted me to pay for it in American dollars, I did it in their own currency â€“ which they proudly call renminbi, meaning peopleâ€™s currency.

I was ready to leave the store, but the two saleswomen wouldnâ€™t let me. They dragged me to a showcase and pointed to a ladyâ€™s outfit â€“ a sleeveless blouse and a matching skirt, both made of silk. â€œThis, your wife, good,â€ one of them said.

â€œI am single,â€ I told them, my upward-raised index finger emphasizing my marital status.

â€œOh, you single! Good.â€ They had a solution for that problem, too. They escorted me to a corner of the store. Pointing to a young woman sitting at a desk there, one of them said, â€œShe manager. Single. You two good.â€

â€œI am leaving Shanghai tonight,â€ I told them, gestures and signs supplementing my words. â€œMarriage next time. I promise.â€

My promise made both women giggle. The manager giggled, too. All three were twenty-something and good-looking.

I left the store, saying to myself, â€œA jacket and a bride for the price of one? Not a bad deal.â€

Looking back, I am happy that I didnâ€™t allow myself to be shanghaied by three women, two of them buxom.

Photo: Nanjing Road, Shanghai, China. With over a million visitors a day, it is said to be the busiest shopping area in the world. (The picture is reproduced by courtesy of chinapage.com.)

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A jacket and a bride for the price of one: Shopping on Nanjing Road (Travel with MP Prabhakaran)