It’s a beautiful wintry morning. I am on the top floor of the Shangri-La Jing An overlooking an amazing city that never ceases to astound me.

Shanghai’s put on her best face for me these last three days – crisp air, blue skies – rare days, my Shanghainese friends tell me and so they are out there making the best of it.

At the next table to me, a business meeting is taking place between a European man and three Chinese, one of whom is a woman. He’s talking about his business, outlining his plans to bring it to China. In the middle of his rather long discourse, the Chinese woman interrupts him and asks, “What’s your point?”

She is clearly American-educated and believes in getting to the point and she is one of a growing breed of Shanghainese, who were all educated abroad, US primarily, and have returned to their homeland of opportunity to be part of this century’s new gold rush.

In contrast, yesterday, I was part of a conversation in a government office that took a long time to get to the point – actually I don’t think it ever got to the point. But that’s the whole point, I understand, of these meetings. In these “dance of diplomacy” meetings, you’re not meant to get to the point and the most important thing to remember is what five things did the top official say to conclude the meeting. That’s the point, so I am told.

I found it fascinating the contrast between these two conversations. One, the language of entrepreneurship and believe me, Shanghai’s entrepreneurs are among the smartest and wiliest anywhere and two, the language of official-dom where there’s still a great deal of protocol – however I hear even that’s about to change as a new generation of leaders steps in.

In the news, a Chinese travel agency, Dexo Travel, has signed an agreement with a Netherlands-based space tourism firm Space Expedition Corporation to sell space trips to Chinese travellers – at 1.35 million yuan (about US$220,000) a seat, these trips will come onto the market by year end.

In Hongqiao, they’re planning for 2m square metres (yes, two million) of convention and exhibition space as part of the Hongqiao Convention and Exhibition Centre and Disneyland project. This on top of the existing facilities which I had the opportunity to view this trip – from the massive Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Centre to the 10-year-old Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC) to the truly new Shanghai Convention and Exhibition Centre of International Sourcing, which opened last November (pictured below). 

Other than conferences and exhibitions, Shanghai is also setting its sights on the cruise business and cruise terminals are being built with the goal of becoming a cruise centre equal to Singapore and Hong Kong by 2015 – in the news today, a plan to  introduce a 72-hour visa-free scheme for cruise passengers.

This coming Lunar New Year, they’re expecting the city’s two airports to handle 9.3 million passenger trips with a total of 70,000 flights set to depart and arrive during the 40-day rush between this weekend and February 24.

I also met with two leading venture capitalists focused on the Internet and they are all betting on how the smartphone is going to disrupt all services – from transportation to hotel bookings, tours and activities buying, in-destination concierge services …

Ecommerce is soaring in China – this is a city of folks who really do buy everything online, from milk and vegetables to shampoo and dishwashing liquid. And with the cost of smartphones (Chinese-made) coming down to US$30, bets are everyone is going to own one eventually.

Meanwhile, the news over the weekend of the fire that destroyed 60% of the ancient Tibetan town of Shangri-La, Dukezhong is buried amid all this news of growth and expansion. The people I met during this trip were not aware of the news and beyond the initial gasp of shock and horror, didn’t show that much interest.

I guess when you live and work in a city on steroids, you really don’t have time to slow down and think about the past nor even the present.

But there are a few voices out there yearning for things to slow down. In his column in the Shanghai Daily today, Wan Lixin writes about a recent visit to Japan “that land of workaholics and karoshi (death by overwork)”, where he caught a local TV travel programme.

“An elderly gentleman was peddling slowly through the suburban area, obviously with a camera trained at him from behind. Then he stopped at a roadside inn for tea. Then he resumed his journey.

“He was not visiting any tourist destinations. There were no dramas, no accidents, except off-hand remarks from the man. It was a totally unedited, unprocessed and uninterrupted record of the trip.”

It’s a new phenomenon called slow TV – just like slow food, a counter trend to the overwhelming one of speed that’s taking over all our lives.

“If you have time to stand and stare, you probably can get an occasional glimpse of our unhurried past by watching how a bird can sing a carefree tune perched atop a tree,” muses Wan.

I can almost feel the longing in his words. However I am not sure if this slow movement will catch on anytime soon in Shanghai.

At one of the new exhibition centres we visited, the staff showing us around pointed to an empty, raw space and said, “This will be the restaurant and it will be ready in three months.”

I looked at her in disbelief. She smiled and said, “China speed.”