Either you're special or you're not and here in Shanghai you find out pretty quickly. Walking through the pristine arrivals hall at Pudong International Airport, I can't help feeling that this is probably the cleanest place in China, if not all of Asia. I find myself tailing an impeccably attired gentleman in suit and tie and a young lady walking alongside him. I follow them towards the immigration counter and heave a sigh of great relief as I see there is no one in the queue. Suddenly, the young lady stops ahead of me in mid-stride and clamps down a railing that cordons me off. 'Special,' she says. Almost on cue a security guard comes over and tells me, 'special.' And what am I, chopped liver? 'You,' he says and points towards a line that has hundreds of people in it - and none of them are moving.
Frankly, I don't know how they keep track around here because it seems like there are so many things that are special these days in Shanghai, even if I am not one of them. The comparisons between the two most modern cities in China are inevitable, so let's dispense with the obvious. Shanghai has a Formula One race, the top tennis tournament in Asia and a spectacular new facility to play it in. Hong Kong does not.
Shanghai has a golf tournament that annually features Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Hong Kong does not. And, of course, Shanghai has the World's Fair. Hong Kong does not. It's important to clarify these things because for more than 10 years the debate has raged about the merits of these two metropolises and, naturally, I am on a mission to settle the argument once and for all.
My tour guide on this journey is Kenny 'Smokey' Walker, the 'Pit Boss' and proprietor of Bubba's Texas BBQ in Shanghai where they proudly claim to have been 'smoking the good stuff since 2006'. Smokey left Hong Kong and headed north to Shanghai a few years back when it was the thing to do. He's all Texas with a south Austin lilt in his tongue and has recently opened another Bubba's inside the expo, so he agrees to take me over to the big show.
First thing I have to do is get this idea of a World's Fair being sexy out of my head. The glory days of them being 'the' event in places like London, Paris, St Louis, Chicago and Expo '67 in Montreal are long gone. Hosting an Olympics or a World Cup is a far bigger gig than a World's Fair, but as we cross over the bridge into Pudong it still looks pretty darn impressive, at least what I can see of it.
'I don't think it's all toxic air,' Smokey says. 'Might be some bad weather coming as well. Of course the air around here is much better than it used to be. I can see my golf ball land now when I play. Before you would hit it 200 yards and it would disappear.'