Hi David,
1989 may seem early, and not to date myself, but I started working for the 'Shanghai Coal Mining Institute' in the early spring of 1982. We were delivering computer driven computer driven test equipment to evaluate spauling cutters on coal mining machines. The computers were DEC PDP-10 machines (pre-PC).
Here is a picture of me with hair (sorry no mullet, but hair seems like a big enough deal to me now):
Shanghai has changed a lot in the last 33 years. Perhaps as much as anyplace in the world. I spent some time last year trying to find the original office, but no luck. I am sure it is long-long gone.
Here is a picture taken through the plane window when I finally left:
At the time, and even today, I am fascinated by these "tolatchi" (tractor ???):
Who would have guessed that 33 years later I am still working there part-time? It turns out that I have worked in Shanghai longer than any of the kids that I work with there now. (Actually I don't think any of them are over 30 years old...) Two years ago I stayed at the Radisson Hotel at People's Square, right where we used to play soccer.
Mark
Wow,Cool photos, i guess you may have seen all the tall buildings, These are the biggest building columns I have seen, excluding bridges etc. I do mostly construction, so I have seen a lot, but these amazed me.
My company has its head office in Shanghai, so I went there for work.We went on the high speed train south from Beijing last month, it got up to 380 kph.
Its interesting to see the changes happen so fast there, but with the govt. controlling and owning most of the income revenue streams, money is not an object when it comes to funding such things.
Interesting stuff and agreed on 'massive'.
Little wonder China has a massive investment in Australian coal and iron ore.