The Most Exciting City In East Asia

"Says Kenta Mitsui, a 29-year-old photographer who moved from Tokyo two years ago: 'I stand on a street corner back home and, well, it's just a street corner. In Shanghai, the streets are so vibrant, buzzing with energy, it's like the very air is reprimanding me for daring to just stand there. I should be working, going out, making tons of money, whatever, something, ANYTHING! That's the air you breathe in Shanghai.'

Mitsui is one of a growing number of Japanese artists who have abandoned Tokyo and bypassed New York and Paris to put their money on Shanghai."

"Indeed, Japanese fashion magazines now routinely carry articles about Shanghainese methods of makeup and style while exhorting the nation's women to adopt Chinese traditional tips on beauty maintenance. (Apparently, it's the tea. Tea, tea, tea!)"