Actually think of any generic first-person shooter (sorry for this everyone). You know how there’s always an industrial section, where you’re going through a warehouse, with cranes and loud noises and all the rest of it? Seriously, it’s a completely necessary part of all of them – be it Max Payne, Soldier of Fortune, FarCry, it’s always there.

And the constituent parts never change: loads of railings which look like cover but actually don’t protect you from an annoying fixed gun at the other end of the room; a completely superfluous puzzle that involves pressing oversized control panels to manoeuvre large blocks into place that allow you to progress; and a really irritating bastard who’s in a box somewhere near the roof and shoots you in the back when you run out after thinking you’ve cleared the room.

The bit where you get out the elevator, the music starts, and marines start shooting at you. Observe crucial control panel.

All to be found at Bao Steel (with a little imagination). They must model videogame levels on steel plants or something. There are even people walking around who you can imagine having to knock out to steal their uniforms (which always fit, for some reason). A friend actually commented that they look like oompa-loompas, but that’s besides the point.

Another thing happened when we were there. After driving for an hour and a half to watch a piece of molten steel move along a conveyor-belt, I was interviewed by a couple of people for the programme. I’m ashamed to say with some certainty that I will be appearing on a DVD advertising Study China to the next batch of eager-eyed university kids.

Why? Because my answers sounded like a bloody propaganda ad. They must have hypnotised me or something – why else would I say that Bao Steel is far superior to every steel plant in the UK, and a wonderful place for all to visit?! I don’t make it my business to compare and contrast metal factories – honest. But if I was all you had to go on, you’d think Bao Steel is the one thing you absolutely must do before leaving Shanghai. For the record, it really isn’t. Unless you’re into location scouting for shooting games of course.

Ok, so it’s money for old rope. Everyone’s seen signs that didn’t quite turn out right, but here’s Shanghai’s best for what it’s worth.

If you can’t read the caption, Point 1 says this: “The ragamuffin, drunken people and psychotics are forbidden to enter the tower”. Especially the ragamuffin, whomever he may be.

It'd definitely 'civilized' then, we can be sure of that. No unleashed dogs and ASBOs here.Got that? Revellers WILL be punished for overly large steps - be warned.

Got that? Revellers WILL be punished for overly large steps - be warned.

Sorry if I’m about to offend cultural norms or anything here (you’re used to it by now), but here is a word we all use without considering what it means, where it came from, or what its implications are.

I mean, what the hell does being a ‘Westerner’ mean anyway? Is is someone from North America? Or West Europe? Let’s be honest, we’re obviously talking about some kind of a didactic, arrogant and patronising set of views as to what a ‘civilised’ life is. The kind of life led by Americans is shared by people all over the world. Many of those don’t live in the West, and they don’t live in the North. (How come the North/South divide isn’t fashionable anymore?)

It strikes me that you can look at this two ways, and guess what, neither of them make sense. If you think the West is a place like America with the greatest exposition of a developed life on the planet, then quite frankly, that isn’t just the West. As I’ve said, liberal democracies have spread all over the place thanks to a few great men, a few wars, and two thousand years of people getting annoyed by not being able to do anything about dictators. In other words, it isn’t just those just living in the geographical ‘West’ that have the lifestyle the word pertains to. (Anyway, just spin your globe round: miraculously the West becomes the East.)

The second way of seeing this is as a set of ideals. If the concept of the West refers to some kind of a perfect lifestyle, then we really have a problem. For a start, that’s seriously up itself. It means that, however many enthusiastic and ‘internationally-minded’ students you send to China, as long as you reinforce the idea that they’re ‘Westerners’, they’re bound to look at Eastern customs as ‘interesting’, ‘funny’, maybe even ‘curious’. But still weird. It’s the kind of attitude that causes people to react to what they see with a fond yet patronising smile, that says “that’s interesting, but they’re still way behind us“.

And have you noticed how utterly anachronistic that is? How can you impress visitors with stories of quantum leaps in technology and design that point towards this place as the future, yet continue to propogate the notion of the West in the back of everyone’s minds? If we’re talking about ideals here, get with the program! It’s a race, and this lot are winning hands down. Even those utopian optimists after a society of wealth and perfect equality, delusional as they may be, might as well stop looking to the West. It’s going to end up here. Or in India, or Russia, or Brazil. But not in places like the drizzly island of the UK.

It’s no good wandering about saying how things are changing and it’s all rather impressive. It’s the impact that matters. We’re not just talking your TV being made in China now, we’re dealing with a wholesale overhaul of what it means to be civilised, sophisticated and cutting-edge. That requires tearing down stale attitudes of superiority that don’t apply any more. The future lies in new places. We should realise that, accept it, and embrace it.

There are way too many taxi drivers for a start. Seriously, some of those guys need to branch out. Just ‘cos your mates are doing it, and the car comes with the job, doesn’t mean two rides a day is gonna make a decent living.

Then you’ve got the shop sweepers. Expensive malls have loads of these. People with brushes who go up and down over the same spot again and again. I’m not exaggerating when I say I watched a woman sweep the same doorway for ten minutes (why I was watching her for ten minutes is besides the point). Don’t get me wrong, that was one shiny doorway, but still.

The best example, however, is the doormen. In Shanghai it seems to be the norm to employ a couple of staff with the express purpose of opening doors for customers. A hairdresser I went past yesterday had two pretty girls at the entrance, and as far as I could tell letting people in was literally their only role. (Speaking of barbers, can anyone tell me why they always have those vertical spinny things? They’re here as well, and I still haven’t worked out what the point of them is.)

The hotel I’m staying at is clearly overstaffed. We’ve got a guy who sits by the lifts, just so he can press the button for you when he sees you coming, before giving you a discount massage flyer (when I say ‘massage’ I mean head to the top floor and have whatever you like if you’ve got the dollars, that kind of massage).

Even more superfluous: the chap who stands on the door, even though it’s always open. And when it isn’t, he does his job so poorly that either he doesn’t see you coming (then looks embarrassed as you somehow manage to open it of your own accord); or he does see you coming but opens it way too early, so you end up with one of those awkward situations where you have to semi-jog to get there quicker so as not to feel bad.

My theory for all this is that, in the same way the credit crunch hasn’t made it here, neither has the beauty of ‘HR’ (that’s Human Resources by the way) and all its glorious jargon. Until Chinese business is subject to ‘appropriate junctures for streamlining’ and various other twaddle, they’ll never start firing people for doing literally nothing. Then again, maybe that ain’t such a bad thing.

It’s the damn pollution; you might say the air hangs heavy as a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

I’m off to get some cake, soak up the booze.