shanghai : the pearl of the orient

Across the river from this retail mecca, a futuristic vision called Pudong sparkles as the city's new financial district on what was mostly marshland 15 years ago. By 2008, Pudong will boast the world's tallest building, providing Shanghai the superlative exclamation point it craves. This year, the city expects more than $12 billion in contracted foreign direct investment, nearly 40 times that of 1985. More foreigners now visit Shanghai than in the city's first heyday. Some travel from the new airport on what is perhaps the city's finest metaphor: a $1.2 billion magnetic-levitation train that reaches 430 kilometers per hour, making it the world's fastest locomotive—even though the entire trip takes only eight minutes. "I've lived all over Asia, and no place has the kind of energy that Shanghai does," says Rudi Butt, the Hong Kong-born executive director of the Yongfoo Elite, a private dining club in the historic French Concession, where a corporate membership costs $7,000.