Shanghai skyline. It's big.

Technically I am in Shanghai for a few days to help run the board meeting and a visiting committee review visit for my program’s sister initiative, China Leaders for Global Operations, which like the MIT version is a dual MBA/Engineering Master’s at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. [If you click on their link you might see yours truly looking like a big Western stiff in a group portrait with SJTU’s president.] This program has been around for five years or so and is doing well, despite some local challenges such as the fact that your average MBA switches jobs every 18 months in Shanghai, so getting off the hamster wheel for a full-time two-year program is too much for many potential candidates to handle.

I'm smiling even though India is lodged in my skull

We participated today in the graduation ceremony for our students, who are going on to jobs in Apple, Dell, and Amazon and other such companies’ burgeoning China operations. Both the China LGO students and their MIT counterparts see the value in being connected to each other (through periodic visits and some cool joint projects). As one MIT student told me, even though he doesn’t plan to live in China, for his career in manufacturing/operations having an understanding of how China works and knowing people there are essential.

Hot and Sour Soup: note the huge dose of pepper in the middle

However, my true and lifelong purpose in being here, or indeed anywhere, is the food. My colleagues today actually went to two different locations of Din Tai Fung, probably the best dumpling joint chain in the world. I got to join them for dinner, where, what with the whole vegan thing, my experience was indeed different than in the past. I did have one scrumptious xiaolongbao (dumpling with crabmeat and pork in hot broth inside the pouch) just for old times’ sake, and had to try the Kung Pao Cat (shout out to JWH and Wu’s Garden fans everywhere) (that was a joke). But the real health benefit for me of being vegan is how it saves me from my gluttony–without it, I am the champion vacuum cleaner at any table, known to my boss from our last trip as the man who will eat anything; with it, a somewhat monastic abstainer who gets sidelong glances from normal god-fearin’ omnivores. Anyway, despite their dumpling awesomeness, Din Tai Fung actually stars for me in the hot and sour soup category. Most American-Chinese joints will serve you something that is barely soup. let alone hot and sour. This number is potent in each category. [I highly recommend you buckle up before clicking on the soup photo: it is a dizzying look into the maw of a soup whirlpool. Amazing what camera phones can do now.]

Flower delivery bike in Tianzifang

Earlier I got the chance to go do Tianzifang, or Taikang Rd., a totally charming area where old alley-style homes have been redeveloped as shops, cafes, art galleries. This has been done without turning it all into a luxury mall (like Xintiandi)–the electric wires are still strung along about head-height and shops have been built into tiny spaces with “charming” holes in the wall turned into window displays. Funny somewhat-ironic trend: Obama shirts with him as Chairman Mao. Actually, not so funny or ironic in some parts of America. This is still a residential area so after lunch I heard a kid’s flute practice coming out of a window, bird song, and nary a motor scooter.