In a recent balmy weeknight at the Shanghai Grand Stage, pop icon Elton John -- flamboyant in a floor-length red satin skirt and trademark shades -- takes to his piano. For the next 2 and half hours, he pounds out one classic tune after another for 10,000 Chinese fans who crocodile-rock in time to his infectious rhythms.

Over on the city's fabled art deco banking strip, called the Bund, Chinese yuppies and expat dealmakers fiddle with their Blackberrys over foie gras gras br?l��e with pistachio coulis in the hushed recesses of the city's latest dining sensation: the Jean Georges restaurant.

Start with the skyline, as tall and flashy as Houston Rockets star Yao Ming, who hails from here. In the past decade alone, a forest of space-age skyscrapers -- nearly 3,000 over 18 stories tall -- has sprouted along the banks of the Huangpu River in a scene straight out of The Jetsons. They pierce the sky with their globes, rockets, spires, crowns, ziggurats and crescent peaks in a jaw-dropping showcase by the world's top architects. With a staggering 2,000 more in planning or under construction (at one time, the city had one-quarter of all the world's cranes), residents struggle with an ongoing sense of disorientation.

However, the willowy fashionistas in their Gucci and Prada (or knockoffs, at least) who strut along Nanjing Road, or sip mocha lattes in one of Starbucks' ubiquitous cafes. They peruse newsstands overflowing with Chinese editions of Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Marie Claire, Bride's and Good Housekeeping.

"Shanghainese like everything new, they go crazy over that," says attorney John Sun, one of the new generation of Shanghai movers and shakers. "It is growing so fast because it's not China's Shanghai anymore. It's the world's Shanghai."

"Everything is exploding here," says Eleen Chua, head of Hertz for China. "The people want to learn fast." At the same time, "appearances count a lot."

Hilda Looi, spokeswoman for the year-old Four Seasons hotel, agrees. "Young people associate themselves with the West," she says. "They want to be hip."

"When I arrived three years ago, people didn't know what a spa was," says Malaysian Veronica Ann Lee of the Westin Shanghai hotel. "Now they're popular."

The changes -- whether great leaps forward or not -- have so far bypassed pockets of old Shanghai.

Broad avenues, stately mansions and some of the city's best restaurants recall the days when Shanghai was known as the Paris of the East.

"On the surface, it's very Westernized," says Lee. "But underneath, the Chinese aspects come out."

"Shanghai is becoming the in place to go and be seen. It's the most vibrant city in the world," says Philippe Caretti, general manager of the Pudong Shangri-La Hotel, who has worked all over Asia for 21 years. "The people want only the best."

Source: USA Today