Amid the astonishing bustle in this ancient metropolis, where well-heeled bottle-blondes with cigarettes, headscarved women and mustachioed men holding worry beads weave through winding streets choked with traffic, that is clear.
In the French Concession, the city's most popular residential district, bicycles and scooters careen through the winding tree-canopied streets, holding such new buzz boites as Dr. Wine and The Apartment.
The markets will be holding their breath to see what Chairman Ben Bernanke has to say regarding the winding down of the second quantitative easing program, which ends this month.