National Day is China’s biggest holiday (think Labor Day and the 4th of July rolled into one, in terms of travel), and thus all of the big cities are flooded with people, as I mentioned earlier. Many of the visitors are from the countryside and, for some at least, this is their first and perhaps their last trip to the big city. While inexpensive lodging is available in Shanghai, it is still expensive to a farmer family from the provinces that pulls in perhaps a few thousand renminbi per year.
For these provincials, a trip to Shanghai must be truly eye-opening. While these is no doubt that Shanghai is one hell of a city, nearly overwhelming even for Westerners, it is at its core just a city. But for these provincials, often from areas of the country that the Cultural Revolution hit hard and never really ended, it is a stark reminder that their China is disappearing and that Shanghai (along with its sisters Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzen, Dalian and others) are the future, and future which they can hardly comprehend let alone operate in on any effective level. It is, very literally, like taking 19th century American farmers and putting them in the middle of New York City — it’s still America, and they speak the same language, but the two can hardly be considered related.