So true. "Every time I go in the subway, I die a little bit inside" - a friend of mine used to say this when we lived in Beijing.

Can't remember if I've even been to the Shanghai subway, but the feeling inside in Guangzhou and Shenzhen are like Beijing, but even more foul-smelling. Traffic is also really really bad though, so at least on the subway you know it's going to take an hour instead of the "30 minutes or 3 hours?" estimate you get by car.

Now Hong Kong is completely different... for now.