Standing at 468 meters, the Oriental Pearl Radio & Television Tower rises from the tip of Lujiazui like a futuristic totem, its eleven spheres—ranging from the 50-meter lower ball to the 16-meter decorative beads—strung along three slanting crimson columns, evoking the Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi's famous line: "Large and small pearls falling onto a jade plate." Pink-purple spherical skins sheathed in steel framing catch the light differently with every passing cloud, while the 118-meter antenna spire transmits television and radio signals across the Yangtze River Delta—a reminder that this is, first and foremost, a working broadcast tower, not merely a sightseeing prop.