Stick with Crane stance. It's his best stance and leads to juggles and has excellent mix-ups. if you can learn to use the reversal it has, then you'll be a force to be reckoned with. Straight sword is a good stance. If you you ever find yourself in Snake, leave it and switch to Crane. Any Shang player, like myself, will tell you this. Use his 3D fire moves and not the straight fire. They counter sidestepping. Stay away from the soul steal. If blocked, it has a major lag time. Shang is also good at poking. Learn your Crane juggles and you'll all set to kick ass with him. I'm still learning myself. Hes a very fun character to play as!

don't listen to him...snake is fine

Use Crane. With crane you can easily combo (PS2):

X, X, X

or

Square, Square, Square

then when you get those, try:

X, X, X, Square, Square, Square, U+Circle OR Change

(not sure if the Up is neccessary there)

Also, one of my favorite simple combos with Shang in Crane is using his juggle twice (I think U+Triangle, U+Triangle) then juggle with the Soul Steal to give some power to yourself.

Crane: 2,2,1,1,1,cs (if I remember right) does it for me ;) But there's lots and lots of info in the high level gameplay thread, u should read it sometimes...

Thanks guys