Sights & Sounds
Shanghai never sleeps
"Shanghae is by far the most important station for foreign trade on the coast of China…No other town with which I am acquainted possesses such advantages; it is the great gate the principal entrance, in fact, to the Chinese Empire… there can be no doubt that in a few years it will not only rival Canton, but become a place of far greater importance."
--- Robert Fortune in Three Years' Wonderings in the Northern Provinces of China. A British botanist, he visited Shanghai late in 1843, a few days after the city was declared open to foreign trade on November 17, 1843.
How prophetic were Fortune's words. Shanghai continues to be the Phoenix rising over the Huangpo, Shanghai's 'Mother River.' With money as its raison'etre, China's most cosmopolitan and dynamic metropolis has resurged as a global centre of commerce and culture. The biggest city (19 million) in the biggest country in the world (1.4 billion) is the twenty-first century face of the 'Oriental Dragon' and its 'Window to the World.' China's financial hub's neon-lit skyline rivals Manhattan. The city's other epithet is 'New York of the East.' Just in case anyone has missed the message an Italian-American artist Arturo Di Madica has been commissioned to sculpt a bull, similar to the iconic one that struts New York City's Wall Street. The singular point of difference: while the American bull looks down, the Shanghai counterpart rears its head so we are told.
Hugh Lindsay of the East India Company chanced upon the coastal mudflats of Shanghai, a village with fishing as its principal economic activity in 1832. Spotting its potential as a lucrative emporium in the Far East, the British opened its first trade concession under the Nanjing Treaty in 1843. China's defeat in the First Opium War led to Hong Kong based British taipans (trading house representatives) to commence commerce in the treaty port another trading link in its vast mercantile network across seven seas. It was a fulcrum of trade and profit for all commerce between Calcutta and Canton. France and the USA also acquired trading concessions. Shanghai developed into a thriving river port city with warehouses, wharves and factories attracting tankers from afar.
Into the early years of the twentieth century, a number of events shaped Shanghai's spirit and structure. History's tumultuous throes impacted China. Its long imperial rule came to a close in 1911 with the abdication of the last Qing emperor Pu Yi. Shanghai now eclipsed the former imperial capital Beijing. White Russians fleeing the 1917 Russian Communist Revolution arrived in Shanghai. Jews from Europe arrived in Shanghai seeking refuge from an increasing anti-Semitic environment. Foreign investments multiplied. Today's global banker The Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) was established in this city in 1842 to handle British financial interests. Traditionally, the gateway to China, the city acquired a cosmopolitan face and a free and frivolous spirit as 'Swinging Shanghai.' Other epithets followed: 'Paris of the East.' In All About Shanghai: A Standard Guidebook (first published in 1934), we have a graphic description: "Vital, vibrant, vivacious; strident, turbulent, glowing Shanghai is the Big Parade of Life of every colour, race, tempo; the bitter end of the long trail for many wastrel souls: the dawn after the dark for others."
Soaring Shanghai has known a single period of lying low in the past century. The China Communist Party (CCP) was founded in Shanghai in 1921. The city's frenetic pace ebbed in the 1950s to 1970s with the Communist takeover in 1949. There was little room for capitalist and commercial Shanghai in the new political climate. It saw the transfer in 1949 of HSBC from Shanghai to Hong Kong still a British colony. Red Guard vanguards of the Communist Cultural Revolution targeted the city's concentration of cultural and intellectual people. Many were sent to rural areas for rehabilitation. Many fled the country. And Shanghai was effectively closed for the next three decades. It lay dormant. It was with the opening of the economy and market reform in the 1980s that the fortune of Shanghai once again took a winning streak. It has not stopped since. Time magazine reports "365 million tons of cargo handled in 2009 by its port, the world's busiest. Also, the per capita GDP of Shanghai, the wealthiest provincial city in China stands at $10,529." The city's meteoric comeback is crowned by Shanghai's hosting of World Expo 2010. Shanghai is once again in the nation's limelight and on the global radar.
It is also an architectural playground as modern Shanghai pushes fantasy to its limit. If Chicago invented the skyscraper in 1885, then Shanghai has since the 1990s reinvented it. Daytime sun-kissed skylines contrast with neon-lights that scramble along vertical facades of Shanghai's nocturnal skyline in the futuristic Pudong area marshland in the not too distant past. According to the Time magazine article, "The skyline counts more than 30 buildings over 650ft (200m) tall." The rocket-like Pearl TV Tower's steel needle pierces the sky and is topped by a sparkling ball illumination. This is the metropolis' symbol and the equivalent of the other Paris's iconic monument. A good amount of urban planning is visible. Public transport has much improved. Interlocking multi-lane serpentine flyovers are softened by green landscaping. Central Shanghai has pockets of parks. Nanjing Road, the historic commercial avenue of the city is today a pedestrian precinct with every facet of consumer culture. It was on this commercial street that China's first state-owned retailing enterprise (eight-storey high) was set up. That was in 1949.
Shanghai is also a repository of stunning early twentieth century Western art deco architecture; a simplistic form that emphasizes geometric lines that moved away from the flowery ornamentation of nineteenth century architecture. Thus my sense of awe as our bus halted before a tall building with '1934' written boldly across its façade. Park Hotel was known as 'The Pride of Shanghai.' Opening for business in 1934, this art-deco masterpiece was designed by a Hungarian architect a reflection of the city's cosmopolitan consciousness and the most modern hotel in all Asia. It had the distinction of being the first high rise building (24 floors) in the Far East and it held that record till 1952. "If you tilted your head to look at the top of the building, your hat would fall off" is one graphic record. Till 1966, it was the tallest in China. A noteworthy point in a city that now boasts scores of sky-scrapers. As recently as 1983 Park Hotel was the tallest building in Shanghai. "…but in today's Shanghai it looks like a refugee from Gotham City (Batman's fictional futuristic city) among the surrounding glass and steel skyscrapers" is one observer's comment.
However, a distinction that Park Hotel still carries is the fact that it remains the city's central marker. In the midst of the period-designed hotel lobby, is a golden plaque that commemorates that honour. The Shanghai Bureau of Land Administration during its comprehensive survey of the city in 1950 noted the central flag pole on the centre top of the Park Hotel as 'Zero Centre Point of Shanghai.' An elderly woman accompanied by her daughter asked to be photographed with us sari-clad women. Celebrating her 80th birthday at the signature hotel, this dignified woman in silk coat and trousers was an image from the past. - a vivid reminder of the many links that time and place have placed together in this historic city.
Shanghai's signature dishes are aplenty. Our sampler included beef, chicken, fish and shrimp braised in soy sauce, steamed or stewed with sweet vinegar sauce all items finely tuned to a light and non-greasy palate. Smoked fish, deep-fried fresh water shrimp, tofu assortments, 'No. 1 sea-cucumber under the heaven' were novelty delicacies. The round-table banquet room at Park Hotel offers in its location at the head of Nanjing Road (famously named as one of the 'World's Seven Great Roads' in the 1930s) the opportunity to view life in technicolour. This is seeing Shanghai over the top. For the record, Shanghai is ranked as having one of the top ten global night scenarios.
My room at the Park Hotel had a killer view a photographer's portrait of a neon metropolis that sparkles like jewels in the night. Park Hotel overlooks People's Park - the cultural and political heart of Shanghai. The site of the colonial era race track and the city's 'green lung' (akin to Hyde Park/London, Maidan/Calcutta and Ramna Park/Dacca) was developed into the People's Park in the 1950s. Daytime viewing of the park presents framed floral beds set amongst green turf adding to a painter's canvas. The People's Park hosts the all-glass façade of the Shanghai Opera House, listed as one of the top ten opera houses in the world. The Shanghai Museum is truly a world-class museum. Every culture vulture will be drawn to China's countless cultural relics from its 5000 year old history.
Shanghai is a city made for walking. The place to see and be seen strolling is the city's Bund riverfront embankment. Entirely revamped for the World Expo 2010, the kilometer long collection of nineteenth century built buildings is an unforgettable sight by day or night. Diffused lighting highlights the many splendours of the architectural gallery along a regal boulevard. This is truly a 'Queen's Necklace' similar to the curved shoreline of another colonial city Bombay. According to Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary by Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell (first published in 1886), 'Bund' is "any artificial embankment, a dam, dyke or causeway…The word is common in Persia. It is also naturalized in the Anglo-Chinese ports. It is there applied especially to the embanked quay along the shore of the settlements."
The metamorphosis of the old and new is evident in 'Three on the Bund', the Union Assurance Company of Canton Building built in 1915 that was subsequently the headquarters of the Mercantile Bank of India and in 2004 reemerged as a centre of 'contemporary Chinese refined lifestyle.' It houses the luxurious French company Evian spa, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Jean George French cuisine restaurant, Nougatine New York style bistro, Whampoa Club that offers 'gourmet Chinese cuisine reinterpreted in an Art Deco-inspired setting' and other high-flying destinations.
If I still want to be in Shanghai's fast lane, then I would take a ride on the high speed Magnetic Levitation Train that would fast forward me at 430km in 8 minutes from the airport to downtown Shanghai. A routine ride by bus or taxi is likely to take 45 minutes. More likely, I would roam the residences of famous Shanghai personalities and take in tales of old Shanghai - Chairman Mao Zedong, Sun Yat-sen (modern China's founding father), Chiang Kai-shek (leader of Kuomintang/Chinese Nationalist Party) and artists and writers A third visit to China would be set at a more leisurely pace - lingering through the leafy lanes that cut across the city's high-speed, high-density, high-rise culture. I would search out China's buzzing contemporary art scene housed in revamped riverside warehouses. Scouring antique curio shops that may yield that one bargain buy item of ancient China or an Art Deco item or Mao memorabilia would be a collector's wish.
The city is the film capital of China with its first screenings dating to the 1920s. The highly acclaimed 'In the Mood for Love' (2001) was shot in Shanghai. 'Lust, Caution' takes place in Shanghai during the World War II era. 'The Longest Night in Shanghai' (2007) commemorates both the city and the industry. 'Shanghai' has featured in a number of Hollywood films. One of the earliest (1932) is 'Shanghai Express' that starred the legendary Marlene Dietrich. 'Shanghai Gesture' originally a New York Broadway play, it was made into a Hollywood film in 1942 starring Gene Tierney. 'The Lady from Shanghai' directed by Orson Welles appeared in 1948. After a lull of fifty years, 'Shanghai Noon' (2000) starring Jackie Chan hit the screens. This was soon followed by 'Shanghai Knights' in 2003, also starring the ever popular Jackie Chan. 'The Painted Veil' (2006) film based on Somerset Maugham's novel is set in Shanghai. It is also the fashion capital of China with 'Shanghai Tang' being the internationally recognized fashion brand name. Shanghai remains China's 'Oriental Beauty' a city with its singular makeup of allure, élan and exuberance.
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