Top Shanghai Historical Biographies

» Captive in Shanghai, Hugh Collar (1991) – A fascinating personal account of life in the Japanese internment camps in the early 1940s. It’s published by Oxford University Press, but is pretty hard to get your hands on.

» Daughter of Shanghai, Tsai Chin (1989) – This book has less to say about Shanghai but is still a good read. Daughter of one of China’s most-famous Beijing opera stars, Chin left Shanghai in 1949 and later starred in the film The World of Suzie Wong (as the original ‘China doll’) and in The Joy Luck Club. This memoir bridges two worlds during two different times.

» Life and Death in Shanghai, Nien Cheng (1987) – A classic account of the Cultural Revolution and one of the few biographies with a Shanghai angle.

» The Life, Loves and Adventures of Emily Hahn, Ken Cuthbertson (1998) – A look at the unconventional life of Emily Hahn, who passed through Shanghai in 1935 (with her pet gibbon), got hooked on opium and became the concubine of a Chinese poet.

» Red Azalea, Anchee Min (2006) – A sometimes racy account of growing up in Shanghai in the 1950s and 1960s amid the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.

Feeding much of this growth was a vast, multimillion-strong army of cheap labour and migrant workers from rural areas. The Bund was redesigned and spruced up while other areas – the Old Town, for example – underwent irreversible overdevelopment.

Having grown faster than virtually any other Chinese city in the past two decades, Shanghai remains the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for China’s swarming migrant workers, who now constitute almost four million of the city’s total population of 23 million, and around 40% of the workforce.

Despite draconian property taxes designed to hit speculators and purchasers of second flats, Shanghai property prices went through the roof in the noughties. The authorities were determined to tame property prices to avoid a long-term Japanese-style stagnation, but measures were hit-and-miss and prices continue to soar.

The Shanghai Chinese are proud of their city, even though it lacks the bon vivant romantic allure of Paris, the multicultural vibrancy of London or the creative zest of New York. Shanghai can certainly be spectacular and highly modern in parts, but is also a work in progress, if not a metropolitan-sized construction site. Shanghai’s triumphant skyline is staggering, but the city’s creative flatline and aversion to spontaneity still guarantee that many expats arrive to make money, and move on.

There is, though, an allure and energy to Shanghai. Popping Shanghai into any conversation abroad prompts a flood of superlatives, agitated adjectives and breathless hyperbole. Reading the international papers, the city can do no wrong, and wherever you look, the smart money has flooded into town.

Despite propaganda to the contrary, the future isn’t necessarily endlessly bright for Shanghai. Many pundits see the city, and China, as reaching a fork in the road. The formula that served China so well for so long – a cheap workforce, hefty stimulus packages, high investment, endless property price increases and round-the-clock construction – is losing its potency. With the Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao era over, the task of the new Chinese leadership under President Xi Jinping is to balance the economy, root out corruption and narrow the chasm dividing low-wage earners from the wealthy elites. It’s no small task. The Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy depends heavily on economic growth. Keeping the economy on track while coping with the global downturn and matching the expectations of Chinese who are pushing for a fairer society could constitute a daunting challenge.

Timeline

BC

Warring States period: the earliest imperial records date from this time, although Neolithic discoveries in Qingpu County suggest human settlement of the region 5900 years ago.

AD 242

The original Longhua Temple is built during the Three Kingdoms Period.

960–1126

Chinese fleeing the Mongols during the Song dynasty boost the region’s population, spurring Shanghai on to become the county seat of Jiangsu in 1291.

The city wall around Shanghai’s Old Town is constructed to fend off Japanese pirates; 9m high and 5km around, the wall stands until the fall of the Qing dynasty, and is demolished in 1912.

A customs house is opened in Shanghai for the first time.

Lord Macartney, George III’s envoy to China, is rebuffed by the Qianlong emperor in Chengde, sinking British hopes of expanding legitimate trade relations with the ‘Middle Kingdom’.

The British are now importing roughly 7000 chests of opium annually – with about 140lb of opium per chest, enough to keep one million addicts happy – compared with 1000 chests in 1773.

Tensions between England and China come to a head when British merchants are arrested and forced to watch three million pounds of raw opium being flushed out to sea.

On 29 August Sir Henry Pottinger signs the Treaty of Nanking aboard the Cornwallis on the Yangzi River, prising open China’s doors and securing Hong Kong.

A supplement to the Treaty of Nanking, the Treaty of the Bogue regulated trade between Britain and China and the terms under which British people could reside in Shanghai.

Shanghai’s first library, the Bibliotheca Zi-Ka-Wei in Xujiahui, opens.

The French establish their own settlement, known as the French Concession, to the south of the British Concession and beyond the walls of the Chinese Old Town.

The influential English-language weekly newspaper the North China Herald is published for the first time (later published in a daily edition as the North China Daily News).

By now half of all British troops stationed in Shanghai suffer from venereal disease. The diseases are introduced to Shanghai by Westerners and spread by the city’s prostitution industry.

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Cotton emerges as Shanghai’s chief export.

Shanghai’s first fire engine arrives and enters service, followed by the launch of the Shanghai Volunteer Fire Service three years later.

Shanghai’s first large beauty pageant for prostitutes is held. The pageant is held every year until 1930.

Shanghai – and China – is electrified for the very first time by the British-founded Shanghai Electric Company. The Bund is illuminated by electric lights the following year.

The Shanghai Sharebrokers Association is established, functioning as Shanghai’s (and China’s) first stock exchange.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki (also called the Treaty of Maguan) concludes the First Sino-Japanese War, forcing China to cede territories (including Taiwan) to Japan.

The Shanghai–Nanjing railway is completed. Covering 193 miles of track, the journey takes around 5½ hours.

Shanghai is hit by mob disturbances (called the Plague Riots) in response to anti-plague measures.

Republicans pull down Shanghai’s ancient city walls to break links with the ousted Qing dynasty. The Provisional Republican Government of China is established in Nanjing.

Built to serve the city’s first influx of Jewish immigrants, Shanghai’s first synagogue, the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, opens.

The first meeting of the Chinese Communist Party, formed by Marxist groups advised by the Soviet Comintern, takes place in Shanghai.

Chiang Kaishek takes control of Shanghai, followed by his ‘White Terror’, a slaughter of communists, left-wing sympathisers and labour leaders, also known as the ‘Shanghai Massacre’.

Chinese people are finally allowed to visit parks administered by the Shanghai Municipal Council.

A masterpiece of art-deco design, the iconic Peace Hotel – called Sassoon House when built – is completed on the Bund.

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Blood Alley – a sordid domain of whorehouses, seedy bars and all-night vice in the Bund area – is the destination of choice for drunken sailors on shore leave.

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Cosmopolitan Shanghai is the world’s fifth-largest city (the largest in Asia), supporting a population of four million. Opium use declines as it goes out of fashion.

In September the Japanese invade Manchuria and by December extend control over the entire area. Shanghai’s Chinese react with a boycott of Japanese goods.

By now 25,000 White Russians have flocked to Shanghai, turning the French Concession into Little Moscow.

Lu Xun, one of China’s finest modern novelists and writers, dies of tuberculosis in Shanghai.

In an event known as Bloody Saturday, bombs fall onto the foreign concessions for the first time on 14 August, killing more than 2000.

Twenty thousand Jews arrive in Shanghai, fleeing persecution in Europe.

The Japanese round up 7600 allied nationals into eight internment camps as the formal foreign presence in Shanghai ends.

After the Japanese surrender, the Kuomintang takes back Shanghai, closing treaty ports and revoking foreign trading and self-governing rights.

Hyperinflation means that one US dollar is worth 23,280,000 yuan. Communist forces take Shanghai and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China is proclaimed.

The Cultural Revolution is launched from Shanghai; eventually one million Shanghainese are sent to the countryside. St Ignatius Cathedral finds new employment as a grain store.

US President Nixon visits Shanghai as China rejoins the world.

Mao Zedong dies in September – the same year as the Tangshan earthquake – preparing the way for a rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping to assume leadership of the PRC.

Antigovernment demonstrations in Shanghai’s People’s Square mirror similar protests in Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square; the demonstrations are broken up.

Pudong discovers it will become a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), converting it, over the next decade, from flat farmland into one of the world’s most ultramodern urban landscapes.

Line 1 of the Shanghai metro commences operation, with Line 2 opening five years later.

The world’s first commercially operating Maglev train begins scorching across Pudong. Plans to connect Beijing and Shanghai are later put to rest.

World markets crash, finally slowing down Shanghai’s previously stratospheric rates of economic growth.

Shanghai hosts the 2010 World Expo, drawing 73 million visitors.

Approval is finally given to plans to build a Disneyland in Shanghai, scheduled to open in 2015.

The Shanghai–Beijing high-speed rail line enters service, shrinking journey times to 5½ hours.

Shanghai and other cities across China see anti-Japanese demonstrations in response to Japanese claims to the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands.

Arts

You won’t be tripping over street-side performance artists, sidestepping wild-haired poets handing out flyers or spraycan-toting graffiti artists, but you can track down enough creativity in Shanghai to keep you fired up (and traditional Chinese arts are well covered).

Visual Arts

Even if the city’s artistic output remains limited, a growing gallery and art museum scene makes Shanghai a vibrant place to join the contemporary Chinese art learning curve. For political and cultural reasons (Click here), Shanghai is rather straight-laced and it’s rare to see much art (eg graffiti art) outside of the well-defined gallery environment.

Contemporary & Modern Art

Notable contemporary Shanghainese artists working across a large spectrum of styles include Pu Jie, with his colourful pop-art depictions of Shanghai, video-installation artists Shi Yong and Hu Jieming, and Hangzhou-born Sun Liang. Wu Yiming creates calmer, more impressionistic works, while Ding Yi is a significant abstract artist whose works employ a repetitive use of crosses. Others to look out for are graphic-design artist Guan Chun, and the diverse works of Chen Hangfeng and Yang Yongliang, which draw inspiration from the techniques and imagery of traditional Chinese painting.

A well-known graffiti wall at Moganshan Rd (M50) – one of the few places in Shanghai where you could actually see graffiti and wall art – was due to be demolished in 2012. For info on other sites where you can find graffiti and wall art in town see graffitipark.weebly.com.

After sizing up contemporary directions in art at the Bund-side Rockbund Art Museum, your next stop should be M50, Shanghai’s most cutting-edge art district, housed in warehouses across the river from Shanghai Railway Station. Put aside at least half a day for exploration. In People’s Park, the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA Shanghai) is a stimulating environment for art-watching. The nearby Shanghai Art Museum, housed in a fabulous neoclassical clock-tower building, also has some good exhibitions.

Controversial artist Ai Weiwei’s Shanghai studio was torn down in January 2011, a move the artist said was prompted by his activism. Local authorities said the building was ‘illegal’.

A stroll around the quaint alleys of Tianzifang, with its cafes, boutiques and smattering of decent small galleries, is always rewarding. This is where you can find the Deke Erh Art Centre, a fantastic warehouse exhibit space set up by Shanghai’s cultural tour de force, Deke Erh, and the excellent Beaugeste.

Another art centre, focusing more on contemporary sculpture, is the huge complex known as Red Town, near Jiaotong University. Also in West Shanghai are the thought-provoking displays at the Minsheng Art Museum. The Shanghai Chinese Painting Institute (Shanghai Zhongguo Huayuan; 6474 9977; 197 Yueyang Rd; 197 Hengshan Rd) also occasionally hosts major exhibitions.

POSTERS

Click on www.chineseposters.net for a breathtaking collection of Chinese propaganda posters from 1925 to 2006.

Further afield, check to see what’s on at the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art in Hongkou and earmark a trip to the Gallery Magda Danysz.

In Pudong, the Himalayas Art Museum, in the organically designed Himalayas Center, is a neat environment for contemporary art trends. Due to open in late 2012, the China Art Palace in the former World Expo site was tipped to become one of Shanghai’s premier modern-art venues.

Now held in the cavernous Power Station of Art (the 41,000-sq-metre former Nanshi Power Plant), the Shanghai Biennale (www.shanghaibiennale.org) has been held in November every two years since 1996. Related fringe shows spring up around the same time, and are often of more interest. Outside Biennale years, the China International Arts Festival is an event held in November that brings traditional and modern (Western and Chinese) art, artists and galleries together. For the lowdown on the best art galleries in town, Click here.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14