Mar 6-7 - Shanghai

March 6-7 – Shanghai, China


March 6 – Following Daddy’s footsteps

This was the next of the important ports where Daddy and Walter had spent five days, and so to ensure that we saw all the critical places from their letters, we arranged for a private guide – Charlie – to whom I had emailed all the sites or buildings mentioned in the letters of 1927-28.

Once we left the East China Sea, our trip down the Yangzi River and then the Huangpu River took a good ten hours. The pilot was on board the entire time to guide the ship past the many container ships, barges and other commercial traffic that filled both rivers. Having docked at 7:00 am, we went through our usual face-to-face customs with the Chinese authorities and went to find Charlie to begin our one day tour.

Charlie met us as we came through customs, and for the rest of the very rainy, cold day we were in the hands of him and the driver, in our large gray van. Charlie had done his homework, and while he teased us that we were only looking at the ‘old Shanghai’, we promised him that next time we came to visit we’d have him as our guide and look at the ‘new Shanghai’…. which continues to be as exciting a city as it was for the boys in the 20’s.

Our first stop was the Astor Hotel, the place they’d stayed and enjoyed so much for its elegance and convenient location. The hotel has a long and storied history as it was known as ‘the Waldorf Astoria of Shanghai’. It has gone through a series of owners since its start in the mid 1800’s, and is currently undergoing its next transformation. Julie Lang, a friend from Peacham had taken some pictures when she had visited Shanghai, so we had an idea of what we would see, but there is nothing like being there ‘in the flesh’. We snapped pictures in the lobby area and then asked to see an old room as would have existed in the 20’s. After a bit of hemming and hawing, we were led to a ‘celebrity room’ which had once been used by Marconi. To get to this room we wound our way through dark hallways, and the less ‘gracious’ parts of the hotel, but it was worth it: the room was furnished as it would have been in the 20’s with leather chairs, a very ornate bed, and light fixtures which while new, resembled the old. The only indication that you were in the year 2011 was the bathroom which was very modern and ‘up-scale’. We happily snapped pictures under the watchful eye of our escort, one of the bellmen who was there I’m sure, to ensure we didn’t do any mischief. Even Charlie, who has taken many people to the hotel lobby, admitted that this was his first time in one of the guestrooms. We continued downstairs to snap pictures in the room which I thought to be the ‘grill room’ in which the boys enjoyed meals, and the ballroom area where they enjoyed a dance. As in Malaysia and Singapore, it was eerie but wonderful to be in the same place that the boys had enjoyed.

We left the hotel, and headed past the current Russian consulate, and across the canal on the Garden Bridge to visit the Huangpu Park, which was once part of the International Concession (everyone but the French, who had their own concession). The park was remembered as the place where the entrance gate said “No dogs or Chinese allowed”. Not one of the great moments in the colonial abuse of China! My father had visited an import/export company on this side of the bridge, and Charlie discovered that the building still exists. It is now a private club, and sits in a bucolic park facing the canal. Since it was a quiet Sunday morning, Charlie arranged with the guard at the gate for us to go up the curving drive for a few pictures. Shanghai was amazingly quiet on this grey, drizzly morning; very peaceful, which was amazing considering how many people live in the city.

We then strolled along the Bund, and the new walkway built so that pedestrians can enjoy the river without being run over by buses, cars or scooters. Shanghai fell into ‘disrepair’ during the time of Mao, and it is only since the re-opening of China to the outside world that the government has put a great deal of money into restoring the Bund. While the fronts of the buildings are restored to their 1920’s look, many of these Western-style buildings have been gutted on the insides to become modern financial offices. Daddy had described this row of buildings as “wonderful palaces….dedicated to banks, of course”. Many banks continue to reside here, though the major portion of the financial sector has moved to a brand new location across the river, where in 1928 there were nothing buy docks and slums.

When one looks at the old buildings of the Bund you see mostly Western architecture. Only the old Bank of China Building tried to have a slightly pagoda-like roof at the top and Chinese style windows, since it had been designed by an American-trained Chinese architect. Charlie told great stories about the rivalry between the owner of this building and Mr. Sassoon, a wealthy Jewish Industrialist, who built the structure, right next door, and tried to make his the taller building with the green pointed roof. But the Bank of China went one step further…the competition of egotists.

Our next stop was the Great Palace of Amusement which existed in Daddy’s time, and only recently closed. A very old-fashioned place, it provided the locals with a multi-tiered building providing theater, opera, gambling and other amusements. Charlie did not believe it included prostitution, so we’ll believe him. Unfortunately at this point it was quite rainy, so we took pictures outside, as best we could. We stopped next at an authentic ‘Chinese pharmacist’, who provides herbs and roots to cure any and all problems. This emporium of Chinese cure-alls dates back to the 1800’s and the ladies and gentlemen inside who were the sales people/consultants were dressed in white lab coats to prove their authenticity and ability to provide any cure for ‘what ails you’. A delightful stop on a rainy day.

We next wanted to see the large model of the city of Shanghai which exists in the Department of Urban Planning. What an amazing thing – a room of 100 square meter s which contains a perfect 1:2000 scale model of the entire city. Every damn building including the entire set of buildings associated with the recent Shanghai Expo. Not only was there the model, but it had lighting to mimic the city’s lighting so that the main area around the Bund was brilliantly lit, while all arterial roads and structures had dimmer lights. We took a million pictures, but nothing could do this any justice. In addition to the model, different floors of the building portrayed the city at different times with diorama, photographs and maps. As Charlie said with his whimsical smile, you’re not the only one who is taking ‘then and now’ photographs, at which point he drew open a series of displays showing the city in the early 1900’s and in 2008. We had a great time looking at the photographs before hunger took over and we headed to lunch.

Along with most of Shanghai, who was out shopping or strolling in the rain, we headed to the Yu Gardens and Bazaar, a lovely replica of what old Shanghai must have looked like in its market areas – rebuilt for the current population. Winding narrow streets, houses with traditional ‘pointy’ roofs, and in the middle a dining ‘establishment ‘of three floors, and crowds waiting in line. Charlie seemed to be a regular and so we skipped the lines and were seated on the second floor at a table for eight. Soon another three-some joined us: mother, father and incredibly spoiled daughter who spent the entire meal screaming at the waitresses, taking food from her parents’ plates, or chatting on her telephone. Charlie suggested that this was one of the down-sides to the one-child policy – children who were spoiled and doted on by their anxious parents, and so undisciplined that it was unlikely that they would take responsibility for their parents in their old age, never mind the grandparents. It will be interesting to see how this very hierarchical society which honors the parents and ancestors survives this ‘blip’ in the natural Chinese family structure.

Our lunch was yummy, washed down with Tsingtao beer (of course), and we left ready to take on the world in the now pouring rain. My gimpy knee was beginning to fade though, so we continued our tour mostly in the car: the Paramount club where ladies continue to entertain men not unlike the dancing Russian women Daddy remembered; a visit into the French Concession to see the homes of Sun Yat Sen and Chou En Lai, and to get a sense of what this neighborhood looked like; and our last stop at the synagogue and Jewish Museum where we looked at the building but I was too whipped to go inside. This hadn’t been part of the boy’s original trip, so I felt I could hold this, and the entire episode of the Hitler era ‘Shanghai Ghetto’, for the next visit to this fascinating city.

One of the people on our cruise ship, Peter Valentine, had actually lived in this area, having fled Germany with his family when he was two years old. He lived in the Jewish Ghetto until he was ten, and he had a private tour that allowed him to see the house where he had lived and which he hadn’t seen for sixty years. It was an emotional trip for him, which he related to us when we got back to the ship.

We bid adieu to Charlie and the driver and collapsed aboard ship, having had a very busy, emotional and delightful day visiting ‘old Shanghai’. This is a city definitely worthy of a return visit.

March 7 – Monday

Of course, because we were not on tour, we woke to a crisp, sunny day in Shanghai. The highs would be in the 30’s so we bundled up, got on the shuttle bus and chose to repeat our walk along the Bund to get pictures in the sunshine.

Since we had less than four hours to tour, we walked to Nanjing Road which continues to be a very trendy shopping street with all the upscale shops and department stores along a pedestrian walk-way. You can see that the streets would be too narrow for pedestrians and modern day vehicles, so it has sensibly become a shopping delight for pedestrians. But it was just too slick and new. You had no sense that an old city was throbbing underneath, so having looked at a few shops, we took a parallel side street and suddenly found ourselves back in an older, less glitzy Shanghai. Narrow sidewalks, many sad, dusty, worn bicycles, work men soldering, mending, constructing, and small shops catering to the locals. There was one ‘eatery’ where men were hanging around outside, and I saw the hugest ‘bucket’ of rice I’ve ever seen in my life. I wanted to take a picture as they were scooping out great wads to serve to the men, but the proprietor came rushing out screaming ‘no picture, no picture’. We assumed he was either doing something illegal, or he was nervous about us, so we took no photographs and continued on to the Bund, and the park where the shuttle whisked us back to the ship.

What an amazing city – aesthetically appealing, vibrant, historical, it ranks up there with Hong Kong and Bangkok, as a city we could come to love in Asia. Definitely a return visit is required; we only skimmed the surface and need time to wallow a bit in neighborhoods, restaurants and all the museums we never even went into.

Addendum: while in Shanghai, I received a series of emails from the Hong Kong City Museum. Having left Daddy’s pictures at the front reception desk on a Sunday, the archivist was able to get back and tell me two important pieces of data: he recognized where the boys had ‘snapped’ the street scenes in Hong Kong based on a barber shop which he could identify in the picture. But eerier still, he informed us that the Hong Kong Hotel where the boys had stayed had been torn down in 1952 and on its site was the new Landmark Hotel. Well, it just so happened that when Bob and I were getting frustrated trying to locate the sites, we stopped at the Landmark to get a map and directions from the doorman. How eerie is that! We were at the exact location, and we hadn’t even known it at the time. There are mysteries in this world not worth trying to explain.