Shanghailander

Shanghai Shanghai

Watching today’s Chinese TV is not always very rewarding as content is often of various quality. Shanghai’s main commercial TV station Dragon TV is well known for its many talk shows, TV series as well as the current hit “China Talent” or 中国达人秀 . The channel recently started broadcasting a new TV series called “Shanghai Shanghai” or 上海上海. Taking place in old Shanghai, it naturally attracted my interest as well as helping my language skills.

The show tells the story of imaginary entrepreneur and businessman Liu Gong Zhen, using it to show various episodes of Shanghai history. It integrates historical elements and city symbols such as the cabarets and casino competitions into the story. One of the main point is the famous entertainment center and cabaret Great World or 大世界 on the corner of Yanan Lu and Xizhang lu that recently been renovated. It also includes historical facts of the period as well political turmoil of the time. The production spent a lot of time, money and energy to make this a flagship of Dragon TV.

The 40 episodes series need 40 million RMB for production and the effort really shows. The decor and costumes are most often right on the spot. Outside scenes were filmed in gardens of old Shanghai villa and the decor of inside scenes was very well studied to give a real feel for the period. Historians have been clearly involved in set and dresses design and some of the dialogs are in played Shanghai dialect adding again to the whole atmosphere.

Most importantly, the show manages to stir away from too much politics, being a great history lesson for many people in a way that is mostly unbiased for China standards. Heroes and villains are not always on the same side and this adds to the credibility of the whole show. It also avoids the current wave of special effects and over-the-top fights. Mostly focusing on people’s emotions and relations, it manages to captivate the audience, while giving a new and much brighter light to the city history. As Shanghai is re-discovering or re-inventing its past, the series creates a new mythology for the city.

Shanghai Shanghai is a great show cleverly captivating people as well as sending a great message to Shanghainese about their city’s past. I hope a DVD version with English subtitles will be made as it could open a foreign career for the program, or at least allow the many foreigners living in Shanghai to watch it. Although attention has been paid to details and most of the story takes place in the former foreign concessions I have yet to see a foreigner on screen. This little point would have been a great point to the show, underlining Shanghai history as an international city.

The rise of fako

Shanghai Art Deco heritage has been rediscovered in the last 10 -15 years. After decades of neglect and many destructions in the great name of progress, old buildings facades have been renovated in the last year. Expo 2010 has not only been the opportunity for destructions (see post ‘Farewell to Shanghai General Hospital‘), it also has seen a number of renovations putting light on some of the architecture jewels (see post “somebody finally got it“). Most posts in this blog are focused on Shanghai past, particularly in the 1920’s and 1930’s. This post is a little deviation from the usual theme, focusing on Shanghai today’s architecture.

Shanghai original skyscraper boom took place in the late 1920’s – 1930’s, with a number of these buildings still remaining today like the Cathay Hotel (today Peace Hotel) on the Bund, Broadway Mansions on the Suzhou Creek and Grosvenor house on Maoming lu. The tallest building erected in that period was Park Hotel designed by Hungarian Architect Laszlo Hudec, 83.8 meters high with 22 stories. Park Hotel is a great art deco example, inspired by the Radiator Building in New York. It was the tallest building in Asia when it was built in 1934 and remained the tallest building in Shanghai until the 1980’s. From that point on, Shanghai new fashion became mostly white tiles looking just like a bathroom and blue (?) windows. Buildings from this period often look like a Frankenstein version of Art Deco, imitating the tiling and geometrical lines of the style but transforming it into something horrible. The next period was about glass and steel from the 1990’s followed by architecture wonders that are now all over LuJiaZui, the end of Nanjing Dong lu and other areas. Besides contemporary architecture of frameless glass bubbles, another style has been recently on the rise in specific parts of the city.

Limitations by law of the height of some building as well as renovation of older structures from the 1980’s as brought back an Art Deco inspiration to the city. As Shanghai Art Deco architecture was rediscovered, new architecture in the old areas was forced to fit in, using what is called fake art deco or fako. This is particularly true on the Bund where Peninsula as well as the brand new administration building next to the old Russo-Chinese bank were designed to match the surrounding style. Peninsula was allowed to dominate the Bund while still keeping an harmony with the neighboring buildings.

The other area is the old French Concession, where small concrete buildings that were real eye sores have been turned into fako buildings somehow matching the surrounding environment. I am not sure I like fako so much as I definitely prefer the original, but at least it is nice to have an harmony within an area. I have also seen a number of house complexes that are just like anyone else, except that they have some kind of art deco-ish decoration on top. I am much less a fan of those, but at least they keep some kind of atmosphere to Shanghai. The newly found Art Deco craze in Shanghai could be the perfect backdrop for an Art Deco festival like the one in Napier, New Zealand… though this is probably still very very far away.

Before Tatler’s and Time Out

Shanghai guides like today’s Urbanatomy already existed in Old Shanghai, such as “all about Shanghai” and “Tael Lights” that I wrote about in older posts. One of the document I recently found is much rarer as it is a magazine about Shanghai night life. Long before websites like SmartShanghai, magazines similar to That’s Shanghai and Time Out were informing the public about events and nightlife in Old Shanghai. Picture left is the August issue of “Shanghai Guide” in English or “上海生活” (Shanghai Sheng Huo or Shanghai Life in Chinese). The magazine was started in 1936, published on the 17th day of the month.

Shanghai Guide was focused on many topics that are still part of today’s magazines. The cover definitely has a Art Deco / Modernist feeling to it, (already) displaying skyscrapers that were supposed to come soon to Shanghai after the incredible height of the brand new Park Hotel. Too bad Shanghai had to wait 90 years for them to be actually built . The artist impression of a modern and wonderful shopping center towered by a sky scrapper is really not much different from the ones in today’s Shanghai.

The life of Chinese stars was also one of the main anchor including quite a few pictures concentrated at the beginning of the magazine. Since this is the August issue, the pictures of this month are Chinese stars in swimsuits lazying around a swimming pool. It’s actually not different from a That’s Shanghai featuring one of the summer’s pool party in town during the hot months. Although taken nearly 70 years ago, the pictures show that fashion then was also not so different from today’s. It showed a little less of skin, but was surely something new and hot for the time, clearly very different from fashion in the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s in China. Shanghai was already the capital of glamour in China, just like it is again.

The magazine also contains a list of the new movies with a summary. No Imax and 3D effects then, but most of these movies are Hollywood productions just released in Shanghai, including “The Maltese Falcon” with Humphrey Bogart later featured in Casablanca. This icon of “film noir” was released in 1941 in the USA, and soon after in Shanghai. Stories and articles are also a large part of the magazine, along with advertising. They display Chinese miraculous drugs curing everything, pharmacies all kind of remedies but also many foreign and Chinese luxury products including Tissot Watches, Wasson electric fans as well as many brands of British and American cigarettes. This ancestor of the current lifestyle magazines looks very much like today’s ones.

Bad news from the sisters

This house is supposed to be protected...

Shanghai history can be a great source of joy, but it can also be depressing. I was quite optimistic earlier this year with my post “Somebody finally got it”. Despite pre-expo destruction of the Shanghai General Hospital I somehow felt that the rise of Old Shanghai as a marketing tool would also help its preservation. I appear to have been just wrong.

First of all, my view that compound developers were now forced to keep some of the old buildings on their ground has proven to be hope only. The house mentioned in the post on Maoming Lu has been kept for a while only standing in the empty field… only to be destroyed a few days ago. This particular plot will be used to build a metro station… at least generating something good for the city besides cash for the developer.

The saddest piece of news is about the house one 130 Route Kaufman (130 Anting lu nowadays). It has now been completely ruined. People occupying it actually moved out a few months after I wrote the “portrait of an old neighbor” and the house remained empty and closed up for a short period of time. I feared the worst and the worst came. Since I live opposite from it I can witness the disaster every day. The house has been reduced to its bare structure and all external decorations have now been hammered down or covered with concrete (see first picture). The main structure will apparently be kept but that’s about it. All windows and doors have been removed to be replaced by new ones which style has nothing to do with the original. I could not get in, but if none of the outside decoration has survived, I am pretty sure that none of the inside will have survived either.

The architects (not sure they deserve such a name though) have basically done to this 1930’s protected (?) Leonard wonder that same that they do to office blocks. They tear done to the bare frame and rebuilt it in the new fashion. I have seen it work wonders on old office buildings but on this old jewel it is nearly criminal. I’m sure the building will be transformed in some brand new and fashionable restaurant or night club, after having the interior covered with plastic, mirrors or any of the cheap artifacts. I don’t know how much the new developer paid for the house, but I guess current market value would place this building at about 100m RMB, withouth considering the massive work done in it. Too bad that a small portion of this money was not used for actual preservation. This is just like the destruction of the interior of the old Paramount night club (see post “Paramount Suicide” for more information). I had heard before that the plates on some of the buildings (see second picture) are an indication of history only. They are surely not a guarantee that those buildings will be protected. There are not many that many private work from Vesseyre & Leyonard remaining in Shanghai and we have just lost one of the least altered.

Fortunately, this house is just one of the sisters. Having explored the surroundings I have found 9 of them.3 are located on Route Kaufmann (128, 130 and 132). The others are located on the parallel route Cohen (today GaoAn Lu). Two of them are on the cross of Route Cohen and Route Frelupt (today corner of Gaolan Lu and Jiang Guo lu).The last three remaining are down Route Cohen. The raw on Route Cohen is not identical but symmetric to the one on Route Kaufmann. Hopefully, they will not all have the same fate of the 130, but I’m not too optimistic about that either.

The story of the Lubeck family… and their house in Shanghai

The posts “portrait of an old neighbor” and “meet the twin sister“, I talked about two old houses in my neighborhood, on what is now Anting Lu. I also mentioned the old address “132 Route Kaufman”… this is how Steven Lubeck found me. We have been exchanging a few emails since and this post is a short story of his family and the house they lived in, 132 Anting Lu… i.e. the bar Cotton’s at the corner of Jiang Guo lu and Anting lu.

Steven Lubeck great grandfather L.A. Lubeck (his gravestone is in the Protestant Cemetery in Macao) came from Sweden to Macao – the Portuguese colony near Hong Kong -in the 1850’s as a seaman, started a stevedoring business, married a Portuguese woman and had two sons, Luiz and Henrique C. In June 1863, a typhoon destroyed the business and killed L. A. Lubeck and his wife. The Portuguese authorities took charge of the surviving boys aged 5 and 3 and they were raised by foster parents. The younger boy, Henrique (Steven’s grandfather) first became a merchant seaman, then decided on a business career and moved to Shanghai. His son (Steven’s father) Carlos Borromeo Lubeck was born in Shanghai in August 1892 and part of a large family – Henrique married again after his first wife died and had several more children.

The Lubeck house in the 1930's — The Lubeck house in the 1930’s

Carlos was educated in the Marist brothers schools at Jeanne d’Arc on Rue Paul Doumer (todays Dong Hu Lu) and St. Francis Xavier for the higher levels. Carlos was married first to Lucy Zi, they had two adopted daughters, Bernadette (or Berna) and Bertha who became a Catholic nun in the U.S. Carlos Lubeck then married Steven’s mother Anna Yang in 1931 when she was not quite 18 and he was 39. They had a long and happy marriage with 8 children born in Shanghai (one boy died of pneumonia at age 1), then a last child born in the U.S. Carlos Lubeck died at age 89 in 1981 and Anna Yang died at age 90 in 2003.

Carlos Lubeck was employed all his working life by the French Electric Utility and Transportation Company where he became a high-level executive. He is mentioned as secretary in the 1930’s role of employment of the company (source: Les Français de Shanghai).

Steven’s parents left the house with a power of attorney for his mother’s brother and a business friend. Over the following years, the became a public library, then converted into 6 housing apartments including one in the garage and one in the attic on the third floor (his mother saw this transformation on a visit in 1982), then many years later (probably about 2000) the house was an “international style” restaurant. A few years after that (about 2003), a private family lived in. 1st of January 2005, this house became the bar Cotton’s.

The house was designed by “Leonard, Vesseyre & Kruz”, the famous French architecture firm that designed many villas and art deco buildings in the French Concession. They were part of the work commissioned by the real estate developement firm FONCIM, that included a series of houses with a similar style in this area of Route Cohen (GaoAn Lu), Route Frelupt (Jiang Guo Lu) and Route Kaufman (AnTing Lu). The style is called “Neo-Normand”, ressembling houses from the Normandy region in France. These houses were used to accomodate top managers of the French firms as well as Chinese government officials. When these houses were constructed time, this part of the French Concession was still the countryside (!), or at least Shanghai suburb. It is now the center of modern Shanghai.

For more information about Leonard, Vesseyere & Kruz and its work, see post “Shanghai’s Art Deco Master” and “The return of the Dauphine“.

4 years of old Shanghai blogging

Shanghailander.net has just turned 4 years old, as the original “opening post” was posted in late July 2006. Creating the original “Shanghai Old & New” with only me as a reader and turning it to “Shanghailander.net” with about 800 subscribers has really been a work of passion. It has taken me and (hopefully) the readership in a journey through Shanghai’s past, present and sometimes future. It has been a challenging experience and a truly enjoyable one as well.

The media and blog scene focusing on Shanghai is plentiful these days. Thanks to the emergence of China economic powerhouse and of the Shanghai World Expo 2010 an important part of the world’s attention has been focused on thecity… including Shanghailander.net. This has also translated in several newspaper articles and even some TV shows (see post Shanghailander on French TV). There is even a possibility for Shanghailander to appear on Chinese TV, though the project seems to be stalled at the moment. Another spin-off is my involvement in Shanghai Sideways, designing the tours that are enjoyed by many tourists and old residents alike. The name of “Shanghai old and new” is not used for this blog anymore, but it is under discussion to be used again for a book project that I will keep you posted about.

The most important change in these 4 years is surely the way that Old Shanghai is seen by Shanghainese. When I arrived in Shanghai more than 6 years ago, nobody apart from a few crazy foreigners seemed to be interested in Shanghai’s past. Since then Xin Tian Di and Tian Zi Fang have changed the view of Shanghainese people on their old buildings and showed that old could also be cool. Vintage is coming back in force and the images of Old Shanghai have started to been used again for marketing as the whole city rediscovers its own history and former grandeur. One the clear signs is the development of “modern”and “high class” rebuilt Shi Ku Men, as well as numerous movies focused on Shanghai history. Restaurants and cafes using a touch of nostalgia have also sprung out in the meantime. As more old buildings get renovated, more history will be exposed and more people will be interested. This will surely make the few remaining ones out of most people’s financial reach (they already are), but will contribute to make Shanghai a more international place with its own (very international) history. After this summer break, writing schedule should resume to (about) weekly as before. Enjoy reading this blog.

Shanghailander on French TV

The blog Shanghailander.net was started a few years ago to tell stories about Old Shanghai to my friends in the city. It has now grown much further than this primary objective. There are about 800 people a month reading the blog online along with many others subscribing to the RSS feed. Foreigners who actually lived in Old Shanghai in the 1930’s wrote to me and I have even been involved in writing articles about the topic as well as becoming the tour designer for Shanghai Sideways.

The latest development has been TV programs. As many journalists came to cover the Shanghai EXPO 2010, they also were looking for other topics and point of view of the city. This lead to 3 French TV programs that were all recently broadcasted. The latest one was last Saturday on the main French TV station TF1. It’s a short program within the lunch time news showing a introduction to foreign style architecture in Shanghai. It can be viewed at: http://videos.tf1.fr/jt-we/le-pavillon-francais-vitrine-de-la-france-a-shanghai-5928495.html

The second one was a much longer 52 minutes report on EXPO 2010 and Shanghai history for ARTE TV, a French-German cultural channel. The section I took part of lasts for 10-15 mins and is focused again on Shanghai history and what remains of it today. It includes a number of footage in old Shanghai’s villas as well as an interview shot while driving my sidecar. It was broadcasted on French TV Channel arte last week, but will be shown again on 20th July at 5:00 am and on 31st July at 12:55 am. It can also be viewed at: http://videos.arte.tv/fr/videos/shanghai_dreams-3310384.html

The last one was a 52 minutes report broadcasted on French cable TV Telemaison. The 10 minutes part I appear in is also focused on Shanghai history, unfortunately it is not available on the internet. I only have it on DVD at home.
I have also been working on a series of documentaries about Shanghai history for Shanghai based channel Dragon TV, The film will be in Chinese which was a great challenge. It is still in production at the moment.

Old Shanghai tramways

As Shanghai grew as a metropolis, in the first half of the XXth century, transportation became a serious issue, just as it is today. Although the city was not united, cut in three sections (the International Settlement, the French Concession and the Chinese City), investments were still made to develop the city. The first phases included actually paving the roads and building the dam to stabilize the Bund. As the city extended westward, much larger scale investments were required.

The fast growing city considered having tramway as early as 1898, but it is only in 1908 that the network actually opened. Three networks were created, ‘Shanghai Tramways’ run by the Shanghai Electric Construction Co Ltd in the International Settlements, ‘La Compagnie Francaise de Tramways et d’eclairage electrique de Changhai‘ in the French Concession and the ‘Chinese Tramways company’ in the Chinese city. Originally, the lines were connecting, but not the tracks, so passengers crossing a border had to disembark and get into the car from the next company. This was changed later, see below). Just like today’s metro, Shanghai tramways were essential for the life of the city.

Map of the International Settlement tram network

– Down the Bund: The tram line was crossing the Suzhou river at the Garden Bridge (or Waibaidu Bridge) going all the way down the Bund down to the French Bund where it connected to the French Concession network. Not all lines were going the whole Bund down, but line number #2 from “Bubbling well road” (today Jing An Si), to ‘” “Marché de l’Est”, at the end of “Rue de la porte de l’Est”, today Dong Men lu.

– Nanking Road / Bubbling well (currently Nanjing Road East and West): Crossing the international settlement from East to West, the line went up to Jing An temple. As indicated on picture left, this was tramway line number 2. It had a very similar route to the today’s metro line #2 and part of Tramway line # 20

– Avenue Joffre (today Huai Hai lu): The main line of the French Concession was crossing the French Concession throughout the urban part all the way to the end of the concession near Xu Jia Hui. Going down avenue Joffre (today Huai Hai Lu), the route was going first going through the heart of the French Concession, turning left on Route Prospère Paris (today Tianping lu) through a less urbanised part built only in the 1930’s, finishing at Xu Jia Hui jesuit center.

There was also other lines going down Seymour Road / Avenue du Roy Albert (the current Shaanxi Bei lu and Shaanxi Nan lu. The same road is still followed by a trolleybus line.

Picture right is a tramway ticket from Old Shanghai. It is from the Shanghai tramways company, in the international settlement. Although it is difficult to date, it is clearly from the 1930s or before. The ticket shows 8 possible routes (a 1931 list shows 11 routes so it probably from the 1920s). This ticket was punched for route 5, “Railway station to West Gate Via Boundry, North Chekiang, Chekiang, Hoopeh and Rue Hue”.

Along with the tramways, the Shanghai Electric Construction Company also built a network of “Trackless trolleys” in the 1930s. Shanghai also had a competing bus network, green double-decker vehicles very similar to the ones used in Britain and in Hong Kong. They were operated by the China General Omnibus Company.

Shanghai tramways were stopped in the 70’s and the tracks removed but as seen above current lines often follow the same route as the old tramways.

More about tramways in other Chinese cities with this article from Paul French’s blog:
http://www.chinarhyming.com/2009/02/25/chinas-old-tram-systems-a-quick-round-up/

Shanghai – the movie

As old Shanghai is getting more and more popular, so do movies about the period. Following the steps of “Empire of the Sun“,” Tian Tang Kou” and “Lust caution“, this Hollywood old Shanghai movie comes with very high expectations. Recently presented at the Shanghai International Film festival, it is already shown in theaters in Shanghai but will only see its debut in America in September. Just like the Majestic theater was the perfect setting for viewing a 1930’s themed musical (see post about 42nd street), the best place to see the an Old Shanghai movie is surely the Grand Theater on People Square.

John Cusack plays an American agent posing as a pro-Nazis journalist coming from Berlin. He comes to Shanghai after the death of his best friend, killed in the Japanese controlled area. Reaching Shanghai just before Pearl Harbor and the invasion of the International Settlement by the Japanese troops, Cusack finds himself in a love triangle with Gong Li and her husband played by Cho Yung Fat. Chased by General Tanaka played by Ken Watanabe, they will go through all the trouble to find the murderer and help the resistance against the Japanese invader. The movies mixes a number of genres such as spy and gangster movie, romance and historical movie. Although not filmed in China but in Thailand, it captures perfectly the atmosphere of Shanghai. Quite a number of scenes are taken under a pouring rain that will be familiar to people actually living in the city. With its film noir atmosphere, it create a kind of wet version of Casablanca perfectly matching the dark image of the period. The Shanghai created in the movie is also pretty good from a visual and historical point of view. The scenarist and set makers have clearly make their homework and there is little in the movie that does not fit right in the look or the history books.

With my strong interest in Old Shanghai, I am surely not the best person to judge this movie independently. A few critics of the movie complained about the confused historical background. For me it was crystal clear, but I’m not sure how easy it is to understand with no prior knowledge about the topic. In any case, it is a great movie to watch, an achievement in term of picture and atmosphere and a true enjoyable time. You can see a trailer with the following link: Trailer

Shanghai, the movie is not the only large scale movie based on this period. “East Wind, Rain” also takes place in the same background, with spies acting betwen Kuomintang and the Japanese army. The 4 minutes long introduction session is superb, including the re-created dog race just like that one that existed in the French Concession on Rue Cardinal Mercier (Now Shaanxi lu, the building was used as a flower market until being teared down a few years ago). A lot of attention was given to make the movie look good, however the action is far to slow not making the movie really interesting beyond the pretty introductory scene. As a movie, Shanghai is just so much better.

Deda Cafe

After being badly damaged by transformation, the facade of 473 Nanjing Xi Lu found back some of its old grandeur when Deda restaurant took this spot. Although operating in this location since only 2007, Deda is a Shanghai landmark. Originally opened in 1897 on 177 Tang Gu Lu in Hongkou district, the restaurant has survived through all the turmoils of Shanghai history. The most well known one was surely the previous one on 359 SiChuan Bei lu, where the restaurant relocated in 1949.

The International Settlement and the French Concession had many restaurants, bakeries and coffee houses (See post ‘First Russian bakery and Tkachenko‘ ). Many of them were operated by foreigners, in particular Russians. As a matter of fact today’s Deda menu still has Borsch soup and potato salad coming with all set menus as well as a lot of deep fried dishes often found on the menu in Eastern Europe restaurants. The most amazing is not that the restaurant was opened such a long time ago, but that it has survived all the turmoils of Shanghai history since 1949. For generations of Shanghainese, Deda was a symbol of foreign culture and influence in the city. Although today’s menu does not compare with fancy new foreign restaurants, price is also much lower with lunch menus around 35 RMB.

Deda's first location — Deda’s first location

Today’s Deda main location on Nanjing Xi Lu is not an original old restaurant, but the renovation and design gives it a strong history feeling. Inspiration came more from early 1900 neo classic than 1930’s art deco but the whole atmosphere gets it right. Most patrons are Shanghainese regulars coming for nostalgia. Frozen through time Deda is like a re-interpretation of old Shanghai, on the Chinese side. There is a clear western influence but Chinese taste has also slipped through it, like the fried rice served with most dishes. The restaurant also includes a cake shop, another proof of survival of foreign cooking culture in Shanghai. The recipes have traveled through time, creating a mix of Central European sponge cakes and French tarts. Although quality is not on par with new stars of French patisserie like Paul price is also unbeatable with a slice of cake costing less than 5 RMB.

Seating in the coffee house by the window on Nanjing Xi Lu, I can also feel the vibrations of the metro line just below… just like similar vibrations of the tramway lines that used to run the same street in the 1930’s. Coffee drinking in Shanghai and coffee houses have a long tradition (see post ‘Shanghai Coffee Culture‘ on the topic) and sitting in Deda reminds me of coffee houses in Prague, Budapest or other cities in Central Europe. With its mix of Western influence and Shanghainese patrons Deda is just like a picture of Shanghai, a great mix of western and Chinese, modern and old at the same time, a true Shanghai institution.