One of the most rewarding part of my passion for old Shanghai is to find locations and information that are little known or have been overlooked when they should be easy to see. Just like in the post “Haig Court, right in our face” this post is about a building on a street that every knows but only few people have noticed. Showing the city to visitors on a sidecar is challenging and pushes me to learn more and more about the city, so more posts like this are to be expected.
The entrance of Tian Shan apartment is located on Huai Hai Zhong lu, on one of most busy shopping stretch. The apartment complex is made of six buildings of 4 floors. Architecture and facades are typical of art deco, using vertical and horizontal lines to enhance the shape of the buildings. These 6 buildings are U-shaped with the opening turned south to catch as much light as possible for each apartment. They would not be really noticeable without the art deco fixtures on the roof. As you can see on the picture below, the buildings are linked with concrete cross-beams that are hanging on the whole with this very geometric design hanger. I am not sure what was it useful for, probably for pipes or cables.
This definitely increase the art deco feeling of this compound a lot, as well as the decoration on the roof of the central part (see picture right up). This compound is now mostly inhabited by employees of the nearby university and still gives the impression of peace and quiet, a few meters away from the busy street.
The recent painting also helps a lot. The purpose built cable carrier did not stop the electricity company to install some ugly cables in the middle (see right), but they did not manage to destroy the harmony of this 1928 piece of art.
This charming small compound was located in the heart of the urban part of the French concession, not far from Brooklyn Court, Russian bakeries and restaurants, and Cathay Apartments. With entrance on famous Avenue Joffre (the old name of Huai Hai Zhong Lu), it was certainly one of the nice adresses to live in and rental were surely very high. Tian Shan apartment can now be found at 622 Avenue Joffre (today 622 Huai Hai Zhong Lu).
This guide about old Shanghai newly re-published by Earnshaw books is surely not politically correct. “Shanghai high lights, low lights, tael lights” is was not really a guide about Shanghai like “All about Shanghai“. Instead, it is an insight into the life of two Westerners living the high life of drinking and partying like no tomorrow. As they write it, they “know very little about [Shanghai], but know a hell a lot about that very little”. They clearly lived in a very small part of Shanghai and clearly had a kind of high life.The book is short, opinionated and quite funny in its description of the city.
“Shanghai is a grand town, not an atmospheric background for Oriental melodrama, but a grand place to live, to work and enjoy life”. Just like in other guides, the author surely makes fun of the foreigners and tourists coming to Shanghai looking for their imaginary China with pagoda’s, temples, obscure old monks holding eternal secrets and all the “magic of the orient”. They have no interest in tourist spots of the day (and still of today) like “Lung Wha Pagoda” and the “Willow Pattern Tea House” (Yu Yuan garden area): “As a matter of fact, all of these and others of their type, are a distinct bore”. What they point to instead are modern places where Chinese gather for entertainment, such as the “Great World Amusement Company” (on Xi Zhang lu, currently under re-construction), Wing On, Sincere and the other department stores on Nanking Road (today Nanjing Dong Lu). They also spend many pages on street life, vendors and other common sights that are not far from today’s Shanghai.
Since they spent a lot of time going out and enjoying nightlife, this is the main focus of the book. The leading spots of the time were “the tower, atop the very gilt-edge Cathay hotel” (today Peace hotel is under renovation, but surely another bar will open on the top of it. This just a few meters from today’s Bund 18). “the Sky Terrace, atop Park Hotel and the Paramount Ballroom“. The author then moves onto Chinese cabarets (somewhat equivalent to today’s Chinese night clubs). After parties locations like the infamous “Venus Cafe” in Hong Kou district gets a few pages, reminding me of my last visit to Dragon Club in after party… 3 or 4 years ago. My preferred part is surely the one explaining the “three ways of making whoopee in Shanghai”, i.e. three ways to party. “Number one is by sending the boy out for three quarts and some ice, and telephoning Clara and Dick to come over and lift a few. This is known as ‘going to town while remaining at home’. Then there’s the business of gathering the clan and making the spots, St Georges, Del Montes,etc and is known in some quarters as ‘going to the dogs’. Can be expensive. And last, there are those who in case themselves in silk and white linen and sally forth to places of the cover charge type, the only real difference between this and the last class being that it takes them longer and more money to feel their liquor. This is known, (by people in the second class) as ‘going highbrow’ and can be extremely expensive financially, coming under the heading of ‘major appropriations’.”
Although the guide was written more than 70 years ago, the life of its writers was not very different from a number of people I know in Hong Kong who rarely live Central or the South part of the Island and party just the same way… or people I know in Shanghai who live work and party in an area which is just slightly bigger than the one described in the book. The modern version of this book would be an un-expurgated compilation of smartshanghai.com forum focusing on only on Shanghai’s nightlife for singles. In Shanghai, some things never really change.
I have written several posts about Shanghai’s winter that makes people miserable for a few months, but I did not write much about Shanghai’s summers. Activity continues despite the heat and tourists come to visit the city (see post Tourists in summer Shanghai written three years go). The streets of old Shanghai are full of the cigala’s noise that creates a wet Mediterranean version of the city, as described in post Singing trees. Foreigner’s Shanghai become much quieter and relaxed, as many people leave the city going for a trip home, mountains or seaside far away. Modern transportation make trips to faraway countries only a few hours away, and many foreigners will take a long trip home during this time.
Trips home in old Shanghai were a different matter. They were a long and hazardous journeys either by boat, by plane or via the Trans-siberian train at the time when crossing through Russia was possible. In any case, these trips only happened every few years and people would often come home for a few months to visit relatives and business partners. To fight Shanghai heat, Shanghailanders would go on cool vacations to nearer places. Common trips included cooling stations like Moganshan where the wealthy had villas where they could stay cool in the summer. Today’s expat families often go home for the two months of summer, with the working spouse accompanying them for a few weeks. In the same fashion, expat families of Old Shanghai went to the sea side in Tsingtao (today Qingdao), Chefoo (today Yentai) or We Hai Wei (toady Wei Hai) all three of them in Shan Dong province, a hundreds of kilometres North of Shanghai and a few degrees cooler. Japan was also a holiday destination as described in “The last glorious summer” from Rena Krasno.
Air conditionning at that time was an absolute luxury that only palace hotels could afford, along with the brand new Country Hospital. In the hot and damp Shanghai, the only way to fight the heat was to wait and move air with a fan. Electric fans were really popular altough they were quite expensive and symbol of high class living. Some can be still found on flee markets nowadays. They consummed a lot of energy and make quite a distinctive noise but they were the only option in the damp and windless Shanghai summer. To be able sleep in the heat, people would move on the street and sleep outside. With the arrival of air conditionning, people don’t do it much anymore but I remember one could see people sleeping outside in the center of Shanghai only a few years ago.
The Glamour Bar is one of those places that make you stravel to old Shanghai just by going there. A bit like the now gone Face Bar, there is something in this place that is uniquely Shanghai. Australian Michelle Garnaut has put her soul and attention to details in creating an anchor of Shanghai. M on the Bund restaurant opened in 1999, the first Glamour Bar opened in 2004 on the 7th floor and the current larger Glamour Bar opened in mid 2006. Since I arrived in Shanghai, I saw many fancy bars open, have their year or two of glory and loose most of their followers or simply close. Glamour Bar crowd has been thicker than today but the Great Lady of the Bund has even more charm with less people in it. One finally get some space on Saturday night to enjoy this incredible building.
To start with, the bar and restaurants are located in the NKK building, one of the Buns anchor at #5. At the corner of the old Guandong lu and the actual Bund, it is a great looking building built in 1921 for a Japanese shipping line. It is one of the symbols the trade power in old Shanghai. The entrance to the top floors is not through the facade anymore, but through a side door instead. Construction of this entrance is not the best design with marble everywhere, much like many Chinese renovation… but it still looks OK. Get through the small lifts (with the door always closing on people) to reach the refined environment of the 6th floor. Several venues have been created in grand buildings renovated along the Bund, but Glamour Bar is for me the best (with Bund 18). With smart and non obstructive design, they managed to bring modern equipment and comfort while keeping the old atmosphere.
The best of the bar is that it has two very different lives with two very different set of visitors. The most well known is probably the evening version of The Glamour Bar. Gyn & Tonic, Wine, various other alcohol mix together with a lounge kind of music. The dark lights create small corner where conversation can happen without having to scream to the other. I love the furniture that are all authentic of copies of Old Shanghai pieces. Glasses are also of a special kind, modern version of the old crystal red glasses. Later in the evening, the bar transforms into a lounge. This is one of those places, where you meet incredible people, couples are made or broken, and friends reunite. The DJ’s spin music like in all lounges in the world… but the decor still is fascinating, giving to the place an incomparable charm.
The second life of The Glamour Bar is as a cultural venue. Thanks to the owner fascination with literature and culture, Sunday afternoons are devoted to cultural talks. Most interesting book presentation and conferences are held there, including the now famous Shanghai Literary Festival taking place now every year, the largest English Speaking Literary Festival in Asia. It no surprise that many of these books are about old Shanghai and the atmosphere during these events is timeless. The bells at the neighboring customs house can be heard every hour playing Big Ben’s music. We could be in 1929 just like in 2009.
I had not written for a while on this blog. Just going to Glamour Bar again gave me the inspiration for many more posts to come.
The Bund is probably Shanghai’s the most visited attraction. This strip of land has seen many transformations but has always remained the symbol of the city. In the run-up to Expo 2010, it is being remodeled again. The elevated walk created to stop flooding and used as a promenade is being expanded and renovated to welcome the expected millions of visitors. Similarly, the Garden Bridge (also known as Waibaidu Bridge, picture left) has been fully renovated for the 100th year of its construction. It is now open again for traffic and is a great ride in a sidecar. The re-opening of the bridge was followed by an official exhibition of photographs of the bridge and the renovation work that is well worth visiting. During the exhibition grand opening in Broadway Mansions (used to be called Broadway apartments), I had the opportunity to climb up the 18th floor terrace of the building and take pictures up there.
Looking in my own collection of pictures, I found this one that was surely taken from exactly the same place. This picture was taken probably in 1935 or 1936 as Broadways Apartments was finished (1934) but the Bank of China Tower is not yet visible (completed in 1937). The hotel staff showing me the terrace was so proud to tell me that Richard Nixon and Zhou En Lai had met on this particular terrace in the 1970’s. In any case, the view up there is stunning and not so much has changed ever since. Hopefully the new Bund promenade with an enlarged garden will bring back a lot to the old Bund Garden. The place I took the picture from is normally not open to the public as the room next to the terrace is the most luxurious room of the hotel’s restaurant. For years, this spot has been the best place to get a view of the Bund… and it is still one of the best.
Looking at another direction from the top of Broadway Mansions, I could not help not taking pictures of the area of the Old British Consulate. I already had been interested in this area in a previous post, with pictures of the destruction of the Union Church. Although it has now been destroyed, the Church is still featured on all the rendering for the project, so I could even imagine that the intention is to rebuild “better and more modern”, though I somehow doubt it. Both buildings of the British Consulate are still there, currently being worked on to incorporate the new Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Hopefully, this luxury establishment will take good care and create a nice balance between old and new. The old postcard below of the same area is difficult to date, but since the waibaidu bridge was on it, it dates from after 1908. The white building in the modern photo, the Capitol theater was built after the burning of the building before, i.e. 1924. So the card is from before 1924, when the whole Museum road was re-developed. My guestimation is mid 1910’s
The most surprising is the building along the river (with the tennis court above it in the modern picture). I never thought that this was a historical building until I managed to get into it. This was the swimming pool of the American YMCA round the corner and was surely still in use until not so long ago. The picture at the end of the article is the one of the inside of this building, featuring the pool itself. It is now used as storage for the bricks harvested on the Yuan Min Yuan lu work, but I don’t think the pool will return to its original usage. Too bad, that was surely a great swim. This riverside pool reminds me of a similar one in Paris, and Komyadi swimming pool in Budapest where I used to go.
Hubei’s capital Wuhan is mostly known in today’s China to be a heavy industry base. The current city is the agglomeration of three cities on ethe river. Wuchang, on the right side, is known for its revolutionary history, where the 1911 revolution started as well as center point of 1927 northern expedition to re-unite China. This is a legacy that still holds today.
Hankou, on the left side of the river, is the trade city where foreigners settled in. It was opened as a treaty port on 13th March 1931. Further up, Hanyang was a more remote part. Foreign concessions in the coastal area like Shanghai, Tientsin (today Tianjing), Amoy (today Xiamen) and Tschingtao (today Qingdao) are quite well known in and out China. Concessions and treaty ports were also established in-land, mostly on the main rivers like Hankou and canals like Suzhou.
Being up the easily navigable part of the Yangtse river, Hankou was a major point of trade for China’s inland. Wuhan is still the most important port on the river today. The area around the customs house has been changed a bit by the enlargement of the Bund road like in Shanghai, but the buildings are still there and easily recognisable from the pictures. Just like in Shanghai, the Hankou customs house is a massive building that could be seen from far away, being probably the first point that visitors would see coming up the river, and it is still the main building of the old areas. It has now been turned into a museum about Old Hankou.
I used a recent business trip to Wuhan to spend a few hours in the old concession area. Unlike in Shanghai, the concession area is not (yet) in the heart of Hankou’s business district. The concessions were also much smaller than the ones in Shanghai, limited to an area near the river. I read somewhere that up to 1500 foreigners lived in the concession at the most. Just like in other locations, concessions of various countries were lined up next to each other on the Hankou Bund, with a different atmosphere in each of them. Hankou’s first concession was British, followed by Russian, French, German and Japanese. The custom house was located just off the British Concession, as Chinese customs were delegated to foreigners at that time.
Just like in Shanghai, their is a large commercial street perpendicular to the Bund lined by massive buildings in the former British concession. This area has been pedestrianized and most building now host Chinese banks or brand new shops. It is quite similar to Shanghai’s Nanjing Dong Lu. As the British concession was seized back from China in 1927, there are only a handful of Art Deco buildings on that street as this style was only emerging in the late 1920’s and 1930’s.
The British Concession is the most visited part of old Hankou, but there are some other very nice parts next to it. The old Russian and French concessions have quite a similar atmosphere to Shanghai small streets of the French Concession, with pane trees shading the strong Hubei sun. Building there are not in great shape, but work in restoration would bring them back to their original glory.
The most surprising for me was to find a Viennese or Central European Art Nouveau style (also called secession) building in Hankou. Having lived many years in Central and Eastern Europe, I have seen many of those in Budapest, Prague, Vienna and Riga. The only other example I have seen it the former Belgian Consulate in Shanghai. I think this was a mainly European Style that was never popular in Asia as it was quickly supplanted by Art Deco. This was really a nice surprise to discover the building of the Daosheng bank, built in 1927 in Hankou, China.
For more post about Wuhan, please go to post “Return to Hankou“.
Old Shanghai was the place for all kinds of trade, money made as fast as possible and partying like no tomorrow. Besides those a small portion of the population was interested in science and saw the city as an entry point to China, a whole new world for discovery. These people studied China and its people as well as its flora, fauna and natural beauties. Besides the well known Royal Asiatic Society and its museum on Museum Road (today Yuan Ming Yuan lu), the French Concession also had it natural history museum, the Heude Museum.
Pierre Heude came to Shanghai in 1868 and started collected samples of mostly plants and insects. Based in Shanghai, he extended his reach throughout Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces while organizing expeditions to collect samples from 1868 to 1880. Exploration went on to surrounding areas including the Philippines, Indochina, Indonesia and as far as Polynesia. The museum was still within the Zi Kia Wei (today Xu Jia Hui) compound, at some point hosted in the weather station building after the station was moved to Sheshan. Frederic Courtois succeded Pierre Heude, continuing the tradition of exploration and sample collection. His successor supervised the relocation of the collections to the later Heude museum built in 1930. This building is now the seat of the Pasteur Institute in Shanghai and I recently had an opportunity to visit this art deco masterpiece that is normally not open to the public.
The building is located at the corner of Heife Lu and Chong Qing Nan lu’s elevated motorway. Pasteur Institute took the building over in 2004. In March of that year, the current director visited the building and saw what was the remaining of the Heude collection. When he came in June 2004, all of it had disappeared, living the building empty for the institute to move in. The Institute started a carefull renovation of the building that transformed it to welcome research facilities while making sure to preserve as much historical elements as possible.
As seen on my pictures, the Art Deco main stair case has been carefully renovated and is still used every day, along with windows in the service staircase. For needs of the institute, a supplementary staircase has been built in the same style, and one has to look carfeully to realise that it is not an original one.
I particularly like the door fens in the main entrance on Chong Qing Nan Lu but accessible from the inside. A tree leaf motives was used as decoration, indicating the purpose of the building as a natural history museum. Original floors have been kept as much as possible, while adapting the building for modern use as a biology laboratory.
External sculptures on the building that are repeated in many locations are great exemples of the Art Deco style. The building is now heritage registered and will hopefully be kept, even when the Pasteur Institute will move away in a more modern location.
Plenty of books are currently published about old Shanghai in the run-up to Expo 2010. “A short history of Shanghai” is surely not one of the easy ones to read. Most people think I am passionate about old Shanghai, but even I sometimes reach a limit on how much information I can absorb on the topic. Coffee table books make a great decoration with lots of nice pictures of old buildings and can be highly informative as well, the best of which is probably “Building Shanghai“. Novels based in Old Shanghai take you to a trip back in time without needing much introduction. Amongst them I like “The Master of rain“, though I still need to read the classic “Shanghai 1937” and I sometimes dream that I will also write one. Old guide books such as “all about Shanghai and its environs” are often fun to read. They are a bit more dense with information and I often think that most people will read a few pages every now and then, but only few people actually read them from the beginning to the end. A short history of Shanghai is definitely a much harder nut to crack. It is not a new book but is the reprint of a book from 1927.
Probably inspired by Earnshaw books reprints (even in the beige color cover), the state owned China Intercontinental Press has reprinted this original history of Shanghai. The paper is not as good quality as Earnshaw’s and the reprint has introduced a number of spelling mistakes but illustrations and maps have been kept in. The most amazing is that the publisher managed to publish in modern China a book that was definitely not approved or even forbidden only a few years ago. The very existence of this book shows that the perception of Old Shanghai by Chinese people is also changing. As Shanghai is reborn, it is looking again for its own history and this is a fine example of high quality academic research. Having been written in 1927, the book offer many information about the early days of Shanghai that was lost after liberation or during the Cultural Revolution. “A short history of Shanghai” is definitely not Old Shanghai for beginner, but as a source of information it is invaluable.
If you want to know everything about the history of Shanghai and the International Settlement, you have found the right book. There are so many details in it that it would be easy to get lost. Dates of the opening of various bridges on the Suzhou creek, names of the bishops of the Shanghai Cathedral, debates on the Shanghai municipal councils, various episodes of fights happening around the city, you have it all. The best is probably the very old fashion tone and sentence patterns used in it. It is easy to feel the sense of superiority that western colonials had in Shanghai. The writer was a old China hand, having been the President of Saint John University (today East China University of Political Science and Law) for half of a century. He certainly knew China well as he also published several edition of an history of China. Another of his published books was “Lessons in the Shanghai dialect”, a teach yourself method in English to learn Shanghainese, that would probably also be worth a reprint. Hopefully China Intercontinental Press will also republish it.
We all have passed in front of this building many times without even noticing it. Haig Court (today Jing An Hotel) is located on 370 Avenue Haig (today 370 Hua Shan Lu), right in our face but hidden by the neighboring towers. Its central location in the western part of the old French Concession did not escape real-estate developers and it’s something of a miracle that this building and its garden have actually survived.
On one of the busiest crossroad in Shanghai, it is right behind the Hilton Hotel and the new Hua Shan Square. Although most people have probably never noticed it, it looks today just like on this old picture (from virtual Shanghai). Built in the 1930’s, like for many buildings in old Shanghai its architecture is a mix of various styles. The outside certainly looks Spanish revival, stretched to fit a 9 storey building. Some of its Art Nouveau inspired fixtures like the rough stone wall can be found in Art Nouveau meccas such as Tallin or Bucharest. It also incorporate art Deco elements in glass works, of which a few pieces in the lobby could have been original. The garden still has a little pagoda in a corner and today’s grass looks just like it did 60 years ago. Like in many Shanghai buildings, most of the balconies have been closed to created verandas, loosing some of the original harmony.
The little secret of the building is probably its top floor. Take the lift to the 9th floor early morning, and you can get to the breakfast room with a view to the garden from what was surely the main room of a huge penthouse apartment. Then, use the stairs to reach the 10th floor and you will get to the entrance to the VIP rooms with an even better view. As you can see on the picture, the 10th floor was added later, but it matches the rest of the building. Look through the window for a garden view.
The neighboring skyscrapers have now been built all around Haig Court, but not in the garden. The view from the grass ground, near the back of the garden looks just the same today as it did on the 1948 pictures (apart from overlooking neighbors).
1920’s and 1930’s was the time of money, trade and parties in Shanghai, it was also a time for an incredible development of arts. While businesses where embracing new trades and industries coming from the West and introducing them to China with great profits, artists were also feeling the western wind. Jesuits fathers created a painting in school in Xu Jia Hui which was influential in introducing western painting styles and techniques to Chinese artists. At the same time, many Chinese writers came to settle in Shanghai to benefit from the commercial opportunities, safety and freedom allowed by the foreign concessions. This mostly poor crowded was often living in a “Tingzidian”, a small room between two main floors rented out in a lane house (see picture). Mostly northward looking and of very small size, tingzidian were not the most comfortable room of the house but they allowed those artists to leave in a central location at a low price. Just like French litterature from the late 19th and early 20th century was written in the Paris cafes and the “Chambre de bonne” (rooms on the top of buildings with little comfort where many artists lived and wrote), Shanghai litterature was written in the cafes of Huai Hai Lu and the French Concession, as well as in the tingzidian. Young artists would spend hours in cafes, discussing litterature, painting and how to build a new world. This was the time when artists associations like the painters “Storm society” were formed, as well as writers magazines such as “Xiandai, Les Comptemporains”.
Progressive writers such as Mu Shiying, Shi Zecun and Le Ying Feng were among the main expressionists writers of this period. Shanghai Foxtrot from Mu Shiying is for me the best symbol of old Shanghai party life described by Chinese writers. Mu Shiying was a dandy and his stories are about dandy life, dancings, clubs and restaurant. He certainly lived the high life while in Shanghai and that makes this short story so enjoyable. The party period only last for a short time, but some of these artists certainly enjoyed it. Reading texts from the 1920’s and cruising through the night life of today’s Shanghai, one sometimes feels like an echo, a deja-vu feeling (see the post “Decadence on the Bund” for more on this).
The party lasted only for a few years, as by the middle of the 1930’s politics had taken over many artists. Most of them joined or sympathized with the communist party and art was used to carry the message to the masses. Many then entered the war or resistance against the Japanese occupation. Some other fled to Hong Kong, some collaborated with the Japanese authorities, often being assasinated because of this. The 1920’s was a the time for art and adventure, by the late 1930’s art had left the place for politics. The litterature of the time was forgotten for many years before being rediscovered in the 1990’s and being republished first in China and then abroad. I only found Shanghai Foxtrot in French and in English… and after some research in Chinese as a collection of Mu Shiying works was republished in 2004.