Shanghailander

So many things to do… so little time

In an age of light speed communication, I did not take the
time for month to write a post on this blog. It’s always the same spiral, when
one loses the habit, try to catch up and ends up forgetting about at the end.
It’s not that I did not want any more, time seems to have just
fly these last months. Work has been intense in the first half of the year, and
two major changes have been swallowing most of my free time including the one
dedicated to blog writing.

First of all I have to introduce my girlfriend Jiajia to my readers.
We have been together since late last year and our relationship is going
strong. Although she does not write it, Jiajia has a major influence on this
blog. She is one of the very few Chinese people that I know who is actually
interested in Shanghai’s
history. We go to markets together, bargaining with sellers and discovering even
more interesting things. As a matter of fact, my research into the old Shanghai has become a lot of our research into the old Shanghai. I have also become the president of the French Speaking
association of Shanghai
(www.cerclefrancophonedeshanghai.com).
Although I am highly honored to be elected at this post, it swallows an
enormous lot of my time, again competing with other activities such as reading
books and writing this blog. I have been kind of submerged by it and it’s now
only that I am on vacation that I finally find time to actually write. It’s not
that I missed ideas, as the stack of my old documents related to Shanghai has increased a
lot since the time I stopped writing… but other priorities came along. I
also had to stop my Chinese lessons and I am not sure that I will be able to
restart them anytime soon. I will try to be more thorough about this from now
and catch back with writing this blog.

Quelques grammes de culture dans un monde de brutes

The above title refers to a famous French TV 1980’s advertising. Lindt chocolate was described as “Quelques grammes de finesse dans un monde de brute” (that could be translated as “a few moments of light in a very dark world”). This really applies to the Shanghai International Literary Festival. As much as I like Shanghai, this city is not a cultural center, but the festival brings a lot of it to us.

Shanghai International Literary Festival was taking place this month. As a literature fan and heavy reader, I spent most of my weekends at the conferences. Events take place in the wonderful atmosphere of Glamour Bar, giving it a real touch of the old Shanghai. The old building of Bund #5, renovated by lovers of Old Shanghai with a touch of modernity is the perfect cradle for the event. In the city of modern skyscrapers, electronic billboard advertising and constant marketing noisy aggression taking about a “old” media like book was a blessing. The weather was foggy, modern towers in the other side of the river were disappearing through the mist. Looking at the next door building (3 on the Bund), it felt like we were back in the days of old Shanghai. We were listening to a single person talking about their love of writing and books, just like our predecessors must have done decades ago. I enjoyed the conferences tremendously, as well as the highly cultural atmosphere.

I have to admit that I did not read most of the books that were discussed before the sessions, but I left with a massive stack of reading to do. Conferences I enjoyed including Qiu Xialong (writer of the chief inspector Chen), Amy Tan (“The Joy Luck Club”), Arlette Shleifer (“Le Bar Rouge” which ends on the Bund), Xiaolu Guo (“A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for lovers”) and many others. The closing session of the festival was the launching of the new guide to the Bund by Peter Hibbard.

Shanghai is not the city of culture, but the literary festival definitely brings a lot on that field. Thanks to this great event, Shanghai is becoming a little bit more of a world cultural city.

City of the flat world

"The World is flat" is a book from Thomas Friedman about globalization and the changes it is bringing to the world, companies and individuals. The main point is that the World has become a level playing field on a worldwide basis.
The collapse of Marxist Leninist style of regimes has allowed 3 billions of people (Russia, China, India and others) to join the capitalist system. The Internet and other technologies have made communicating with the whole word something easy. Work flow software allows to cut service work into pieces that can be separated and done anywhere in the world, before being put together. This was previously only possible with production of goods. Manufacturing is now "off-shored" to places like China. Services can be "outsourced offshore". Most people connected to the Internet can "upload" their creations or point of view in such things as this blog, or wikipedia (that is very difficult to access in China because it’s banned). All data and information created by humans can be accessed and searched via search engines and the Internet.
I read this book within a few days mostly in the plane as I was traveling between Asia and Europe. For most people involved in international business, it’s very clear that the world has actually gone flat. Although, the book did not bring much news to me, it’s still enjoyable to read an analysis of this phenomenon that is influencing our lives so greatly. The version I read was the one from 2006, that was already revised, though I think one point was missing. Friedman explain clearly that the information is becoming much more diverse, with a very large share of the Internet being in other languages than English… but the reasoning does not go to the logical conclusion, i.e. that native English speakers should also learn foreign languages instead of waiting for others to learn there, being able to master it along with their own.
During the whole reading, I could not stop thinking about Shanghai today. This city is the center of the business battlefield for the largest market in the world. Any company of a respectable size has to be in China and most multinational companies make it the center of their growth for the next decades. As a consequence, the city is full with foreigners from any nationality you can think of. Shanghai today is one of the metropolis of the flat world… and will maybe become it’s capital though there is still a long way to go. Thanks to Friedman’s "flattening factors" Shanghai is everyday becoming more of a world city.

Xian Qiang Fang

Walking around Wing On I have tried to find the restaurant on 4th and 5th floor of the Wing On department store that I mentioned in a previous posting. The old Wing On has only restaurants on 6th and 7th floor, that are not inspiring at all. The New Wing On has a restaurant on the 7th Floor that is called 7th Heaven. This place seems to have been really famous in the old Shanghai, but the renovation has not left much of the old atmosphere. Going around the old building for a last look, I was attracted by a groups of tourists going through a back door with a restaurant sign above it. Because of the long queue to get into the lift, I climbed the 5 floors of stairs noticing that they were very well renovated… This was little compared to the beauty of the restaurant itself, Xian Qiang Fang.

The wonderful renovation of what used to be the restaurant and ballroom of the Wing On was a wonderful surprise. It has been done with a lot of taste, a lot of attention to details and great preservation of history of this building. Most of the original flooring has been preserved, as well as the radiators, doors and other equipment. Some modern touch has been added without changing the grandeur feeling of the place. The main restaurant room features a high ceiling and old style furniture, giving a real classic touch. Food is great and well served by an effective staff. Many tourists are dining in the private room, but they don’t really invade the main space.

Xian Qiang Fang was made by the same group than Yong Fu Elite and The Door, others famous restaurants in Shanghai. This restaurant is perfectly re-creating the 1920’s and 1930’s Shanghai atmosphere. This is by far the best part of the visit of Wing On and a great addition to it. It also proves that the grandeur of Shanghai’s history can be brought back with a modern touch.

Xian Qiang Fang, 4h & 5th Fl, 600 JuiJiang Rd, Shanghai – Tel:021-63515757
Click here to see the City Weekend entry about Qian Xiang Fang

Wing On

Shanghai has always been the place where new developments where brought to China. Department stores were one of the main features, starting to populate Nanking Road from 1913. Wing On was the third shop to open in 1918 after Whiteaway Laidlaw & Co (1913) and Sincere (1917). It was created by the Kwok family, originaly from Guangzhou that had to moved to Australia and operated fruit stores there. They saw a great opportunity when moving to Shanghai. Wing On was clearly one of the most influential department stores in China, setting the trend for others in Shanghai such as Karoly Gonda designed Sun Sun and Art deco wonder Sun Dept store, as well as in other cities in China. Fortunately, the Wing On building still exists and is still a department store and the shop is now called Wing On again.

The exterior has been recently renovated, making it once again one of the stars of Nanjing Road. An additional building was erected in the 1930s next to the original one. The base is relatively small, but it is topped by an Art Deco tower that was dominating Shanghai sky. It also has a shopping center on the bottom (now hosting a massive Giordano shop), with an hotel above it. Both buildings are linked by two bridges that do not seem to be used anymore.

Unfortunately, renovation of the interior of both buildings has left very little of the original construction. They look just the same as the brand new shopping centers built in other parts of the city. The old time spirit has been completely lost, though the 4th and 5th floor have been turned into the great Qian Xiang Fang restaurant (now closed… too bad). Wing On and Sincere (the opposite department store) used to feature various animals and displays to attract people to the shops. Wing On seems to have restarted the trend, as they had 3 peacocks and a few other birds in a large cage in front of the shop in early March this year. This was attracting a lot of attention from people passing by, renewing an old tradition.

Sliding doors

Shanghai underground train is one of the feature of the city. As opposed to Beijing which metro was started in the 50’s with Soviet help, Shanghai Metro was only started in the 90’s. New lines are being built at fast speed, opening the one after the other. The first time I was in Shanghai in 1998, line 1 was just starting with only a few stations. Line 1 has been expended, line 2, 3, 4 and 5 have been put into actions. The Shanghai Metro authority just opened the extension of line 2 towards Hong Qiao.

The only real node was People Square station for a long time. Peak hours in the corridor going from Line 1 to Line 2 is just like going through a sea of black hair. Riding the metro then always involves a lot of pushing around in the very dense crowd. The trains and stations get packed and everybody is jut trying to keep a little space for him/herself, and trying not to fall on other people. No politeness or manners in here and people nearly climb on each other sometimes. It feels a little like Paris metro on strikes days, when the number of trains is drastically reduced. The most funny or annoying is that people climbing in the train often don’t let people go out first. This always creates a mess, and one has to sometimes push people out to be able to escape. I have to admit that education campaigns seem to have an effect as now people step out more often if they are blocking the way, as well as (sometimes) give up their sit for elderlies or women with kids.

Until last year, the Shanghai Metro was relatively simple. The older stations were not really fancy, but pretty effective in carrying tens of thousand people a day. Since then, Shanghai metro has embark on a campaign for modern and fancy look by adding glass sliding doors on the platforms. I am not so sure what is the reason for it. Local people say that people have regularly jumped on the tracks, needing a brand new wall to stop that. As incidents and delays do not seem that frequent I am just convinced that Shanghai metro wants to look like a “world city metro”.

Like in HongKong and Singapore, they need sliding glass doors. This is where the Shanghai twist comes in. Work was started in some of the stations, without any announcement. There was very little protections for the passengers on the platform. Even better, the glass partitions were installed, but the doors were not operational. This made passengers feel very safe behind the glass protection… until realizing that there was no door. This generally happened when the next train was arriving. This whole mess made it look pretty disorganized and even dangerous for unaware passengers. Not all the doors are functioning yet, but after a few months of being interrupted while unfinished, work has restarted. Major stations on line 1 have been equipped and completion now seems near. I am sure the people selling glass doors and separations must have had great connections with the metro authorities. They must now be celebrating. With glass doors and separations in its metro, Shanghai is trying to become a little more of a world city.

Hotel des colonies

The French settlement in Shanghai was started in 1884, but it did not grow as fast as the British (then international) next to it. When the international settlement was busy with traders shipping things in and out of China, the French settlement remain a much quieter place, eventually extended to become the residential and garden city of Shanghai.

One of the few prominent buildings of the French settlement, was the “Hotel des colonies”, the only hotel of the French settlement for quite a long time. It was located on “Rue du Consulat” near the “Quai de France”, the French part of the Bund located South from the Bund itself. “Hotel des colonies” is mentioned in “Les Francais de Shanghai” and was clearly an important location both for traders coming to Shanghai and for the community. Some of the traders based in Shanghai even lived there for years.

I found the enclosed postcard in an antic shop in Malacca. It was written in Saigon and sent to Shanghai by the post, carried by ship to Shanghai French Concession. More than the picture on the front, it’s the address on the back that caught my attention. The postcard is simply addressed to “Monsieur Millon, Voyageur, Hotel des Colonies, Shanghai”. No street, no number only the hotel’s name, where the card would wait for the traveler to arrive and collect it from the counter. “Poste restante”, i.e. letter sent to a post office and remaining their until the receiver collects it used to be quite a popular mean of sending letter, although it’s quite difficult to imagine it today. It’s just nice to think about a time when time schedule was so relaxed, that people would just post the letter and wait for months until an answer arrive… what a change from today’s email. I was still quite happy to be able to check my email in the old port of Malacca. The modern world also has advantages.

For more research into postal services in old Shanghai, go to post “Letter from Shanghai Municipality” and Shanghai general post office.

Raclette cheese party

This all started as a joke. I had met this Quebec guy who tried to convince me that cheese in Quebec could rival European ones. To prove his point, he proposed to bring some raclette cheese next he would be in town. Two month later, our Quebecer came back. I then had to organize a raclette cheese party for him to prove the quality of his cheese. The cheese had to be vacuum sealed to avoid smell and get through Chinese borders… but this was only the beginning. Raclette is a very peculiar cheese dish originating from the French and Swiss Alps and Juras mountains. The cheese is melted and eaten while it’s hot with hot potatoes, various dried meets and cold cuts. To do a proper raclette meal required getting the specific cheese (that we had) and the various needed cold cuts that I ordered from my favorite restaurant. However, the most important element was finding a raclette oven. This device is quite popular in France and Switzerland, but finding it in Shanghai was very problematic. I inquired a number of French friends in the restaurant business, but nobody had one. Missing two people to complete the table and I invited a Swiss friend, assuming that he may have access to one. The cheese party was on Sunday lunch. Thursday arrived with still no trace of the needed oven, when suddenly I received a text message from him saying “I will have a raclette oven tomorrow”. I was so relieved that the party could take place… until I received the next message saying “The oven is broken and cannot be used. I should get another one tomorrow.” The whole destiny of my cheese party was hanging on my friend’s plan B. Fortunately the second oven worked out fine. Our lunch on Sunday was really special, as we all had been waiting for it. Eating this dish is truly unusual in Shanghai and we all enjoyed it tremendously. It brought to all of us memories of sky holidays, mountains and snow making us really feel like back in Europe for a moment. This successful lunch required the cooperation of a French bringing Italian cold cuts, a Quebecer bringing cheese all the way from his home land and a Swiss who searched for this special device found only in far away countries. This very exotic experience was shared by another French, a Chinese and a Mongolian friend (who all happened to like cheese very much). This mix of competences and experience was a truly Shanghai story, people and cultures from all around the world mixing in this very special place that Shanghai used to be and is becoming again. Having raclette in Shanghai makes it a little bit more become a World city.

Freezing Shanghai

Winter has fully come to Shanghai. I escaped to the earliest cold wave in late December by flying to a sunnier destination, but holidays are now finished… and the winter has come back. Temperatures during the day are about 5C, but it’s below 0C during the night. This would be no problem in anywhere else apart from China, as people have heating… but not in Shanghai which is a real pain.

Shanghai old houses used to have fireplaces, at least in the villas. They were a great way to heat up those big houses and keep them warm just like their sisters in Europe and USA. Unfortunately Shanghai is different. Sometimes after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, it was decided that people in South China do not need heating. I could imagine that people were supposed to be warmed up by belief in communist ideology… or that all this wood and coal was better used for the development of heavy industry. All fireplaces inside houses were filled up with concrete and pipes were broken down (like picture on the left). I also heard that the radiators were melted down to use the metal they were made of. In any case, it was probably a fast track way to reduce energy costs.

The whole issue is about defining what South China is. The actual dividing line is a river, that runs north of Shanghai making the city and the surrounding provinces part of the South… I can tell you that it is cold here during winter. As a consequence, people use air conditionners to heat up rooms. If airconditionners are fine for a slightly chilly climate… they are clearly unsufficient for Shanghai’s. People push them to the maximum to get a mere 18-20C in rooms. The sales of electric heaters soars along with comsumption of electricity. Because of the real bad efficiency of electric heating and the lack of insulation of houses, a lot of energy is wasted… contributing to more pollution… Shanghai in winter is somewhat less of a world city.

Malacca, the Chinese settlement

I decided to add one day of holiday to a business trip to Malaysia, to visit the old city of Malacca. Like Shanghai, Malacca was a western settlement in an Asian country. The first to settle were the Portuguese, replaced by the Dutch and then the British until independence in the 1950’s. What really links Shanghai and Malacca is the large Chinese communities that settled in Malacca since the 17th century. This give to the city a whole new dimension. Like in Shanghai Chinese design and western technology mixed to create a lifestyle and buildings that are very unique.

Most of the Malacca houses have the traditional shape of 2 story Chinese houses with the shop facing the street and the living quarters above them. The typical Malacca style mixes it with western details such as Corinthian column top, painting of colorful flowers on the walls. This mix of western and Chinese style are quite similar to the one to be found in China’s Guandong province, in particular around Kaiping. I could also see number of buildings with colored glass windows like one can see on buildings in Shanghai. Buildings from the 1930’s and later often have iron windows like the one in my apartment in Shanghai.

The whole Chinese city of Malacca has a very nice colonial atmosphere. Many cafes are open to the street. My two preferred places where the Lin Loke Wee Coffee Shop, at the corner of Jalan Tokong and Jalan Portugis (just the name of the street is an evocation to travel). This a very local place, in a corner building surely from the 1930s. Age old wooden tomette chairs, wooden table with stone top, the decor has not changed for decades, not even the fridge in the back that seems straight out of a 50s movie. You can have noodles, drink the local soja drink or a great ice coffee with milk or Sugar. This place is authentic Malacca style.

A little further on Jonker is street is the new and attractive Geographer Cafe, keeping the colonial atmosphere while creating a modern touch to it. This place reminded me of other travels cafes I have been to, like the Foreign Correspondent Club in Phnom Penh. Decor is great, food was fine (a little too western to my taste… but great to tourists). I enjoy it tremendously… The decor upstairs is all made with antic maps, old pictures and postcards… not far off my dream cafe if I ever make one.

Jonker street, the central street of the Chinese city is also packed with antic shops, where I was looking for treasures and ended up buying a number of things… including the promotion flyer for “Fantomas”, a French film from the 1970’s at the Cathay Theater (reminded me of the Shanghai one). It was just so out of it’s place that I could not resist. Looking for Shanghai related items, I found a postcard sent to the “Hotel des Colonies” in the French concession.