Jackie and I went to Shanghai with Annie and Steve and had a spectacularly good time. The weather, sightseeing, dining, and company were all top notch. For some reason though, the topic for this blog that jumped into my head is politics. Let me explain.
Shanghai is the center of a lot of Chinese political history, especially modern political history. The biggest thing in modern Chinese politics is the Communist Party and it had its first congress in Shanghai in 1921. Jackie and I went to the building in Xintiandi where the congress was begun. (The French didn’t like it and chased the founders of the Chinese Communist Party out of Shanghai. The congress concluded on a boat in South Lake.)
Even before the communists Shanghai had been a center of political history in China. It’s where the foreign devils established their toeholds in China as the dynastic leadership was weakening and Western influence was strengthening. The British started things off in 1842 after the First Opium War. They built a trading port where a sleepy little village was. The French and Japanese followed. Other nations (including the U.S. and Italy) had a hand in creating what was called the International Settlement. Their influence in Chinese development can easily be seen in the top tourist spots of the Bund and the French Concession. This was a city that was essentially an international reserve taken by force by foreign governments for their merchants. The Chinese were second-class citizens in their own land here.
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| The famous "no dogs or Chinese" sign from Huangpu Park |
This was the area where nationalist champions found their country’s inability to maintain sovereignty in the face of foreign interference most glaring, maybe because of that, home-grown heroes popped up here and squared off. Jackie and I had dinner in a restaurant that had been the home of the Soong family. In that family they said, “One married for money, one married for China, and one married for power.” The oldest sister married the richest man in China. The second sister married Dr. Sun Yat Sen. The youngest sister married Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek.
I’ve already mentioned the CPC was founded in Shanghai. Chiang led the resistance to the communists and actually allied himself with the foreign powers and Chinese business interests in Shanghai as he and the KMT fought the civil war against the CPC. World War II interfered and the Japanese came back to control Shanghai. After the war the CPC liberated the city from the KMT and began their rule of Shanghai and China.
Shanghai’s development and history as a mercantile center in China had left it with an advertising industry that lingers on the original and replica posters and cards of the Shanghai girls. These are the images of coy and demure Asian lovelies used to sell everything from medicines and cigarettes to machinery including, yes, bicycles.
This same industry was put to a more explicitly political use after the communist victory in 1949. We used Steve’s Fodor guidebook to get close to the Propaganda Poster Art Centre, but we needed the help of some friendly and attentive gate guards at the entrance to an apartment complex to actually find the center. They saw us wandering and counting down house numbers and waved us over. At the entrance they handed us a card that had a small map and a red dotted line showing the way to the place. As we got in the elevator and headed down to the basement Steve and Jackie wondered what sort of adventure we were getting ourselves into.
It turned out to be a well-arranged collection of posters that some local had held on to and were now on display. They had nice chronological explanations of the times and events that influenced the posters. The text on the posters was translated and I assume they are good translations. They did a good business in reproductions and I’m sure that is what keeps the center afloat. I almost bought a copy of a Korean War vintage poster. Ultimately I decided it would be more offensive than interesting to my Korean War vet. Dad and passed. I did buy the exhibition catalog and the pictures here come from it.
Under communist rule Shanghai has continued to be a beacon of modernity for China to show to the world (and to the Chinese; there are a ton of Chinese tourists in Shanghai. We found ourselves cheek to jowl with them in the old town during the Qingming festival. There were also plenty of Chinese tourists on the Bund, called Waitan in Chinese, taking the obligatory pose with the Oriental Pearl tower in the background.)
Politically it seems to be a bit more wide open than what I’ve seen in Shenyang. We went to the Moganshan art district and found extensive arrays of graffiti art on the walls and buildings and numerous galleries that displayed works that were openly critical of, or at least irreverent toward, the Chinese government. We later took a bike ride and one of our guides complained loudly about the Chinese government and announced his intention to emigrate to Australia as soon as he had enough money and English-speaking proficiency.
I wonder if Shanghai provides enough of an outlet for a manageable amount of dissent as well as a receptacle for a significant amount of income to make it a worth the government’s while to make some allowances for the fact that it’s a place where politics bubbles and boils blatantly.
