I Remember You
Marymount Secondary School , Lowe , Zoe Grace - 16
T he early decades of the 20th century were China ’ s identity crisis . A barrage of influences , internal and external , let loose ; side effects included : revolution , strife , bloody war . In the midst of it all , Shanghai was an island - not in that circumstances were any less turbulent , but in that it absorbed every influence in stride . It took many identities . People named it the Paris of the East , the New York of the West , and so on . By the 30s , Old Shanghai was in full bloom , bearing such fruits as finance , cinema , literature , animation , sea trade , uprising . Just like the Peach-Blossom-Grove in the old fable - blossoming , breathtaking and far-removed . A thousand nicknames and analogies were slung at Shanghai by the influential crowds that passed through it , and every one stuck . Eventually , politics and culture moved back north . The world withdrew from Old Shanghai . Did a real city exist under it all ?
Things change , but Shanghai is still a name that everyone knows . A national tourism group urges prospective visitors to come see Old Shanghai ’ s ‘ faded grandeur ’, trying for excitement but coming across with nostalgia . ‘ For this was the Bund , where the great trading houses and banks had their headquarters !’ Elsewhere on the internet , a profile on Shanghai cinema admits that it has played no real part in China ’ s recent resurgence in film , but giddily asserts that this is , after all , where ‘ the pictures started moving ’. ‘ Faded grandeur ’ is perhaps not just a product of mistranslation , but a fairly good metaphor . It seems these days Old Shanghai is charming the way a curious old book is , enamouring the way a luxurious antique is . When the town itself is an artifact , what do you put in the museums ?
To be fair , Old Shanghai hosted its share of historical milestones . It was a hotbed of the Xinhai Revolution . It was a meeting place for intellectuals and activists . Song Jiaoren , a founder of the Kuomintang had only just led the party to victory in the parliamentary elections when he was assassinated on a train station platform . The cinematic heroes of Shanghai did not stray far from the real ones - the protagonists of many a moving picture ( be they gallant Communists or daring Nationalists ) had died onscreen in pursuit of glory for their cause .
Surrounding provinces were ruled by warlords , the capital by politicians , Hong Kong and Macau by colonists , but Old Shanghai had a unique ‘ ruling class ’. Chinese merchants , businessmen from Germany , bankers from the US and Britain , starving artists from Russia and more presided over the local scene . Other places produced tea , cotton and labour - Shanghai produced movies and poetry and a fair share of propaganda , to be candid . It ’ s a struggle to make clear what exactly about the city made it such a haven unto itself . Perhaps it was some excess Hollywood fairy dust , perhaps just the detachedness of the ‘ Orphan Island ’.
When you look at the collage of a city you see it has kept a memory of every guest . Now , it makes memories to go . Tour guides advise you to visit the inner city at night , when the buildings look like crystal palaces , and to tour the Bund at bustling midday , so that you can imagine how it was in the old days with all the compradors running around . A little illusion is what you need to spice up your trip . They tip you off on the most authentic architecture in the French Concession , so you can feel like you ' re strolling down a Parisian boulevard . What ' s the point of it all ? Old Shanghai is made of artifacts of another time , remnants of another place , political intrigue straight off of a film reel . Its oneness was an insulator . Many of the people who came were looking for something that didn ’ t exist anywhere else . How much was real and how much was fake ? The hordes of people who once called themselves Shanghai-dwellers , what do they say when they look back at it ?
In the old story , when the main character left the Peach-Blossom-Grove , he was not to tell anyone of the idyllic paradise . As legend has it , he did anyways . He and others who had heard the tale spent years searching for it afterwards , but he never found it again . Soon , people stopped looking .