SOMETHING STRANGE IN YOUR
NEIGHBORHOOD? HAUNTED
SHANGHAI...
IT’S ALL TOO EASY to walk around central
Shanghai these days and think that it is a place
devoid of history. When I’m strolling around
Jing’an on a lazy Sunday afternoon, having
had a pick-me-up coffee from Starbucks
before meandering towards Carl’s Junior,
I sometimes look around at the gleaming
new supermalls and towering freeways.
Often I feel like I’m in some kind of alternate
dimension, a kind of Blade Runner meets
Hennessy commercial, a bizarre world where
there is no past, only a frenetic present and a
hyper-capitalist future.
W
S
ell, as I would find out on the
Shanghai Ghost Tour, Jing’an has
many tales to tell. Within the nooks
and crannies of a neighbourhood transformed
by breakneck development, the haunting voices
of Shanghai’s past can still be heard. When our
editor suggested we go on the ghost tour, I was
slightly apprehensive. You see, I believe that
ghosts exist. In fact, I am utterly convinced of it.
I’m not the type who does séances or uses voodoo
dolls, but I certainly think that there are some
things that cannot be explained. My colleagues,
however, were less convinced ‘THERE ARE NO
SUCH THINGS AS GHOSTS! EVERYONE AGREES
NOW! GO AND SIT IN THE DUNCE CHAIR!’ they
all hooted in unison.
It has to be said though, as we embarked on our
journey into the dark and forbidding underbelly
of Jing’an, even the sceptics amongst our intrepid
party were looking a bit nervy. Our guide for
the evening was Daniel Newman, founder of
Newman Tours, and one of those affable English
characters who wouldn’t be out of place in a
Sherlock Holmes murder mystery. The first stop
was Paramount Theatre, which, back in Shanghai’s
raucous heyday in the early 20th century, was the
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place to be seen. It’s a building with a pretty sordid
past, and a few skeletons in its closets.
‘During the Japanese occupation this place a high
call dance hall, but it is well known that more
dubious things went on there’ Daniel remarked
in a matter-of-fact way. ‘One evening one of the
‘taxi-dancers’ as they used to be called, refused to
dance with a Japanese officer, who, angered by
this slight, ordered her death. The hit-man did his
job, and it is said that to this day, if you go up to
the ballroom late at night, you can see the ghost
of the young woman dancing alone in the dark.’
As we ventured around the building, things got
weirder. Without giving it away, let’s just say that
our editor, the biggest sceptic of them all, wound
up hurling her can of beer in the air in a terrified
panic.
As we ventured through some of the old ligong
neighbourhoods, with Daniel regaling us with
several stories of murder and intrigue, it seemed
like the spectres of old Shanghai could be found
around every corner. We made our way towards a
small park, and as we entered, everyone, including
the skeptics, felt the temperature drop noticeably.
‘A few years ago, when the local government
was building Yan’an elevated highway, they
were drilling down, and hit a layer of rock they
couldn’t get through,’ Daniel began. ‘No one
could understand why, until an old monk claimed
that the rock beneath their feet was actually the
tail of an immense dragon slumbering beneath
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