Historic Shanghai

The presentation entitled “Shanghai Ren, Shanghailanders and other Interlopers” organized by Historic Shanghai on 27 January was well-attended, with almost 200 Shanghai fans packing the Glamour Bar to hear Lynn Pan, Tess Johnston and Wm Patrick Cranley speak.

Pan’s section on Chinese contributors to the city’s development described the close relationship between “legitimate” Shanghai of businessmen, artists and men of letters and the nefarious underworld of gangsters, opium dens and red light districts. “Very Shanghai!” opined Pan, author of 12 books, including Old Shanghai: Gangsters in Paradise.

Tess Johnston was in fine form, despite having to perform a 15-minute version of her crowd-pleasing talk, “100 Years of Shanghai Expatriate History in 50 Minutes.” While rushing through a quick overview of foreign arrivals in Shanghai from different quarters, she recounted the story of how it came to be that we drive on the right side of the road in what was once a British-dominated town. The U.S. military had taken the Japanese surrender in Shanghai in September 1945, and on New Year’s Eve American soldiers changed all the street signs from the left side of the roads to the right. The next morning, drivers all over Shanghai were startled and befuddled by the switch, said Johnston, “And it’s been chaos out there ever since!”

Patrick Cranley approached Shanghai’s history from the perspective of foreign residents of old Shanghai who did not fit clearly into categories like “businessman,” “missionary,” or “customs official.” His presentation had the intriguing title, “Old Shanghai’s ‘Others’: Sailors, Whores, Half-breeds and Other Interlopers.” From Sikh policemen and Filipino bandleaders to Korean prostitutes and Eurasian schoolchildren, Cranley asserts that many of the actors who made Shanghai what it is today do not receive due credit for their contributions. Two stories of particular note were those of American mercenary Frederick Townsend Ward and of the stranded Jews who were unable to leave Shanghai until 1958.

Judging from the big turnout on the day of an “historic” snowfall in Shanghai, there is a great deal of interest in learning more about the people of old Shanghai, in addition to the buildings they left behind.