Oral History: Shanghai Reopens
Shanghai has been in the news nonstop these last few months, first with the establishment of its new Free Trade Zone in September and again more recently when the city celebrated the 170th anniversary of the official opening of its port to the outside world. These 2 major events nicely encapsulate Shanghai’s unique identity as an open city that has become a living laboratory for the mixing of eastern and western ideas.
Shanghai’s achievements are all the more unusual because at many times there wasn’t any single pilot in control of an economic engine that was one of Asia’s most influential cities in the early 20th century. In many ways that’s part of Shanghai’s unique character and charm. It’s an open place that can be anything to anyone, and where people are largely free to pursue their own interests.
I’m encouraged to see the city’s current leaders taking growing pride in Shanghai’s history as a living laboratory, celebrating this milestone 170th anniversary with a massive 3-D light show around the Oriental Pearl Tower in the booming Lujiazui financial district.
These days everyone seems willing to look past the fact that the city’s rise as a global financial center 170 years ago began on a stormy note in 1843. Shanghai was just one of several treaty ports opened to foreign trade around that time, alongside Ningbo, Xiamen and Guangzhou, following the first series of Opium Wars that saw the British defeat a China controlled by the rapidly weakening Qing Dynasty.
A range of colonial powers would rise up to wield influence over various “concessions” within the city over the next century, while economic opportunity drew migrants from all over the country to create a unique mixing pot of languages and cultures where no one force dominated. The result was a culture of tolerance and “to each his own”, where people could pursue whatever they wanted without worry of government interference.
It’s no accident that 3 of China’s oldest universities were established in Shanghai at the turn of the 20th century, with Shanghai Jiao Tong, Fudan and Tongji universities all tracing their roots back to that time.. China’s first private bank was also established in Shanghai around that time, and the country’s first stock exchange appeared in the city even earlier.
One of my students once shared with me his research on the development of China’s first stock markets, which detailed how stock trading began in Shanghai as early as 1862 with a newspaper advertisement by a steamship company selling its shares. Similar ad hoc trading would ultimately lead to establishment of the nation’s first bourse, the Pingzhun Stock Exchange (上海平准股票公司), in 1862.
I can still remember when the country’s current stock exchanges were re-launched in 1990, with Shanghai as one of the 2 main locations alongside Shenzhen. I remember my amusement at the small number of obscure companies that kicked off the re-launch, though that number has grown steadily over the last 23 years and Shanghai is now one of the world’s largest exchanges.
In many ways the city’s unusual mix of east and west and its open spirit were embodied in Charlie Soong (宋嘉樹), who was born in South China and educated in the United States in the late 19th century. Soong would later return to Shanghai and earn a fortune selling Bibles to local Chinese. Many people may be less familiar with Soong himself, but all will know him as the father of 3 of China’s most powerful women during that time, Soong Ai-ling, Soong Ch’ing-ling and Soong May-ling.
But Shanghai was more than just an open place for businesses to thrive, also serving as a haven for refugees who had few other places to flee in times of trouble. Two of the most famous groups to seek refuge in the city were the White Russians, many arriving after the Russian Revolution of 1917, and European Jews who fled from the Nazis during World War 2. As a Jew myself, I always feel a certain attachment to my current adopted city, the only place in the world that was willing to freely accept Jews desperate to leave Europe during the war.
This mixing pot of businessmen and refugees lived alongside a crowd of more intellectual Chinese who also flocked to the city. While Qing Dynasty and later republican leaders were debating how to blend Chinese and Western ideas in Beijing and Nanjing, equally lively debates were taking place in Shanghai on a more grass-roots level. It’s no accident that the Communist Party was established in a Shanghai house in 1921, and that 3 of the first 4 official Communist Party congresses were held in the city.
The Communist Party wasn’t the only group debating ideology in Shanghai, and the city was also home to many of China’s greatest intellectuals of the early 20th century. Many of those, including Lu Xun, Ding Ling, Guo Moruo and Mao Dun, lived in Shanghai at one time or another, and many of their former residences are near my home in the city’s historic Hongkou district.
The Shanghai where I live and work today is quickly regaining its openness and “anything goes” spirit, though it was hardly that way when I visited for the first time in 1987. I vividly remember how run-down the city felt back then, with most residents living in decaying cramped houses built decades ago. I also remember the disappointment I felt on seeing the run-down First Department Store (第一百货), then considered one of the most modern department stores in China. I felt similar disappointment at visiting the famous but similarly run-down jazz lounge at the famous nearby Peace Hotel on Nanjing Road.
Shanghai didn’t start to regain some of its former spirit until around 1990, with the opening of its first modern hotels and declaration of Pudong as a special economic zone. And yet despite starting down its road to reopening nearly a decade after Beijing, the city is quickly closing the gap to become China’s most international city. Some 170,000 expatriates now call Shanghai home, far more than the 100,000 in Beijing. The city’s business-friendly environment, diverse cultural options and relatively cleaner air are all major attractions for both foreigners and people from all over China.
I like to think that Shanghai is quickly regaining the openness that made it so special in an earlier era, thanks to a new generation of city leaders who encourage both tolerance and experimentation. That’s what everyone should really be celebrating on this 170th anniversary, which is as much a major milestone for the future as the past.
