(This is Chapter 10 from Mr.
Prabhakaran’s book, An Indian
Goes Around the World – I: Capitalism Comes to Mao’s Mausoleum, which we have been serializing in this
space. Chapter 11, “A Jacket and a Bride for the Price of One: Shopping on Nanjing Road,†will
appear next week. Read the series every Monday. – Editor)
It was my last day in Shanghai. The group I had
been traveling with had already left for the U.S. I had decided to stay back for
two more days, hoping to explore more of Shanghai,
this time all by myself. I wanted to explore more of the Bund and the areas surrounding
it. Some of the travel brochures I browsed tout the Bund as one of the top-ten
tourist attractions in Shanghai.
One may wonder how a Chinese
neighborhood got an English name, which in turn was derived from Hindi. The
word bund in Hindi means an embankment built to control the flow of
water. The Hindi word had entered the English lexicon long before the British
built an embankment along the Huangpu
River, and developed its
muddy shore into a modern waterfront with impressive residential mansions and
business houses. The incentive for development came from the flourishing trade,
especially the illegal opium trade, they had been conducting in the area for
quite some time. The opium trade was conducted mainly through the East India
Company.
By the time the newly-developed
area in Shanghai came under British control, the
East India Company had been in India
for nearly two and a half centuries. After 1757, the company, chartered by
Queen Elizabeth I of England,
on December 31, 1600, to trade with the East, also started ruling parts of India. Thanks
to the long interaction between England
and India,
numerous Indian words, including bund, became part of the English
language. So much for the etymological origin of the English word bund and the
historical origin of the Bund in Shanghai.
Britain got control of the area in 1842.
It happened as a result of the Treaty of Nanjing that ended the First Opium
War. The treaty, which was imposed on China
by Britain, opened Shanghai to Westerners.
It virtually ceded three areas of the city to Western powers. Apart from Britain, the other Western powers that benefited
from the new opening were France
and the United States.
The two countries came to possess pieces of Shanghai
by virtue of treaties they separately signed with China
in 1844 – France, by the
Treaty of Whampoa, and the U.S.,
by the Treaty of Wanghia. Known as Foreign Concessions, these newly-acquired
areas were autonomous settlements immune from Chinese laws. The Japanese began
to arrive in Shanghai
only in 1895.
Foreigners Amass
Wealth
Britons and Americans later
combined their concessions into what was called the International Settlement.
The French Concession remained separate. Trading in opium, silk and tea, and
also running gambling joints and brothels, all foreigners amassed huge wealth
from Shanghai.
In time, the Bund earned the nickname “the Wall Street of Shanghai.â€
The Western autonomy over parts
of Shanghai came to an end in 1949, the year in
which the city, along with the rest of China, came under Communist rule.
It was in Shanghai
that the Chinese Communist Party was born (in 1921). It was also in Shanghai that Mao Zedong “cast the first stone of the
Cultural Revolution†(1966-1976), which set China back by several decades. The
notorious Gang of Four, which tyrannized the country during that revolution and
of which Mao’s wife was the kingpin, used Shanghai
as its power base.
The Chinese Communists put this
once-vibrant commercial and cultural center into a long slumber. It was
reawakened only in 1990, when the central government, under the leadership of
Deng Xiaoping, decided to pour money into it to revive its vitality.
Though the Bund is no longer a
Western enclave, it is still very European in appearance. The waterfront
reminded me of the promenade by the Thames in London
and by the Seine in Paris.
I took a leisurely walk in the Bund, enjoying everything around. I chatted with
tourists passing by and waved to those on boats cruising through the Huangpu River. The 71-mile-long river, which
flows from the mouth of the Yangtze River to the East
China Sea, is known for long and short, day and night, pleasure
cruises. I had taken a short night cruise two days earlier.
The night cruise was also an
eye-opener for me. It was during that cruise that I realized to what extent
capitalism had penetrated Communist China. Billboards and buildings on both
sides of the Huangpu
River had neon signs
advertising products and services of every multinational corporation of repute
in the world. The well-lit, colorful river banks added to the pleasure of the
cruise, all right. But it also raised a question in my mind: “Why does China still
insist on calling itself Communist?â€
Pudong – the
Special Economic Zone
Across the river from the Bund is
Pudong, the special economic zone of Shanghai. Its Manhattan-like skyline is
the outcome of an urban development project undertaken in the 1990s, at a cost
equivalent to 40 billion U.S. dollars. Again, it was Deng Xiaoping who
quickened the pace of the development. It has been reported that during a 1992
visit to Pudong, Deng chastised city administrators for the slowness of Shanghai’s economic
growth. If China
is the fastest-growing economy in the world today, the credit for it should go
to Deng, whom Mao and the Gang of Four had condemned as a “capitalist-roader.†In
1966, he was ousted from all positions of power and responsibility.
Once back in power, in 1978, this
time as the country’s Paramount Leader, the one-time “capitalist-roaderâ€
decided to take precisely that road. He did it while keeping the Communist flag
still fluttering, though. The result? Flourishing business centers like Pudong
began to spring up around the country and Chinese goods began to flood markets
around the world. The same Communists who had ridiculed Deng Xiaoping two
decades earlier now started singing his praise.
Pudong may boast a Manhattan-like
skyline. But the buildings in the area are no match for the graceful colonial
mansions of the Bund. Also, the skyscrapers of Pudong have added to the fear,
which Shanghai
residents have been living with – the fear that their city, which was built on
a swamp, is steadily sinking. According to a report, by Jim Yardley, which appeared
in the October 14, 2003, edition of The New York Times, the city sank
about eight feet from 1921 to 1965. In 1965, “officials managed to correct the
problem and virtually stop the sinking – for a while.†But only for a while.
The same Times report warned that
“the city is again sinking, at roughly a centimeter a year.â€
The
sinking problem did not stop the building activities in Pudong. And it did not
in any way diminish the joy I felt, while viewing Pudong from the Bund side of
the Huangpu River.
Caption 1:
The author, on the Bund
side of the Huangpu River, in Shanghai,
China. On the
other side of the river is Pudong. Built in the 1990s, Pudong is the special
economic zone of Shanghai. The building with a spire on the top (for radio and
TV antennas) is the 1,535-foot-tall Oriental
Pearl Tower.
It was the tallest structure in all of China
until 2007, when the 1,614-foot-tall Shanghai
World Financial Centre surpassed it in height.
Caption 2:
A
morning scene at a park in Shanghai.
Senior citizens engaging in various kinds of exercises, in parks and public
places, was a common sight the author witnessed, on most mornings, in all three
cities – Beijing, Suzhou
and Shanghai – he visited during his 10-day tour
of China,
in the spring of 2002.
(To be continued)
(M.P. Prabhakaran can be reached by
email at [email protected])
9:
Capitalist celebrations in Communist China – on May Day (Travel with MP Prabhakaran
8) Capitalism Comes to Mao’s Mausoleum – But in Its Crude Form
7) Picture of a cow on Beijing billboard confuses a Hindu (Travel with MP Prabhakaran)
6) Yoga on Copacabana, conducted by a Brazilian beauty (Travel with MP Prabhakaran)
5
Hunchback and sugar loaf: Two tourist attractions in Rio de Janeiro
4)
How Portugal failed to colonize Calicut: Chat with a Brazilian
3) Brahma and Laxmi reincarnate in Brazil? (Travel with M.P. Prabhakaran)
2) Eva Peron’s tomb is too small for her ego (Travel with M.P. Prabhakaran)
1) My Two Embarrassing Moments in Buenos Aires (Capitalism Comes to Mao’s Mausoleum-1: M. P. Prabhakaran)
http://dlatimes.com/article.php?id=40709
(about the author) An Indian Goes Around the World – I (Capitalism Comes to Mao’s Mausoleum)http://dlatimes.com/article.php?id=40126
