Getting in Trouble for Saying French Concession

So a new branch of Pizza Marzano (as Pizza Express is so called in Shanghai) got into trouble down on Yongjia Road (formerly Route de Seyes) for describing their location as “French Concession”. Some curmudgeon on the internet got all hot under the collar – colonial, unfair treaties, etc etc. Not exactly mass outrage down on the Route de Seyes really – one miffed nationalist micro-blogger and then some mates of his, rather than the Boxer Rebellion reduxe. Then an academic weighed in with a bit more outrage – but then outraged Chinese academics are two a penny these days so I don’t expect much will come of that! Lots of errors taking place – “colonial” of course being technically incorrect – I’ll take “imperialist” and I’ll accept that it was an “unfair” treaty – but treaty it was and colonial it weren’t.

Here’s the rub though. Harking back to the pre-1943 days (another little error – the Concession and the Settlement technically ceased to exist in 1943 not 1949 – they were negotiated out of existence between the foreigners and the government, the KMT – nothing to do with Mao and “Liberation”) is very popular. Residents with property to sell to high spending foreigners or overseas Chinese in the area have no problem letting their real estate people invoke the French Concession evocation, plenty of local property developers have used French Concession in their blurbs while the local government has had no problem with developments previously (except for one case way back when in 2001) such as Ferguson Road (why no anger at the invoking of “colonial era” road names then?It’s hardly a term unknown among the savvy Chinese cafe and shop owners of the area or their local denizens. The tourism authorities have been known to evoke the French Concession label too – no-one objects to “former-” being appended obviously.

God love the internet – where one voice suddenly becomes equated with “public opinion”.

The full story – such as it is – here

I suspect that people will continue to talk of the French Concession – nice to see that Pizza Express, the McDonald’s of North London, is at the forefront of the culture wars in China though – bring on those excellent Four Cheese Pizzas. Dismantling Communist hegemony one Garlic Dough Ball at a time!

outraged locals on Yongjia Road who simply can’t decide between pizza or pasta!! The indignity of it!!