A bit of demolition down in Yangpu (Yangtszepoo) district – nothing new there as nothing whatsoever is even under the mock preservation orders that exist in other districts. This time a not particularly outstanding corner but a part of the architectural catalogue of the city all the same. Interesting that even if this corner was far from one of the best in the former International Settlement and had been allowed to rot for some time it still looks a hundred times better than the utterly fucking disgusting Motel 168 pile next door!!! That’s one hotel chain that’ll never win any prizes for design. Anyway, this corner is on the south west side of the junction of Huoshan Road (formerly Wayside Road) and Huaide Road (Wetmore Road). The people who run the small noodle stall on the corner told me that the rather nice, and perfectly preservable, house opposite on Huaide Road is also soon for the bulldozer which will be a real shame (second picture below)
The Shanghai Foreign Correspondents’ Club Presents:
“Crime and Entertainment: A Double Billâ€
Mao Livehouse Shanghai
Thursday, March 24th, 6 pm – 9:30 pm
To celebrate the new Mao Livehouse Shanghai, the FCC has organised a special double bill with a best-selling author talk from 6 pm to 7 pm and a film screening plus Q&A from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm.
“Organised Crime to Cyber Crimeâ€
Misha Glenny
Organised criminal groups began to understand five years ago they could maximise profits and minimise risks by migrating from the real world to the virtual world. Misha Glenny, author of the international bestseller “McMafiaâ€, spent the last three years interviewing hackers, cybercops and cyberthieves for his new book, “DarkMarketâ€, which will be published later this year. He will talk about how criminal hackers and spooks are locked in a struggle that impacts national security and industrial espionage.
“Red Light Revolutionâ€
Film screening + Q&A with Sam Voutas and Melanie Ansley
“Red Light Revolution†is an indie Chinese comedy about an ordinary Beijinger who opens a sex shop in a hutong in order to make ends meet. When Shunzi is fired from his taxi company, his wife promptly leaves him and throws him out of their house. With nowhere else to go, he returns to his parents’ courtyard home for solace. As money pressures rise, his parents urge him to forget about “face” and take any job that will have him. After the film, director Sam Voutas and producer Melanie Ansley will answer questions.
Venue details: Mao Livehouse Shanghai, 308 Chongqing Nan Lu (by Jianguo Lu), Unit 3F
(Tel: 130 0415 3002)
Misha Glenny is an award winning British author and journalist. A former BBC Central Europe correspondent, he is also the author of four books. His latest “McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime” has been translated into over 30 languages and is being developed by NBC into a television series. His upcoming book “DarkMarket: crime@21century.com” will be published in September.
Sam Voutas is an Australian-born filmmaker who first lived in Beijing in the 1980s and has worked with several major Asian filmmakers. He played war reporter Durdin in Lu Chuan’s “City of Life and Death†and also acted for Du Jiayi. His documentaries on China have been screened by NHK in Japan, KBS (Korea), PTS (Taiwan) and on the Australia Network. Red Light Revolution is his second feature film.
Melanie Ansley is a Canadian-born filmmaker and producer who spent most of her life growing up in China and in 2002 produced “The Last Breadbox”, a documentary about three Beijingers in the run-up to the Olympic Games. In 2003, she made a second documentary, “Shanghai Bride”. She has also directed two feature-length horror movies and freelanced with HBO, NBC and the Discovery Channel.
Lit Fest season in China is drifting to a close and a good job was done by everyone as usual. I even managed to get to a few events including last weekend a really good session on crime fiction set in Asia with some good writers. As I’ve got a crime related book out in July I was interested to see that a good turn out occurred and strong sales followed the talks – excellent news!!
The Asian Crime Gang on stage – right to left – Qiu Xiaolong, Vikram Chandra, SJ Rozan, Chris Cottrell and Nury Vitacchi
That bastion of truth, freedom and the harmonised way the China Daily reports that a number of properties in Peking, siheyuan and some former homes of politically acceptable famous people, have been added to the capital’s list of ‘most valued cultural heritage sites’ (a list some may find hard to believe actually exists!). The old Quanjude duck restaurant in Qianmen is included as well as some residential properties. Actually most sites are temples or tombs and, as in Shanghai, ordinary housing is largely left of any lists of preserved buildings (not that, as we’ve seen repeatedly in Beijing and Shanghai these lists ultimately mean nothing).
Apparently 100 buildings were considered and only a few chosen after 3 years!! This begs two questions: (i) what got bulldozed in the three years the ‘experts’ were pondering and (ii) what will happen to the ones that didn’t make the list and why were they left of? Peking has 6 World Heritage Sites including the understandable such as the Great Wall, Temple of Heaven and Lama Temple as well as, to my mind the not so important, such as Tiananmen Square which is a new creation and a nasty one.
Zhang Wei of oldbeijing.net wins the ‘No Shit Sherlock’ award for his quote (correct though it is) ‘historical buildings are vanishing rapidly…’ It’ll be interesting to see if we get any more listings and if those listed really are safe these days.
Back to Hongkou (Hongkew) which really is getting creamed at the moment by the bulldozers – just this week the bulldozers went in on some late 1940s factories along Liaoyong Road (Liaoyang Road) and also on some once nice properties Kunming Road (Kwenming Road – see here for similar examples). Here is another large area of several blocks being cleared along Dongdaming Road (Seward Road) between Lushun Road (Arthur Road) and Shangqiu Road.
The frontages appear to have been left till last and while I hope they are preserved (which has happened in some spots and appears to be happening on some cleared properties near the ghastly Xintiandi at the moment) but I doubt that it will happen. They are quite nice and have some nice detailing on them – see second picture below – but are unlikely to last beyond the end of March.
I think it is fair to say now that Hongkou has become one of those areas where, if you didn’t know it previously, you can now never really get much feel for the extent of what was there. The clearances have been so vast (for instance this small terrace frontage faces the three block square of cleared land for an APP mall/upmarket residences project underway) – particularly in the swathes east of Tilanqiao and between Tilanqiao and the river.
RCA Victor and His Master’s Voice (HMV of course in later incarnations and still doing business down in Hong Kong) had their offices up on Peking Road (Beijing Road) in the 1930s from where they issued posters with rather nice typefaces and fonts such as these…
Lotteries go back a long way in history – they were one way for the state to raise money to construct the Great Wall apparently! The China State Lottery was a bit later – between the wars but the republican government still used them to build out the airports and highways system. Indeed the Commies today use lotteries to fund some social welfare and offset the costs of nonsense like the Olympics and the EXPO. This ad from 1935 so you can see the big money prizes. Even then it seems people were concerned about where exactly the money went – KMT pockets then, CCP pockets now! That banks sold lottery tickets is quite handy.
A bit of demolition down in Yangpu (Yangtszepoo) district – nothing new there as nothing whatsoever is even under the mock preservation orders that exist in other districts. This time a not particularly outstanding corner but a part of the architectural catalogue of the city all the same. Interesting that even if this corner was far from one of the best in the former International Settlement and had been allowed to rot for some time it still looks a hundred times better than the utterly fucking disgusting Motel 168 pile next door!!! That’s one hotel chain that’ll never win any prizes for design. Anyway, this corner is on the south west side of the junction of Huoshan Road (formerly Wayside Road) and Huaide Road (Wetmore Road). The people who run the small noodle stall on the corner told me that the rather nice, and perfectly preservable, house opposite on Huaide Road is also soon for the bulldozer which will be a real shame (second picture below)
