As it Bites the Dust – The Hidden History of Xinzha Lu

News this week that much of the shikumen clusters along Sinza Road (now Xinzha Lu), that run from the street down to the Suzhou Creek, are empty and awaiting demolition.This area of 1920s housing has suffered repeated blows – in 2013 traditional lilong were demolished around Datian Road near Xinzha Road (below); more has gone to allow for the subway station and various other nondescript high rises. Things turned nasty back then over compensations – some families had lived in Sinza for over 70 years, even back before World War Two. They were all sent off to Jiading and that area is a hi-rise now ( the pics below from early 2013).

and this is what replaced it…

This is bad news for several reasons: 1) Xinzha Road’s “residential district” is a cluster of shikumens that are now among the last intact clusters left and show (as once did the vandalised and bastardised Xin Tian Di and Jian Ye Li, as well as numerous other once) the original architectural styles of the city; 2) the recent plans issued by the Shanghai government and various foreign architects detailing “preservation” along the Suzhou Creek are worthless; 3) that Shanghai will lose more of its dwindling stock of unique architecture (shikumens and lilongs do not exist in any meaningful sense anywhere outside Shanghai) which is akin to architectural extinction; 4) enough with the jerry built tower blocks already; 5) I would expect the new tower blocks developer to enclose the bankside of the Creek and therefore further limit access to the waterway for pedestrians (this is already a problem on the north side of the Creek and has long been true of large swatches of the southern side that are impassable to pedestrians – once again showing how various government/foreign developer plans are BS) and; 5) Sinza has a long and interesting history that has been largely forgotten already and will now be erased from the collective memory and formal history. So a few historical notes on Sinza; the first being well known and the last perhaps not so…

Sinza was of course within the International Settlement – as well as being the name given to a street and police post it was also a sub-district, people referred to Sinza as a place, an area, a district. Sinza is derived from the Chinese word for New Toll Gate (11 miles up the Soochow Creek from ‘Louza’, the Old Toll Gate). Close by the residential shikumen cluster now being bulldozed the main street was home to, among many other offices and businesses, the China Inland Mission, who, in 1930, moved their headquarters to 1531 Sinza Road to co-ordinate all their missionary work across China. The Victorian-style 1531 building complex (below), complete with lots of arches and pillars grouped around an extensive compound, was also home to the China Inland Mission Hospital. The six-storey Home Block had the Prayer Meeting Hall in the centre with a hospital and its staff residences as well as a home for missionaries passing through Shanghai. The Sinza Police Station, built in 1899 on the road, was always known as the Sinza Road Station.

The Sinza Bridge, across the Creek, also still exists in a modern form but has been in operation for well over a century in previous forms (below)…

Sinza Road was also the last place many Shanghailanders ever arrived in the city before disappearing underground – MacDonald’s was one of the Settlement’s major undertakers…

I could go on listing former residents and businesses, but there’s also a more hidden history of Sinza, from World War Two…

In 1940 the Japanese had not taken over the Settlement formally (pre-Pearl Harbor), but they were expanding their influence. As well as the Little Tokyo district, across the Creek in Hongkou, Sinza became a major target for their activities. In November 1940 Japanese army linked interests opened the Asia Club in the district and Sinza  into a new street of sin that was a mini0-version of the infamous Shanghai Badlands to the west of the city. The Asia Club offered gambling with opium smoking divans upstairs. The rookeries and lanes of the Sinza shikumen cluster now being demolished became a Badlands in miniature – kidnap gangs and hold-up men lodged in its deep, dark lanes incognito among the many brothels that sprung up. Standover men followed the punters in to rip off their profits at gunpoint. There were gun battles nightly in Sinza. Hwa-Wei (lottery) parlours, grind joints (low end casinos), Philopon (methamphetamine) distribution shacks with Yakuza shabu merchants from Tokyo, plus a cabaret with all-transvestite taxi-dancers appears overnight. The Japanese Gendarmes patrolled from Gordon Road (Jiangning Road) across a couple of blocks, and a hundred alleyways, along Sinza as far as Tatung Road (Xinqian Road). The Shanghai Municipal Police effectively kept out of Sinza and the Sinza Road Municipal Police Station became a ghost town.

That was Sinza through to 1945 when it reverted to a residential district again….

Mini-Badlands; residential compound – it’s now all just about to be rubble…..

A Post for Sinophile Danes – Ikke en Jordisk Chance

I’m going to give a quick plug to a book that sounds fascinating but I’m afraid I (and most of you) can’t read. Still it’s out there and we should know about stuff whatever the language….

Frode Olsen’s Ikke en Jordisk Chance (Not An Earthly Chance) is in Danish, but hopefully might get an English translation….

A dramatic documentary report about a group of brave Danes forgotten efforts during World War II. As posted in Hong Kong, the Danes were captured, Japan put a massive attack into the crown colony. And several of them chose to stand up as volunteers on the British side instead of sitting with their hands in the lap – and paid for their lives. They never had a mortal chance.

From Yellow Peril to Yellowface: the Cultural Politics of the Chinese Diaspora in Britain – Oxford, 8/5/17, 5pm

Should you happen to be Oxford this Monday, an event on Chinese in Britain with Anne Witchard and Daniel York….

From Yellow Peril to Yellowface: the Cultural Politics of the Chinese Diaspora in Britain
2017/05/08 Monday 5pm Lecture Theatre 1, China Centre, St Hugh’s College

Starting from this Trinity term, the Oxford Chinese Studies Society will host a series of public events on global Chinese culture, through which we hope to engage more with Chinese cultural workers from all over the world in the fields of literature, film, theatre and more. In this first event in the series, we have invited Chinese-British playwright/actor Daniel York and literary scholar Dr. Anne Witchard to talk about the cultural politics of the Chinese diaspora in Britain. This event will be of interest to those of you who work on East-West relations, race and colonialism, Asian diaspora and identity politics in general. Each speaker will talk for around 15 minutes and we will leave plenty of time for Q & A and discussions.

Dr. Anne Witchard: “The Chinese Girl”’: Sinophilia and the Construction of Modernist Femininities in 1920s London

Anne Witchard is Reader in the Department of English Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Westminster. She is one of the leading scholars in the studies of Sino-British connections in modern literature. Her publications include Thomas Burke’s Dark Chinoiserie: Limehouse Nights and the Queer Spell of Chinatown (Ashgate, 2007), Lao She in London (Hong Kong University Press, 2012) and England’s Yellow Peril: Sinophobia and the Great War (Penguin, 2014). She is editor of London Gothic: Place, Space and the Gothic Imagination (with Lawrence Phillips) (Continuum, 2010) and Modernism and British Chinoiserie (Edinburgh University Press, 2015).

Daniel York: Protest and Performance: The Lie of British East Asian Invisibility in the Arts

Daniel York is a successful scriptwriter, director and actor who is passionate about championing equal rights for creative East Asians. His plays and theatre works in London include Song Of Four Seasons, Fake Chinaman In Rehab, The Fu Manchu Complex. As an actor, his feature films include Rogue Trader, The Beach (directed by Danny Boyle) opposite Leonardo Di Caprio and the action film Doom starring The Rock.

Shanghai Noir – Shanghai and Crime Writing

China Rhyming readers may be interested to know that the fourth installment of my Crime and the City series for The Literary Hub visits Shanghai – old Shanghai crime, contemporary writing and true crime books all included…..

click here

Asia House Literary Festival – 23/5/17 – Min JIn Lee: Reflections on the East Asian 20th Century

“The winter following Japan’s invasion of Manchuria was a difficult one. Biting winds sheared through the small boarding house, and the women stuffed cotton in between the fabric layers of their garments. This thing called the Depression was found everywhere in the world, the lodgers said frequently during meals, repeating what they’d overheard from the men at the market who could read newspapers. Poor Americans were as hungry as the poor Russians and the poor Chinese. In the name of the Emperor, even ordinary Japanese went without. No doubt, the canny and the hardy survived that winter, but the shameful reports – of children going to bed and not waking up, girls selling their innocence for a bowl of wheat noodles, and the elderly stealing away quietly to die so the young could eat – were far too plentiful.”

An excerpt from Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, published by Head of Zeus in 2017, p.12.

On Tuesday 23^rd May, Reflections on the East Asian 20^th Century  will take us back in in time with Min Jin Lee – bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires – who will be presenting her new novel Pachinko for the first time in the UK.

Beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them, this epic tale – which has been in the making since 1989 when Min Jin Lee was a junior in college – follows a Korean family through eight decades and four generations. Betrayed by her wealthy lover, Sunja finds unexpected salvation when a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan to start a new life.

So begins a sweeping saga of exceptional people in exile from a homeland they never knew and caught in the indifferent arc of history. In Japan, Sunja’s family members endure harsh discrimination, catastrophes, and poverty, yet they also encounter great joy as they pursue their passions and rise to meet the challenges this new home presents. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, they are bound together by deep familial roots.

Min Jin Lee will be in conversation with author, literary critic and former Man Booker Prize for Fiction judge Erica Wagner to reveal a profound story which delves into questions of faith, family and identity.

The talk will be followed by a book signing and drinks reception.

To book tickets for this event please click here

General: £10, Concessions: £8, Asia House Arts Members: £5

RAS Shanghai – Classical Garden Tour – Shanghai’s Yu Garden – 12/5/17

Classical Garden Tour – Shanghai’s Yu Garden

Tour leader and author The Classical Gardens of Shanghai: Shelly Bryant

Most of us have visited Yu Garden more times than we can count. But can a person, especially an expatriate, ever truly “know” Yu Garden? Lou Qingxi, writing in Chinese Gardens (2003) and quoted in The Classical Gardens of Shanghai, states, “the real appreciation of a garden’s beauty comes from an understanding of the general artistic realm behind the scenery presented there, which leads to an understanding of the philosophy and view of life it represents. This intellectual response depends entirely on the viewer’s familiarity with the Chinese traditional of gardening.”

Join Shelly Bryant as she leads us through Yu Garden and guides us in viewing the familiar scenery through fresh eyes. Shelly is a long-time friend of RAS, a much published poet and translator and author of The Classical Gardens of Shanghai, part of the RAS Monograph Series, published in 2016 by Hong Kong University Press.

Limited to 15. Members, priority registration through Wednesday, May 10.

(Click here to download membership application)

Meeting place instructions on confirmation of RSVP.

The Sad End to the Shanghai Posting of Walter B Wilson, 1928

Walter B. Wilson Jr., of Greenvile, NC, was posted to Shanghai in 1920 as an assistant paymaster to the United States Shipping Board in Shanghai. In 1923 he gained a Vice-Consul position as a clerk with the US Consulate in Shanghai – within a year he had been promoted to a vice-consul post. He kept that post till May 1928.

However, it seems that in 1928 he became despondent and depressed. Nobody was quite sure why – his friends and colleagues reported him as being fine and not seemingly overly stressed or depressed. But he was. On May 1 1928, at 6am, he left his lodgings claiming to be heading to the Hungjiao Gold Club. He was seen there, writing a number of letters but then disappeared. After receiving a letter from Wilson a colleague at the Consulate called the police who, concerned about his whereabouts and intentions, searched his rooms. Meanwhile another letter was received by the local newspaper, the American-run China Press – it stated that he intended to take his own life. A search ensued for Wilson, led by the Shanghai Municipal Police and his friends.

On May 8th 1928 Wilson’s lifeless body was found in the Whangpoo (Huangpu) River, ten miles downstream from the Bund. One of his legs was broken and it was assumed the corpse had been hit by a ship’s propeller. Quite why Wilson was so depressed is not clear. He had recently returned from a home leave to the United States – though nobody connected with him in the USA (including his four brothers who had all attended West Point) remembered him as being depressed during his visit.

The inquest didn’t get much further in understanding why Wilson presumably killed himself – it returned a verdict of ‘death by drowning’.

And there’s nothing much else to say really – a sad story where we can only guess at the real causes.

A short while later the note below appeared in the Honolulu newspapers, a certain ‘H.A. Atkinson’ claiming to be a good friend of Wilson’s wished to make contact with his brother who was stationed in Hawaii. The brother attempted to reply to the PO Box but got no reply….

But H.A. Atkinson was not unknown in Honolulu and had contributed some articles to the Honolulu Advertiser. These articles (from 1927 and before) indicate Atkinson was resident in Shanghai, either at the time or before, and was active in local sports – and was described as a ‘sportsman’. He seems to have been an Englishman, from Newcastle, and a keen rugby player. Atkinson was also involved in the Boy Scouts movement in Shanghai and, when visiting Honolulu in 1927, gave a speech on the subject to the Hawaiian scout movement. This was in November 1927 (Atkinson had arrived in  the city from Shanghai on the liner Taiyo Maru on November 8 1927) and Atkinson says he is planning to spend at least six months away from Shanghai, resident in Honolulu. This would place Atkinson in Honolulu in May 1928 when he placed the letter in the paper. But why did the PO Box number not work – had Atkinson returned to Shanghai? moved on elsewhere? failed to pay for the box? got the number wrong in the letter? I guess we may never know…

November 15th, 1927 – Honolulu Star-Bulletin

If You Don’t Know Whitey Smith of Old Shanghai then now is your time to meet him…

Fantastic that Earnshaw Books have reissued Whitey Smith’s great memoir of old Shanghai’s nightclub and jazz scene (with an introduction by Andrew Field too)…as original copies of this book have been as rare as hen’s teeth this is a real addition to most peoples old Shanghai shelf….

I Didn’t Make a Million – Whitey Smith

Whitey Smith was a jazz drummer from San Francisco who landed in Shanghai in 1922, just in time to help ignite the Jazz Age in one of the world’s most entertainment-crazed cities. It is said he brought Jazz to China, and that claim is arguably true. This memoir tells the story of his amazing life and adventures in Shanghai nightlife in the 1920s and 1930s, and then as a nightclub owner in Manila and an internee in a Japanese camp during World War II. It is written with great humor, a collection of the great yarns he would have told at the bar through the years.

more details here