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July 3, 2015

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A street full of change

THE residents living on Wukang Road have changed remarkably over the years due to rapid social and political changes in modern China.

According to the book “Shanghai Wukang Road,” the idyllic, low-density and conveniently located neighborhood had attracted many wealthy expatriates during the 1920s and 1930s. Most of them, taipans of foreign trade firms or foreign officials, had resided in garden villas or apartment buildings such as Briton L. R. Carrel. He lived at 75 Wukang Road and worked at Shanghai Customs from 1934 to 1939. Italian Consul General L. Neyrone lived at 390 Wukang Road, as did N.C. MacGregor, a taipan of Aquarius Company.

“From a 1930s registered book of Wukang Road residents, we found three Chinese names in this foreigners-dominated community. They were all from noble families and were representative figures who had been influenced by Western culture,” says Tongji University professor Qian Zonghao.

C.N. Chu, a diplomat and son-in-law of premier Tang Shaoyi (B2-3, Shanghai Daily, June 19), was one, as was ancient Chinese coin collector S. C. Chang, son of wealthy merchant Zhang Shiming and an aficionado of Western inventions. Pei Tsuyee, who headed the Bank of China and was also father of world-renowned architect I.M. Pei, also lived on the street.

However, after the Japanese army invaded Shanghai in 1937, many Westerners left Shanghai and returned to their homelands.

The garden villas along what was once known as Route de Ferguson had attracted top officials from Wang Jingwei’s puppet government owing to the nice environment and good privacy. Zhou Fohai and Pan Sansheng were among the officials who had homes on the street.

The puppet government had renamed more than 200 roads in the former French concession from Western names to names of Chinese cities and towns. Route de Ferguson was renamed Wukang Road in 1943. Wukang was a town near Moganshan Mountain and seemed a fitting name for this urban retreat.

After the end of the war in 1945, some of the residents on the street were members of the Kuomintang party, including the Chen brothers.

Beginning in the 1950s, the Shanghai government started taking over villas and apartments along Wukang Road. They became homes for state-owned organizations or spaces for cultural and medical institutions. Some garden villas were assigned to senior officials, such as Hunan Villa, where former Chinese leaders Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yi’s families had briefly shared before, in 1962, Chairman Mao’s second wife He Zizhen moved in.

“The villa was initially built as a private house for a foreign petroleum company head. Zhou Fohai moved in during World War II and turned it into a political space,” says Tongji University professor Liu Gang, lead architect in charge of renovating the villa years ago.

“The interior of the villa remained what it looked like when Chairman Mao’s ex-wife lived there, the standard decoration for a senior Communist official,” Liu recalls.

“During a field survey, I stayed there for a long time pondering the past. Based on the environment and the interior of the house, I could imagine the lonely life of this woman,” Liu adds.

By the 1950s, some renowned intellectuals, such as writer Ba Jin and composer He Luting, also moved into houses along Wukang Road. However during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76), most of their homes were searched by the Red Guards, who confiscated their belongings.

Today, some villas are still shared by several families, others belong to military or government institutions. And the expats are also coming back.

Ji Yan, co-author of “Shanghai Wukang Road,” says: “Wukang Road is very different from the massive apartment complexes that sprout up everywhere these days. It was an upper-class garden residential area and some cultural institutions like Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Drama Arts Center were based on the street. That created a considerably different lifestyle and living quality for residents.

“Perhaps that explains why so many expatriates have chosen to settle in homes here.”




 

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