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The inexorable flow of homogenization is leaving our great cities indistinguishable
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Last Thursday, I met a friend from Beijing whom I used to see a lot while working there 18 years ago. As we chatted, he asked what I thought of Shanghai in comparison with Beijing.
This would have been easy to answer 18 years ago. For instance, when I first came, I was struck by the seriousness with which locals approached their jobs, even those perceived as “menial.” Today such responsibilities are mostly entrusted to migrant workers.
Shanghai’s rise as a modern commercial hub was somehow linked to its treaty port status in the 19th century. However, the colonial influence has probably been overstated, as shown by recent controversy over the naming of Yangjinggang — a 4.3-kilometer river linking up with the Huangpu River to the north and Huacaoda to the south.
Living close to the river, I take a walk along its willow-lined banks a couple of times a day on average.
Since last year, when I took my son to the river, he had been amused by signposts stating that this is Sanba He — March 8 River, a paean to womanhood as March 8 is Women’s Day.
Some elderly residents nearby were unhappy with this new appellation, claiming that its old name of Yangjinggang dated back to 700 years ago, while Sanba River refers only to a 6-kilometer waterway further south, excavated around 1960 and named in tribute to female laborers on the project.
What’s in a name
These disgruntled residents had their grievances aired in a series of reports in June in the Oriental Morning Post. In deference to local sentiments, new signposts with the old name Yangjinggang were erected.
Although a storm in a teacup, this incident drew my attention to the history of this place that I now call home.
According to a report in the newspaper on June 17, the name Yangjing dates back at least to 1291, during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). The river gave its name to Yangjing Town and then Yangjing Middle School, the first public middle school in Pudong.
Yangjing Town used to be crisscrossed by dozens of other rivers, large and small, and at a time when rivers served as arteries of traffic, the town grew into a thriving hub of commerce.
Early last century, its 620-meter main street was lined with more than 300 shops selling goods of almost every conceivable kind — from mundane daily necessities to fine cloth and jewelry.
Alas, today neither the river nor its surroundings suggest any of its erstwhile prosperity, as many vestiges of the past had been erased. The only physical remains that might suggest the past age are a dilapidated partly wooden house on the bank — an incongruity in a carefully managed landscape of statues, squares and ornamental painted walls, all aimed at confirming our faith in progress.
To many people, such structures can be viewed as anathema to progress: the antiquated black tiles; the decrepit ivy-clad walls; the cramped living quarters in stark contrast to the luxury of a small courtyard with carefully placed pots of plants. Yet such places are more evocative of the manner of life in bygone years than all the expensive but tasteless fakes and monuments erected in memory of the past.
Many parts of China have been so thoroughly taken up with modernity that a lot of old structures must fight a battle to justify their existence.
On the same page of the newspaper where the river name dispute was related was coverage about the old house of Lu in Tiantong Lu, Zhabei District.
Labeled “protected” in April 2004, it has since fallen into ruin, blamed on greedy developers as well as general decay that inevitably comes over such neighborhoods when most inhabitants are relocated.
Today there is a fashionable mass movement called tourism, whereby you travel long distances to be regaled with tales about the circumstances of other people. We are, by comparison, often indifferent to our own conditions, which used to be unique, but are today constantly brought up to standards (or formatted).
Thus for all the differences that used to mark Shanghai and Beijing, over the past 18 years our cities have been subject to a powerful homogenization influence, with Beijing and Shanghai vying with each other to erect the most outlandish buildings. As a result, in areas not dominated by a landmark, these days it is quite a challenge to tell one from the other.
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