Tourists don't visit Shanghai for faux China, global brands

By Pan Bei'er  |   2008-7-24  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

IN an article published in Shanghai Daily on July 8, I wrote about how Wujiang Road was losing its unique charm and vitality by becoming more fashionable.

An article published in Wen Hui Bao on July 14 explained why the transformation of Wujiang Road is symbolic of how local culture is gradually lost in the city's fast modernization process.

Can Shanghai preserve its unique "flavor" while striving to substantiate its reputation as a metropolitan city?

It isn't exactly clear what the future holds for Shanghai, but many similar developments we have witnessed in recent years suggest that there is no cause for optimism.

Take Jingwen Flower Market as another example.

Built in 1997, the market flourished for eight years, in its heyday providing 70 percent of Shanghai's total flower purchases, before it was closed in 2005 to make way for construction of a "music square."

More than 300 flower shops in the market had to move elsewhere.

Since then, no other flower market has matched Jingwen Flower Market's former prosperity.

In more than one sense, Wujiang Road snacks are sharing the fate of Jingwen Flower Market in their about 10 years of existence.

Both represent a lifestyle with a strong "Shanghai flavor."

Both deserve to be cherished and preserved, but are instead forced to reinvent themselves, conform, or move elsewhere, leaving in their place virtually identical, tasteless, grandiose international brand outlets, or lackluster plazas.

The gradual disappearance of "Shanghai flavor" is deplorable, especially when the same mistakes are being committed again and again.