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City’s rise to modernity reflected in paper
Print Edition
THE history of Shanghai in the last decade is intricately linked to the trials and achievements of Shanghai Daily.
When the first issue of Shanghai Daily rolled out of the presses on October 1, 1999, it became the city’s first official English-language newspaper on China’s mainland since the founding of New China 50 years before.
In the decade that followed, the city’s skyline changed beyond the inexpressible, wooing travelers and investors alike and marshaling China’s well-documented GDP surge.
Critics may argue that the imposing skyscrapers, super brand-name malls and a Metro network zigzagging through the heart of the city had given Shanghai a supercilious air, but there was no looking back for a city determined to refurbish its image as it experimented with social change.
Shanghai was now a magnet for the entrepreneurs and fashion-conscious, quickly gobbling up the latest trends, much to the chagrin of its close cousins Hong Kong and Singapore.
Department stores locked horns with streetside vendors, tradition walked hand-in-hand with the modern, state-of-the-art architecture towered over colonial classics, and yesteryear’s back alleys were today’s modern thoroughfares. It was this contrasting mien that had visitors befuddled and beguiled at the same time.
Shanghai became China’s best picture postcard to the world — and Shanghai Daily did well in documenting the momentous changes.
But it wasn’t just the changing times that the newspaper recorded in its pages for its readers. A series of articles delved into the past that threw light on Shanghai’s rich urban history. Through them we learned, among others, of Lazlo Hudec, who stamped his signature on more than 100 buildings across the city after fleeing his home in war-torn Europe in the 1930s.
Shanghai in the 1920s and the 30s was the heartbeat of Asia, and the young architect began to realize his ideas in this city of dreams. During his 29-year stay (1918-47) here, Hudec built churches, schools, hospitals, hotels, cinemas and private residential homes for the aristocrats while experimenting with forms and shapes like modernism, art deco and classicism. Many of these buildings still stand. His signature work, Park hotel, is listed as a national heritage.
Hudec’s legacy is also closely intertwined with the fate of over 30,000 jews who found a haven in the Chinese city during World War II. In the site of the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue now stands the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum as a reminder of the city’s connection with the past.
Among the other interesting series in Shanghai Daily was the unusual travelogue on the Yangtze River Delta. Dotted with lakes and rivers, the Grand Canal connects Hangzhou in the south and Beijing in the north. In Imperial times, the canal — over 1,700 kilometers long — facilitated the flow of goods and materials across the country. The delta is now the epicenter of robust economic growth.
Getting the best of both past and present is no mean task, and Shanghai Daily’s rich pool of writers and editors have built on the city’s heritage, silently contributing to the accomplishments of the paper. In the days of social media and new Internet trends greatly impacting newspaper companies, Shanghai Daily has not only beaten the odds but has come out top.
A giant 6,000-square-meter LED display of the paper on the historic waterfront, the Bund, is just another statement of intent.
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