Walking down Changle Road, a tree-lined street that runs through the northern part of the former French Concession in Shanghai’s Xuhui District, I came across and interesting set of Spring Festival scrolls on a door that appeared to be decades old.
The door seemed like it had stories to tell. An old box for milk delivery that I’ve only ever read about in old stories stood on one side of the door. Strange words in gold which I could not recognize at all at first, despite reading Chinese, ran down the two scrolls on either side of the door’s mail slot and along the top scroll.
Soon enough, I realized that if I split one word into four Chinese characters, each word actually combines four Chinese characters that make up traditional Chinese phrases expressing good wishes for the coming new year.
Such Spring Festival scrolls only appear on doors across the city during the first month of the lunar calendar, yet here is this one, still on the door in the third lunar month. This confused me a bit, but then again, it might just be fun to keep them longer since the scrolls are so well designed.
Changle Road is a timeworn street, home to many old residents, that intersects the prosperous, commercial, Fumin Road. Fumin Road is widely recommended by Internet celebrities, in part for its old-fashioned groceries and barber shops. This road, named Pushi Road in old Shanghai, and Route Courbet by the French, is the site of large numbers of old small houses designed in French style with black and red bricks. The French Concession, one of several historic foreign concessions in Shanghai, lasted from 1849 until 1943. The legacy is complicated, given that the foreign concessions were the result of aggression and invasion by the French, English and other foreign powers, but this history also contributes to Shanghai’s unique character, typified along Fumin Road by residential buildings, both apartment buildings and villas, with fancy gardens in the French style.
With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and the subsequent development of the city, many of these old houses, which have almost no sanitary drainage and modern infrastructure, are owned by old Shanghainese. These days, when I walk in this street, I see elders sitting on bamboo stools chatting with each other and drinking tea from delicate teapots leisurely along both sides of the road. Such scenes add to the road’s relaxing feeling for both heart and body. Elsewhere along the way, unusual looking boutiques sell extremely fashionable and rare clothes. With decorations in special styles combining Western and Chinese styles that originated in the building of French Concession here, such boutiques are often recommended by Internet celebrities and attract young people eager to take photos. In this way, the old style and modern life fit together well on Fumin Road.
The way that the traditional integrates into the modern left me wanting to know more. A model case for this is Tianzifang, a lilong or “lane house” area that has become a popular shopping and dining area. In his conference paper “Mutation of Tianzifang, Taikang Road, Shanghai,” Hong Kong-based architect Hiroyuki Shinohara discusses how Tianzifang has transformed itself into a renovation that becomes “functionally more mixed, socially inclusive and economically uplifting as the renovation of existing traditional buildings proceeds.” This kind of renovation, which retains connections to tradition, integrates the old neighborhood into the developing modern city. The traditions which are still alive in countless corners in this city makes it full of life.
Shanghai’s complex history as a concession port city, invaded and occupied by foreign powers but always essentially Chinese, has helped make it the international city it is today, giving residents and visitors opportunities to experience the past and imagine the future of this city. As with the old characters combining into new ones on the New Years scrolls on that old door, taking the time to see the old in the new, and the new and the old is a rewarding part of exploring Shanghai.
This passage gives me a new perspective to see this city. Shanghai is famous for its diverse cultural background and modernization. However, behind the appearance now, there are a lot of historical reasons for that. Shanghai has a complex historical background, and the architecture is influenced by western culture and Chinese culture. Shanghai also has a history, so the architecture is also influenced by ancient culture and modern culture. Using a new perspective see the old things which can bring a novel feeling to this city.
This passage gives me a new perspective to see this city. Shanghai is famous for its diverse cultural background and modernization. However, behind the appearance now, there are a lot of historical reasons for that. Shanghai has a complex historical background, and the architecture is influenced by western culture and Chinese culture. Shanghai also has a history, so the architecture is also influenced by ancient culture and modern culture. Using a new perspective see the old things which can bring a novel feeling to this city.