Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Number 18 The Bund
was originally the Chartered Bank of India and
Australia, but today is home to the city's ritziest shops, given gravitas by the
building's Italian marble columns. If you want to spot Chinese celebrities
(assuming you can recognize them), this is the place to be seen. As well as top-
end retail outlets such as Younik (see p.140) and Cartier, the building houses an
arts space and two ventures run by the Michelin-starred Pourcell brothers - the
overhyped
Sens & Bund
restaurant and swanky
p.124) above,
Bar Rouge
(see
which has a fantastic roof terrace with views of Pudong.
At no. 17,
American International Assurance
has returned to re-occupy
the building it left in 1949. Back then it shared its tenancy with “the old lady
of the Bund” - the English-language
North China Daily News
, w hose motto is
engraved over the ground-floor windows - “Journalism, Art, Science, Literature,
Commerce, Truth, Printing”. The Communists banned it from printing news in
1949, so the very last issue was given over to articles on the philosopher Lao
Tzu and Hittite hieroglyphics.
The Customs House and HSBC Building
Continuing south down the Bund past neo-Grecian, Italian Renaissance and
Art Deco edifices brings you to the magnificent
Customs House
at no. 13.
The Chinese customs service was administered by foreigners as it was discov-
ered that this way much less money disappeared through graft. The service was
headed by an Irishman, Robert Hart, who at one point was forwarding to
Beijing a third of the Qing government's revenue. The clock tower was
modelled on Big Ben in London, and after its completion in 1927, local legend
had it that the chimes, which struck every fifteen minutes, confused the God of
Fire: believing the chimes were a fire bell, t he god decided Shanghai was
suffering from too many conflagrations, and decided not to send any more.
During the Cultural Revolution loudspeakers in the clock tower played
The
East is Red
at six o'clock every morning and evening. The original clockwork
d
was restored in time for a visit by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986.You can step into
the downstairs lobby for a peek at some faded mosaics of maritime motifs on
the ceiling.
Right next to the Customs House, and also with an easily recognizable domed
roofline, the former headquarters of the
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank
,
built in 1921, has one of the most imposing of the Bund facades. It's now owned
by the Pudong Development Bank, who allow visitors to poke around the
entrance hall. To day, HSBC is one of Britain's biggest banks, though few of its
customers can be aware of its original purpose - to finance trade between
Europe and China. Each wall of the marble octagonal entrance originally
boasted a mural depicting the bank's e i ght primary locations (Bangkok,
Calcutta, Hong Kong, London, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo), and the
eight words of its motto: “Within the four seas all men are brothers”. The four
huge marble columns in the banking hall are among the largest pieces of solid
marble in the world. In the far left corner was a separate bank for Chinese
customers, who entered using the entrance on Fuzhou Lu - the massive door,
inscribed with the initials HSBC, still stands. The Chinese character
fu
(prosperity) can be seen on the walls and in the trim, and Chinese-style abstract
designs decorate the cornices and ceilings.
It's considered lucky to rub the noses or paws of the bronze lions that stand
guard outside the Corinthian columns of the entranceway. These are replace-
ments for the two originals, which were removed by the Japanese; one stands
today in the historical museum (see p.89). They were officially named
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