Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
chauvinism, the
Shanghai Club
. The club's s howpiece, the 33-metre mahogany
Long Bar
, was where the wealthiest of the city's merchants and their European
guests congregated for cocktail hour, with the highest-status taipans sitting
closest to the window. The last building on the block, at the corner of Yan'an
Dong Lu, is the
McBain Building
, a lso known as the Asiatic Petroleum
Building. It was constructed in 1916, and features the now familiar motifs of
Greek columns, Baroque pillars and a Romanesque archway.
Just across the road - finally it's possible to cross again - is a rather quaint
former
signal tower
. It was closed for renovation at the time of writing, but when it
reopens may show a collection of old photos (though there are rumours it will be
yet another pricey restaurant). From here, it's a short walk to the boat dock for a
river tour (see opposite). If you want to go west back into town, it's best to avoid
dull Yan'an Dong Lu and backtrack north to Fuzhou Lu (see p.56).
The Bund to People's Square
Two kilometres west of the Bund lies another hotspot for tourists, People's
Square (Renmin Guangchang). Connecting them is the consumer cornucopia
of pedestrianized
Nanjing Dong Lu
, with its two major parallel arteries, dull
Yan'an Lu and quirky
Fuzhou Lu
. In the days of the foreign concessions,
expatriates described Nanjing Lu as a cross between New York's Broadway and
London's Oxford Street. But it was also at this time that Nanjing Dong Lu and
Fuzhou Lu were lined with teahouses that functioned as the city's most
exclusive brothels, whose courtesans were expected, among their other duties,
to be able to perform classical plays and scenes from operas, and host banquets.
In a juxtaposition symbolic of prewar Shanghai's extremes, strings of the lowest
form of brothel, nicknamed
dingpeng
(“nail sheds” because the sex, at less than
one yuan, was “as quick as driving nails”), lay just two blocks north of Nanjing
Dong Lu, along Suzhou Creek. The street was dubbed “Blood Alley” for the
nightly fights between sailors on leave who congregated here.
Nanjing Dong Lu
On its eastern stretch,
Nanjing Dong Lu
's garish neon lights and window
displays are iconic; come here in the evening (before things start closing up at
9pm) to appreciate the lightshow in its full tacky splendour. If you don't want
to explore by foot, a daft little electric train tootles up and down (¥2). The
shopping is not what it once was, with the emphasis now firmly on cheap rather
than chic, but the authorities, aware of this, intend to boot out the locals and
get some international brands in.
Scammers on Nanjing Dong Lu
Take note that foreign faces on Nanjing Lu will be incessantly approached by pesky
pimps, street vendors and “art students“, but the most common scam is for a young
guy or girl to befriend you, perhaps asking to practise their English. They'll suggest
you go to a bar for a coffee or a beer, which, when the bill comes, will cost hundreds
of yuan. On a single stroll up the street, this will be tried a dozen times. There are
plenty of places in Shanghai where strangers are genuine, but this is not one of them.
For more on this, see p.34.
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