The City - The Rough Guide to Shanghai - page 51

3

The Old City and
around

T

he Old City is that strange oval on the map, circumscribed by two roads,
Renmin Lu and Zhonghua Lu, which follow the old path of the city
walls. This district never formed part of the International Settlement and
was known by the foreigners who lived in Shanghai, rather patronizingly,
as the Chinese City . Based on the original walled city of Shanghai, which
dated back to the eleventh century, the area was reserved in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries as a ghetto for vast numbers of Chinese who lived in
conditions of appalling squalor, while the foreigners carved out their living
space around them. It's an area of about four square kilometres, and at its
northern edge is not half a kilometre from the Bund - though a great distance
in spirit. In modern times it has been slashed down the middle by the main
north-south artery, Henan Nan Lu. The easiest approach from Nanjing Dong
Lu is to walk due south along Henan Lu or Sichuan Zhong Lu.
Although tree-lined ring roads replaced the original walls and moats as early
as 1912, and sanitation has obviously improved vastly since, to cross the bound-
aries into the Old City is still to enter a different world. The twisting alleyways
are a haven of free enterprise, bursting with makeshift markets selling fish,
vegetables, cheap trinkets, clothing and food. Ironically, for a tourist entering
the area, the feeling is like entering a Chinatown in a Western city. It probably
won't stay that way for long though; as prime real estate, the area is squarely in
the sights of developers and city planners and many of the lanes have already
been demolished.

The Old City 老城 l l ò chéng

Huaihai Dong Lu 淮海东路 huái ha d ōng lù

Henan Nan Lu 河南南路 hé nán nán lù

Yuyuan Bazaar 豫园商城 yù yuán shāng chéng

Yu Gardens 豫园 yù yuán

Huxin Ting Teahouse 湖心亭茶馆 hú xīn tíng chá gu n

Chenxiangge Nunnery 沉香阁 chén xiāng gé

Dajing Lu 大镜路 dà jìng lù

Dajing Pavilion 大镜阁 dà jìng gé

Baiyunguan Temple 白云观 bái yún guān

Confucius Temple 文庙 wén miào

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