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along an hour-long walk, with the sounds of the city in the background,
refl ecting on their memories of change. It's a remarkable historical docu-
ment of a city that often claims to decry nostalgia, despite the disclaimer of
Terence Lloren, who said when he initiated the project that it is “not meant
to have any educational or historical signifi cance.” 84
One of the interviewees, named “Bobby” in English, grew up on the
same street as my mother. His refl ections revealed the magnitude of the
urban change: “Ever since Dong Hai Shang Du was rebuilt in 1992, everyone
around here has great expectations [for success],” but most businesses failed
there. Why? According to Bobby:
When I asked my grandparents about it, they told me that during the Cul-
tural Revolution, the Dong Hai Shang Du used to be a row of shops. In front
of these shops there could be a lot of Pi Do Hui [gatherings where people were
publicly criticized for their beliefs] and many innocent people . . . were
wrongfully accused. . . . Some couldn't take the humiliation and slander
and many of them would commit suicide by jumping off the roof of the Dong
Hai Shang Du, and their spirits won't go away. h at's why, in this particular
location, no matter what business is here, it won't survive. Even big busi-
nesses like McDonald's couldn't last for over two years.
Bobby's recording also points to the layers of sadness and violence hid-
den behind the façade of go-go commercial culture in the city. Despite great
pressures against them, a small number of housing activists and lawyers
have resisted relocation, to their great peril, including jail time. 85 Perhaps
the rush to change and to obliterate the past is a response to this sadness and
to the traumas of urban historical and cultural memory in the face of such
extreme and brutal development.
Shanghai's urban development policy in the past three decades—tear
down (Chai-na), instead of rebuild—is in some ways an extension of the
city's long-standing view of urban change. h e intensive building boom also
has environmental impacts, and shrinking green spaces weaken the city's
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