Cultural strategies in Shanghai: regenerating cosmopolitanism in an era of globalization

Abstract

Modern industrial development commenced in Shanghai in the late 19th century, with the incursion of Western settlements. Soon afterwards cultural activities associated with a modern industrial society made their appearance. While determined by economic forces, the formation of Shanghai’s urban culture at the time involved the growth of both socioeconomic institutions and new forms of cultural activities in modern literature, print media, cinema, and theater. The city also obtained a kind of sophistication with a strong merchant character and commerce served as the primary motor of society. In effect, Shanghai was regarded as the epicenter of modern China’s commercialism and gained the name of Haipai culture (the Shanghai school). Architecture and urban space that differ distinctly from traditional Chinese ones became an important part of this culture. With a contrast of old and new, elite and ordinary, and Chinese and Western, urban culture in Shanghai was decisively cosmopolitan. To a large extent this stemmed from a local tradition of easy acceptance to outsiders, which formed as the city opened its door to foreigners and a great variety of migrants from other parts of China. During its golden age in the 1920s, with a population over 2 million, Shanghai was ‘a meeting ground for people from all countries, a great and a unique city, one of the most remarkable in the world’ (Pott, 1928: 1). Scholars have argued that it was precisely because of this heterodoxy that Shanghai rose above a country of vast conservatism and became a great, modern city (Lee, 1999; Lu, 1999a). Some even feel that modern China was made in Shanghai (Murphy, 1953). After 1949, however, the city experienced more than 30 years of neglect and disinvestment. Tightly controlled by the central government, Shanghai was the single largest contributor of the country’s revenue and served as a major pillar of the planned economy (Wu, 1999). Despite of its growing population, Shanghai was not able to upgrade its infrastructure and the city remained largely the same as in the 1940s. It was only after