Shanghai in 1973, part 1 上海40年前

first light in Shanghai near dawn this is the way it began near the dawn of history boats heavy with cargo seeking a safe port and a steady customer first morning when the light was good we could see them and they could see us a crowd of 2,000 curious Chinese and we suddenly realizing that the cultural barriers we have been trying to penetrate for 400 years still stand you might think that once a revolution takes place a country is transformed a country or a city does not change that easily the Chinese after all operate from traditions that go back 4000 years hey y'all they cannot cast off the past completely no more than we can the past and present the cultural conflicts the changes they all come together in Shanghai what follows are notes and observations on the biggest changes that have ever happened to so many people in so short a time in our words and there for anyone old enough to remember Shanghai looks much the same as it did a quarter of a century ago a generation has not changed the face of Shanghai as much as it has changed its soul Shanghai's past reflects the glory not of the Chinese Empire but of the British Empire the Chinese would not have built a city this way the history of modern Shanghai was written in the logs and Ledger's of our great-grandfather's Englishmen Frenchmen and Americans what brought them here was a revolution of their making the Industrial Revolution china became part of an expanding world market and Shanghai its marketplace the noble commodities were tea and silk the ignoble commodity was opium our idea of foreign trade was a sell opium in exchange for the tea and the silk it was a trade the Chinese neither wanted nor valued we fought a war called the opium war to open China to the world in 1842 Shanghai means on the sea we do not think of China as a maritime country but Chinese invented the compass the watertight compartment the fore-and-aft sail and the stern post rudder in the 14th century China was the most technologically advanced country in the world proud and complacent by the 20th century the Chinese were left far behind the industrialized west crowd but no longer complacent the Chinese have been working hard to catch up Shanghai today has many ancient ways and modern problems like the traffic jam the waterway is the city's most heavily used highway rivers more than roads or railroads crisscross China in every direction and Shanghai has always been the most important truck stop everything moves on the river there is no energy crisis in Shanghai machinery has not yet replaced manpower as the greatest natural resource Shanghai is building its own trucks and buses and even passenger cars now but modern transportation is not overtaking the old they coexist along with a small fleet of leftover American DeSoto's Fords and Plymouth's for official use only if you get run over in the streets chances are we'll be by a bicycle there are more than 1 million bicycles and bicycle bells and thousands more attached to carts China's problem is to move NACHA Shanghai but 800 million people from the past to the future the Chinese can't rush head-on into the 20th century they have to get there in their own way Shanghai's primary need was simply to find many people a place to live just a generation ago thousands lived and died in the streets no one lives in the streets anymore except to escape the summer heat there is no escape from the crush of humanity today Chinese are encouraged to postpone marriage at least until age 25 and then to have no more than two children birth control is now government policy there are still places here that look and feel centuries-old where for centuries there was nothing but feels there is something new China's first modern suburb about a million people including several hundred thousand young people have been relocated from the inner city to the suburbs and beyond to the interior the government is anxious to spread development in industry it is learning that modernization has its price that inevitable sign of progress pollution has not yet a major problem but china's planners aren't ignoring it they can't there are growing signs of pollution everywhere in Shanghai for the first time the city is facing the urban realities that are well known in the West there were other big city problems that Shanghai inherited from the West and solved they were declared illegal one was opium the opium den was a major commercial enterprise there were hundreds of them and thousands of addicts they made millions of dollars for the Shanghai underworld for foreigner and Chinese alike Shanghai was a wide-open port where fortunes were won and lost and where anything was available for a price they were estimated to be between ten and twenty five thousand prostitutes Shanghai roared to during the 1920s and 30s the dope the gambling the prostitutes all have vanished from the streets and back alleys of Shanghai it has been reported that crime 2 has vanished you don't read or hear about it much but there is crime and prisons for criminals the only policeman you see however are unarmed traffic cops whose most dangerous assignment appears to be settling street arguments what you don't see is the Security Bureau plainclothesman who deal with more serious crime think of New York or Los Angeles organized into ten districts each district into ten street organizations each with another ten Lane committees each with its own 80 or 90 residence groups think of a city where housing is crowded but cheap the average rent less than four dollars a month where medical care and education are virtually free where there is no unemployment and no income tax there are no two-car garages either there are no privately owned cars and there are no washing machines or freezers or television sets in any of these homes there are no mortgages or credit cards and it's true there is almost no dirt that roughly is Shanghai today and this is the way the day begins in this lane our neighborhood at dawn every Thursday morning the word has come down from district committee to Street committee to lane committee to residence group to carry out this summer's public health campaign it is a group activity and conformity to the group as an old Chinese idea going back at least 2500 years in a word Chinese life is organized by custom and by circumstance the Chinese is a conservative an organization man and woman in a country of mass organizations the neighborhood is the smallest in Shanghai more than 3,000 families live here including the Wu family of number 9 alley 74 grandmother woo has lived here practically all her life her day begins early by sunup she is at the neighborhood market that is already crowded with some of the thousands of people who shop here every day there is no self service no sales no advertising no frozen food and no inflation food cost the same everywhere in Shanghai and almost the same throughout China pork cost 50 cents a pound fish about 15 cents apiece like wages prices are fixed by the government and they have been stable for 20 years getting fed is a preoccupation in a country where eating is a national pastime cooking in art and starvation a recent memory

Channel: MichaelRogge

Views: 302,792

Keywords: china, shanghai, michael rogge, bund, junks, sampans, port, yangtze, harbour, traffic, rickshaws, 1973, 上海40年前, cultural revolution

Id: lb3dyPgv5vU

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 16 2012