A Jacket and a Bride for the Price of One:
Shopping on Nanjing Road
By M.P. Prabhakaran
It was my last day in Shanghai, and the last of the ten days I spent touring China. I had kept this day exclusively to explore the Bund and the surrounding areas. Some of the travel brochures I browsed had touted the Bund as one of the top ten tourist attractions in Shanghai.
One may wonder how a Chinese neighborhood got an English name which in turn was derived from Hindi. The word bund in Hindi means an embankment built to control the flow of water. Long before the British built an embankment along the Huangpu River and developed its muddy shore into a modern waterfront with impressive residential mansions and business houses, the Hindi word had entered the English lexicon. The part of Shanghai which the British later called the Bund came under their control only in 1842. It happened as a result of the Treaty of Nanjing that concluded the Opium War. By then, Britain had been in contact with India for nearly two and a half centuries. Thanks to that contact, numerous Indian words, including bund, had become part of the English language.
The 1842 treaty, which Britain imposed on China, opened Shanghai to Westerners. It also ceded three areas of the city to foreign powers. Apart from Britain, the other powers that benefited from the cession were France and the United States. Known as Foreign Concessions, they were autonomous settlements immune from Chinese law. The Japanese began to arrive in the city only in 1895.
The British and the Americans later combined their Concessions into what was called the International Settlement. The French Concession remained separate. Trading in opium, silk and tea, and also running gambling joints and brothels, all foreigners amassed huge wealth from Shanghai. In time, the Bund earned the nickname the Wall Street of Shanghai.
The Western autonomy over parts of Shanghai came to an end in 1949, the year in which the city, along with the rest of China, came under Communist rule. It was in Shanghai that the Chinese Communist Party was born (in 1921). It was also in Shanghai that Mao Zedong “cast the first stone of the Cultural Revolution” (1966-1976) which set China back by several decades. The notorious Gang of Four, which tyrannized the country during that revolution and of which Mao’s wife was the kingpin, used Shanghai as its power base.
Shanghai Goes Into Slumber
The Communists put this once-vibrant commercial and cultural center into a long slumber. It was reawakened only in 1990 when the central government, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, decided to pour money into it to revive its vitality.
Though the Bund is no longer a Western enclave, it is still very European in appearance. The waterfront reminded me of the promenade by the Thames in London and by the Seine in Paris. I walked leisurely, enjoying everything around me. I chatted with tourists walking by and waved to those on boats cruising through the Huangpu River. The 71-mile-long Huangpu, which flows from the mouth of the Yangtze River to the East China Sea, is known for long and short, day and night pleasure cruises. I had taken a short one two days earlier.
Across the river from the Bund is Pudong, the special economic zone of Shanghai. Its Manhattan-like skyline is the outcome of a $40 billion urban development project undertaken in the 1990’s. Again, it was Deng Xiaoping who quickened the pace of the project. It is said that during a 1992 visit to Pudong, he chastised the city administrators for the slowness of Shanghai’s economic growth. If China is the fastest-growing economy in the world today, the credit for it should go to Deng, whom Mao and the Gang of Four had ridiculed as a “capitalist-roader.” And for that reason, he was ousted from all offices in 1966. Once back in power in 1978, this time as the country’s paramount leader, the “capitalist-roader” decided to take that road, with the Communist flag still fluttering. The result: flourishing business centers like Pudong began to spring up around the country and Chinese goods began to flood the world market. The fellow Communists who had derided Deng two decades earlier applauded him now.
Pudong may boast a Manhattan-like skyline. But the buildings there are no match for the graceful colonial mansions of the Bund. Also, the skyscrapers of Pudong have added to the fear the Shanghai residents have been living with -- the fear that their city, which was built on a swamp, is steadily sinking. According to a recent report in The New York Times by Jim Yardley, the city sank about eight feet from 1921 to 1965, when “officials managed to correct the problem.” The report also says that “the city is again sinking, at roughly a centimeter a year.”
After enjoying the Bund to my heart’s content, I headed for the nearby Nanjing Road (Nanjing Lu, in Chinese). I had been told by many that a visit to Shanghai wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Nanjing Road and some shopping there.
Busiest Street in the World
Nanjing Road is the longest and busiest street in Shanghai. Some even say that it is the busiest street in the world. A section of the road is reserved exclusively for pedestrians. It reminded me of Calle Florida (Florida street) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the difference that this one is busier all through the day and most of the night and that it is much longer. Also, while only part of Nanjing Road is reserved for pedestrians, the entire Florida street is kept that way.
The stores on both sides were overflowing with merchandise suitable to varied tastes and budgets. There were huge department stores selling everything from electronic goods to toys. There were stores with glittering arrays of Chinese silk. There were also teeny-weeny ones selling antiques and handicraft. Some stores were also overflowing with saleswomen whose numbers were far out of proportion to the business activities in them. Salesmen were rare.
As I was passing by a ready-made-clothes store, a jacket that was on display on a mannequin caught my attention. Two salesgirls from the store, who might have noticed my curious look, came out and grabbed my hands. “Come, look, no buy,” they said and dragged me into the store.
Before I could say no, they had pulled the jacket off the mannequin and put it around my shoulders. Then they pushed me toward a mirror and said, “Look, you good.”
One of the girls pressed some numbers on a calculator to show me the price. By now, I had decided that I liked the jacket and that I was going to buy it. I told her, using my ten fingers to emphasize it, how much I was willing to pay. After a few minutes’ haggling, we decided on a price and I bought the jacket. Though they preferred payment in American dollars, I paid in yuan, the Chinese currency.
The two girls were not ready to let me go as yet. They dragged me to a showcase and pointed to a lady’s outfit – a sleeveless blouse and matching skirt, both made of silk. “This, your wife, good,” one of them said.
“I am single,” I told them, my index finger making the point clear.
“Oh, you single! Good” They had a solution for that also. They took me to a corner of the store and showed me a woman who was sitting at a desk. They said she was the manager of the store.
“She single. You two good,” one of the girls said.
“I am leaving Shanghai tonight,” I told them, supplementing my words with gestures indicating that I would be flying. “Marriage next time. I promise.”
My promise made both girls giggle. The manager giggled, too. All three were good-looking.
“A jacket and a bride for the price of one? Not a bad deal,” I said to myself while leaving the store.
Looking back, I am happy that I didn’t allow myself to be shanghaied by three women, two of them buxom.
[Published on October 18, 2003]
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Reader's Response
Very Interesting
I really enjoyed reading the piece. Very interesting. I will soon be browsing the Web site for other stories as well. My best wishes.
Nancy Shealy, New York, New York, U.S.A.
October 22, 2003