History UsefulNotes / Shanghai

Shanghai's vibrancy is now mostly restored, and it's the biggest city in the People's Republic. Shanghai people are often stereotyped for their snobbishness due to their pride in the city's international fame and national significance.

Not to be confused with "[[PressGanged shanghaiing]]," which is a form of maritime kidnapping that was practiced in the 19th century before the advent of steam ships, or with ''VideoGame/{{Shanghai}}'', the first MahjongSolitaire game for computers.

Shanghai (上海, lit. "[[LostInTranslation Over/Above/On]] [the] Sea") is a young city by Chinese standards. Until the 1840s it was a quiet fishing town, but when British forces seized it in the course of the First Opium War in 1840, they realized its potential as a trade emporium, given its location near the mouth of the Yangzi River. At the conclusion of both wars, Foreign powers were conceded 'settlements' in and around the country's more marginal coastal and river areas. Shanghai was one of these places. The 'International Settlement' was formed in 1863 with the merger of the British and American territories, while the ''Concession Française'' remained independent. UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan gained its own concession in 1895, with the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese war in their favour. The old town, meanwhile, remained under Shanghai-nese jurisdiction.

[[AC: AnimeAndManga]]

[[AC: {{Comics}}]]

[[AC: {{Film}}]]

[[AC: {{Literature}}]]

* ''Man's Fate'' by André Malraux is about the crackdown against Shanghai Communists implemented by Jiang Jieshi in 1927 with the support of the Green Gang.

[[AC: LiveActionTV]]

[[AC: VideoGame]]

Shanghai's vibrancy is now mostly restored, and it's the biggest city in the People's Republic. Shanghai people are stereotypically infamous among fellow Chinese for their snobbishness due to the city's international fame and national significance.

Shanghai's vibrancy is now mostly restored, and it's the biggest city in the People's Republic.

* ''Shanghai Triad'' (摇呀摇, 摇到外婆桥) by ZhangYimou is about a teenager who gets hired as an errand boy by the mistress of a 1930s Triad boss.

* ''Film/EmpireOfTheSun'' by Creator/StevenSpielberg, another WorldWarII period film. Produced in the mid-1980s, it earns the distinction of being the first American film to be shot in Shanghai since the 1940s, making good use of the city's relatively preserved sights prior to heavy development and commercialization since the 1990s.

-->-- 16th December 1949 conversation between I.V. Stalin (1) and Z.D. Mao [[note]] conversation translated in real-time by N.T. Fedorenko and Shi Zhe (Karskii). Archival record of conversation translated from Russian to English by Danny Rozas, printed on p.319 of ed. by Odd Arne Westad, ''Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963'' (Stanford, 1998) [[/note]]

* ''Manga/FistOfTheBlueSky'' takes place in the pre-WWII Shanghai where Kasumi Kenshiro the master of Hokuto Shinken helps his friend, who is the leader of Qing Bang (Green Gang), take over the city and build the said utopia called Shangri-La,

Shanghai (上海, lit. "[[LostInTranslation Over/Above/On]] [the] Sea") is a young city by Chinese standards. Until the 1840s it was a quiet fishing town, but when British forces seized it in the course of the First Opium War in 1840, they realized its potential as a trade emporium, given its location near the mouth of the Yangzi River. At the conclusion of both wars, Foreign powers were conceded 'settlements' in and around the country's more marginal coastal and riverine areas. Shanghai was one of these places. The 'International Settlement' was formed in 1863 with the merger of the British and American territories, while the ''Concession Française'' remained independent. ImperialJapan gained its own concession in 1895, with the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese war in their favour. The old town, meanwhile, remained under Shanghai-nese jurisdiction.

[[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Within a couple of months of the Guandong Army taking Beijing in the Summer of 1937]], the fighting spread to Shanghai. We used to be sure this was Chiang's idea, as a means of weakening the IJA's southward advance from Beijing, but now we're not so sure. It appears that the NRA Commander assigned to Shanghai was in fact a Soviet agent acting on orders from Moscow to try to take the fighting south (and away from the Chinese-Japanese-Mongolian-Soviet border), much as the Japanese Commander who oversaw the IJA's resounding defeat Nomonhan/Kalkhin Ghol also appears to have been one. However the Second Battle of Shanghai actually started, it constituted one of history's most bizarre spectacles as Japan continued to deny that the million-man four-month battle (with artillery, tanks, 'planes, and warships) did not constitute a war. Both sides had to be careful in their use of fire support due to the presence of the foreign settlements - the sinking of an American river gunboat USS ''Panay'' by IJA aircraft while she was evacuating people from the American embassy in Nanking/Nanjing made things ''very'' awkward at one point - which remained mostly unmolested until they too were occupied when Japan entered the [[WorldWarTwo wider war]] in 1941.

The city's post-war economic recovery was initially helped by the incompetence and corruption of Chiang's regime, which oversaw high inflation which stimulated businesses. However, while this helped the city's debtors (as the real value of their debts was reduced by the decreasing value of money) it crippled its lenders and this reluctance to lend money (because it was getting harder and harder to make profits from lending) eventually resulted in net economic stagnation during the hyper-inflation spiral of 1947 (which completely wiped out all debt and destroyed the entire Shanghai-based banking sector). While a new currency, the Gold Yuan, was instituted the Guomindang's inflationary policies hadn't changed and it was only when the Communist People's Liberation Army (PLA) fought their way into the city that it ended. The PLA made everyone, at gunpoint, stop creating inflation by forcing everyone to buy and sell everything at fixed places and prices under direct PLA supervision and the threat of death. The PLA also broke up the strikes at Shanghai's factories, dismantled the trade unions, and got production going again. While the policy of 'price controls' (of fixed prices on all goods) wasn't new, the Communists actually had the power to implement it in the countryside (which only they had enough militia, and the willingness to use brutal force, to police) as well as in the cities. A whole host of policies insituted from the city's capture until the first five-year economic plan were exact clones of Guomindang policies, albeit instituted with a degree of ruthlessness and efficiency that Chiang's regime hadn't been able to match since 1937.

However, in 1991, Deng Xiaoping granted the country greater economic freedom, and Shanghai has since then grown into a shining powerhouse of unrestrained business activity. In a few short years, the Pudong financial center has sprung up from the ground on the Eastern shore of the Huangpu river, and is now a glittering collection of postmodern skyscrapers as impressive as HongKong's. One of the most well-known is the Oriental Pearl Tower (it's that big pointy thing in the picture at the top of this page). It is quite astonishingly ugly to look at in real life.

* Much of {{Tintin}}'s adventure "The Blue Lotus" takes place in Shanghai.
* ComicBook/CortoMaltese goes through Shanghai on his way from HongKong in "Corto Maltese in Siberia".

* ''The Corps'' series by Creator/WEBGriffin opens in 1940 Shanghai, where Corporal Kenneth [=McCoy=] and several other major characters are stationed with the 4th Marine Regiment, and spends several chapters there. The complexities, corruption, tensions and intrigues of the international city are extensively explored, with [=McCoy=] gaining his nickname [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "Killer"]] after defending himself with a knife from three drunk Italian soldiers, being cleared of charges by [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Captain Bruce Fairbairn]] of the Shanghai Municipal Police (who lost the knife to [=McCoy=] in a card game), and [=McCoy=] being reassigned to eavesdrop on the Japanese when he informs his superiors that his local girlfriend (or "sleeping dictionary") taught him the language [[TheOmniglot (among several others)]].

The freewheeling atmosphere, in which everyone was on the take and everything went, was a magnet to artists and intellectuals, and throughout the inter-war years Shanghai was one of the most culturally dynamic cities in the world, earning the city the moniker "Paris of the East". It was also a hotbed of political activism, witnessing the birth and death of the Urban-Proletarian Communist movement; it was both the founding place of the (first) Chinese Communist Party in 1921, and Chiang's primary target [[NoMoreEmperors in 1927's April 12 massacre of all the city's Socialists]] ([[EnemyMine as identified and disposed of by Mister Du Yuesheng and his Green Gang]]).

[[SecondSinoJapaneseWar Within a couple of months of the Guandong Army taking Beijing in the Summer of 1937]], the fighting spread to Shanghai. We used to be sure this was Chiang's idea, as a means of weakening the IJA's southward advance from Beijing, but now we're not so sure. It appears that the NRA Commander assigned to Shanghai was in fact a Soviet agent acting on orders from Moscow to try to take the fighting south (and away from the Chinese-Japanese-Mongolian-Soviet border), much as the Japanese Commander who oversaw the IJA's resounding defeat Nomonhan/Kalkhin Ghol also appears to have been one. However the Second Battle of Shanghai actually started, it constituted one of history's most bizarre spectacles as Japan continued to deny that the million-man four-month battle (with artillery, tanks, 'planes, and warships) did not constitute a war. Both sides had to be careful in their use of fire support due to the presence of the foreign settlements - the sinking of an American river gunboat USS ''Panay'' by IJA aircraft while she was evacuating people from the American embassy in Nanking/Nanjing made things ''very'' awkward at one point - which remained mostly unmolested until they too were occupied when Japan entered the [[WorldWarTwo wider war]] in 1941.

* ''Fist of Fury'' (精武门) -- the film with BruceLee, and its remake ''Film/FistOfLegend'' (精武英雄) with Jet Li.

%%* ''Film/KungFuHustle''

This complicated political situation was a boon to the criminal underworld, Late-Imperial/[[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors Early-Republican]] Shanghai was notorious as the playground of powerful [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs triads]]. All manner of illegal activity thrived, most famously prostitution and opium smuggling. Shanghai was referred to as "the greatest brothel in the world" and "the Whore of the Orient", and a common joke among visiting missionaries was that "If God allows Shanghai to endure, He'll owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology." When UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors marched into the city in 1927]], the most powerful man in the city was crime Lord Du "Big Ears" Yuesheng, leader of the 'Green Gang'.

* ''Manga/FistOfTheBlueSky'' takes place in the pre-WWII Shanghai where Kasumi Kenshiro the master of Hokuto Shinken helps his friend, who is the leader of Qing Bang (Blue Gang), take over the city and build the said utopia called Shangri-La,

* ''Man's Fate'' by André Malraux is about the crackdown against Shanghai Communists implemented by Jiang Jieshi in 1927 with the support of the Blue Gang.

* ''The Corps'' series by Creator/WEBGriffin opens in 1940 Shanghai, where Corporal Kenneth McCoy and several other major characters are stationed with the 4th Marine Regiment, and spends several chapters there. The complexities, corruption, tensions and intrigues of the international city are extensively explored, with McCoy gaining his nickname [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "Killer"]] after defending himself with a knife from three drunk Italian soldiers, being cleared of charges by [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Captain Bruce Fairbairn]] of the Shanghai Municipal Police (who lost the knife to McCoy in a card game), and McCoy being reassigned to eavesdrop on the Japanese when he informs his superiors that his local girlfriend (or "sleeping dictionary") taught him the language [[TheOmniglot (among several others)]].

This complicated political situation was a boon to the criminal underworld, Late-Imperial/[[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors Early-Republican]] Shanghai was notorious as the playground of powerful triads. All manner of illegal activity thrived, most famously prostitution and opium smuggling. Shanghai was referred to as "the greatest brothel in the world" and "the Whore of the Orient", and a common joke among visiting missionaries was that "If God allows Shanghai to endure, He'll owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology." When UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors marched into the city in 1927]], the most powerful man in the city was crime Lord Du "Big Ears" Yuesheng, leader of the 'Green Gang'.

[[SecondSinoJapaneseWar Within a couple of months of the Guandong Army taking Beijing in the Summer of 1937]], the fighting spread to Shanghai. We used to be sure this was Chiang's idea, as a means of weakening the IJA's southward advance from Beijing, but now we're not so sure. It appears that the NRA Commander assigned to Shanghai was in fact a Soviet agent acting on orders from Moscow to try to take the fighting south (and away from the Chinese-Japanese-Mongolian-Soviet border), much as the Japanese Commander who oversaw the IJA's resounding defeat Nomonhan/Kalkhin Ghol also appears to have been one. However the Second Battle of Shanghai actually started, it constituted one of history's most bizarre spectacles as Japan continued to deny that the million-man four-month battle (with artillery, tanks, 'planes, and warships) did not constitute a war. Both sides had to be careful in their use of fire support due to the presence of the foreign settlements - the sinking of an American river steamer, the ''Panay'', by IJA aircraft made things ''very'' awkward at one point - which remained mostly unmolested until they too were occupied when Japan entered the [[WorldWarTwo wider war]] in 1941.

* ''Film/{{Her}}'' [[CanadaDoubling uses the cityscape]] to depict a future Los Angeles.

* A mission in ''SplinterCell: Double Agent'' occurs in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Mao_Tower Jin Mao Tower]] in Shanghai's Pudong District. This mission only exists in Version 1 of the game (the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, & PC version).

Though they came to power on the basis of rather progressive and tolerant policies - having learned from [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober The Russian Civil War]] to avoid antagonising anyone to the point that they would take up arms against them while their support might still sway the outcome of the war - the Communists' had always viewed Shanghai as a capitalist cesspool of decadence. Post-war, they waited until they had built up a loyal base in the countryside (by organising lynch-mob killings of all landlords and giving their land to the poor) and the country had returned to a 1937-level of economic activity before they packed off Shanghai's entire prostitute, banker, trade-unionist, liberal, and socialist ([[SeriousBusiness beause only Marxist-Leninist Communist was ideologically acceptable]]) populations and sent them to re-education camps. Shanghai's past as a hotbed of free thought and inter-national contact was forgotten and even actively destroyed during the Maoist era that followed, particularly the CulturalRevolution.

* The first few episodes of ''SenkoNoNightRaid'' are set in 1931 Shanghai, and present it as what it really was: on the one hand a flourishing cosmopolitan city and on the other hand a crime-ridden city beset with political intrigues from local government agents, criminal {{Triad}}s and foreign agents.

* The end of ''Film/{{Fearless}}'' takes place in Shanghai.

Though they came to power on the basis of rather progressive and tolerant policies - having learned from [[RedOctober The Russian Civil War]] to avoid antagonising anyone to the point that they would take up arms against them while their support might still sway the outcome of the war - the Communists' had always viewed Shanghai as a capitalist cesspool of decadence. Post-war, they waited until they had built up a loyal base in the countryside (by organising lynch-mob killings of all landlords and giving their land to the poor) and the country had returned to a 1937-level of economic activity before they packed off Shanghai's entire prostitute, banker, trade-unionist, liberal, and socialist ([[SeriousBusiness beause only Marxist-Leninist Communist was ideologically acceptable]]) populations and sent them to re-education camps. Shanghai's past as a hotbed of free thought and inter-national contact was forgotten and even actively destroyed during the Maoist era that followed, particularly the CulturalRevolution.