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Shanghai Before the Foreigners
- tmtvl 2y agoThis kinda reminds me of how Edo (nowadays known as Tokyo) was a little fishing village back in the Sengoku period.
- fuzztester 2y agoSame about Hong Kong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41930168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41930168
- fbn79 2y agoCan I suggest you the novel "Maiden Voyage" by Denton Welch. Is a portrait of Shanghai in 1930 by an english boy
- jazzyjackson 2y agoI'm enjoying Shanghai Grand by Teras Grescoe , it follows the Americans and other foreigners hanging out in the French and American concessions in that same era. Really interesting period, America itself being in a great depression while Shanghai was booming, attracting investors and clout chasers from all over the world
- contingencies 2y agoNice share but after reading the article my existing view that the area of greater Shanghai was an agricultural area without substantial urban development until the opium wars is unchallenged. Nice to see some familiar spots. About 21 years ago I used to go to the Jing'An temple for lunch on weekends and chat with the monks. They had excellent vegetarian food in the temple, and often the monks would buy me lunch. If you want to look at hydro-engineering wonders, the nearby grand canal is amazing. I would post a wayback machine link of a trip I did up there circa 2005 but archive.org are still half down right now. Can't stand Shanghai - no nature.
- Kon-Peki 2y agoNanjing, just an hour or so up the river, is multiple thousands of years old and is one of the most important historical cities in Chinese history. So it is really no surprise that Shanghai was not developed until foreign trade became important.
- bobthepanda 2y agoIt is also hard to talk about the relatively new coastal development without the fact that in the 1600s the Qing forcibly evacuated most coastal areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Clearance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Clearance And before that, the Ming banned coastal trade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin
- thaumasiotes 2y agoThat's an interesting pair of policies to mention together. The reason for the evacuation of the coast was that coastal trade had flourished so much that the Qing weren't able to defeat one guy's private navy militarily.
- bobthepanda 2y agothe Ming policy was never 100% effective and mostly just resulted in a lot of smuggling and piracy. The Qing attempted to get around this by literally forcibly moving everybody.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> the Ming policy was never 100% effective and mostly just resulted in a lot of smuggling and piracy I don't think this can really be a complete description of the situation. You can't stop smuggling as a phenomenon, because you can't oversee everything that happens everywhere. So, as much as you might wish it would, the law doesn't really apply to random smugglers. But by the time you're one of the 100 richest men in China, the law certainly does apply to you. A ban on trade that's "less than 100% effective" is more than enough to stop someone from doing so much trade that they become personally more powerful than the court, as long as "less than 100%" still means "more than 0%".
- Animats 2y agoHere's Shenzhen, before and after tech. Shenzhen really was a fishing village in 1950, and a small town into the 1970s. All the action was in Hong Kong nearby. A local photographer has been taking pictures from the same spots every year since 1985.[1] Population of Shenzhen: 1950 3,000 1960 8,000 1970 22,000 1980 59,000 1990 875,000 2000 7,193,000 2010 10,223,000 2020 12,357,000 [1] https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d306b6a4d31457a6333566d54/share_p.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d306b6a4d31457a6333566d54/...
- janalsncm 2y ago100x growth in 20 years starting from 1980 is insane. Would’ve been very interesting to witness.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoShenzhen received, in 1980, the special legal privilege of engaging in commerce with Hong Kong. It's not natural growth.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y agoThat doesn't dull their point; that kind of growth, natural or not, is wild.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoThat kind of growth is what you see when everyone outside is legally required to be poor.
- Bimos 2y agoFor a country with nearly one billion poor people, one will never make all of them rich with one step. That is why China "allows some peasants to get rich first", and why they say "Common Prosperity Does Not Mean Equal Wealth" and "Those Who Become Prosperous First Helping Those Who Lag Behind". Although it is truly questionable if those get rich first want to help those lag behind, with a big government, it is more or less realized.
- fuzztester 2y agoRelated: Taipan by James Ckavelk. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai-Pan_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai-Pan_(novel) I had read it some years ago. Interesting depictions of that period, Hong Kong, interactions between the British and Chinese then, and more. Good writing, IMO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clavell https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clavell Excerpt: >Clavell wanted to write a second novel because "that separates the men from the boys".[21] The money from King Rat enabled him to spend two years researching and then writing what became Tai-Pan (1966). It was a huge best-seller, and Clavell sold the film rights for a sizeable amount (although the film would not be made until 1986).[22] King Rat was also good.
- keiferski 2y agoGreat book. Noble House (also by Clavell) is also excellent and takes place a century later, also in Hong Kong, and about the same firm established in Tai-Pan.
- karmakurtisaani 2y agoI didn't realize Shogun was his third book. I somehow always thought it was his first. Also this > Clavell admired Ayn Rand, founder of the Objectivist school of philosophy Never meet your heroes, I suppose..
- TeaBrain 2y agoIf you had read his books you wouldn't have been surprised. Libertarian capitalist ideals and individualism are themes throughout his works.
- karmakurtisaani 2y ago>If you had read his books you wouldn't have been surprised. Is that condescending tone improving the discussion quality, what do you think? I have read at least Tai-Pan, Shogun and Gai-Jin. In Shogun it's harder to point out, but in the others sure. But they describe Western trade houses operating in Asia, so the themes you mention fit them quite well. It's been a while since I read the books, and I might feel differently if I read them now with the randian perspective in mind.
- ngcc_hk 2y agoNot before f but United Kingdom, even though for Shanghai later it is not just. One can say up until 2019 also not just …
- phyalow 2y agoLoosely related, but two of my favourite quirks of historic international development / trade relating to China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_International_Settlement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_International_Settl... The Americans/British and other European powers held and administered sovereign territory in Shanghai. Truly remarkable considering the historical implications. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Factories https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Factories Also the “factories” in Canton each administered by a foreign power or “Hong” (i.e. Jardine Mathieson (worth a google if you are unfamiliar), the portraits on the wiki link paint an otherworldy romantic picture of what was a remarkably profitable and wild trade…