(This is Chapter 10 from Mr. Prabhakaranâ€™s book, An Indian Goes Around the World â€“ I: Capitalism Comes to Maoâ€™s Mausoleum, which we have been serializing in this space. Chapter 11, â€œA Jacket and a Bride for the Price of One: Shopping on Nanjing Road,â€ will appear next week. Read the series every Monday. â€“ Editor)

It was my last day in Shanghai. The group I had been traveling with had already left for the U.S. I had decided to stay back for two more days, hoping to explore more of Shanghai, this time all by myself. I wanted to explore more of the Bund and the areas surrounding it. Some of the travel brochures I browsed tout 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. The Hindi word had entered the English lexicon 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 incentive for development came from the flourishing trade, especially the illegal opium trade, they had been conducting in the area for quite some time. The opium trade was conducted mainly through the East India Company.

By the time the newly-developed area in Shanghai came under British control, the East India Company had been in India for nearly two and a half centuries. After 1757, the company, chartered by Queen Elizabeth I of England, on December 31, 1600, to trade with the East, also started ruling parts of India. Thanks to the long interaction between England and India, numerous Indian words, including bund, became part of the English language. So much for the etymological origin of the English word bund and the historical origin of the Bund in Shanghai.

Britain got control of the area in 1842. It happened as a result of the Treaty of Nanjing that ended the First Opium War. The treaty, which was imposed on China by Britain, opened Shanghai to Westerners. It virtually ceded three areas of the city to Western powers. Apart from Britain, the other Western powers that benefited from the new opening were France and the United States. The two countries came to possess pieces of Shanghai by virtue of treaties they separately signed with China in 1844 â€“ France, by the Treaty of Whampoa, and the U.S., by the Treaty of Wanghia. Known as Foreign Concessions, these newly-acquired areas were autonomous settlements immune from Chinese laws. The Japanese began to arrive in Shanghai only in 1895.

Foreigners Amass Wealth

Britons and 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 â€œthe Wall Street of Shanghai.â€

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 â€œcast the first stone of the Cultural Revolutionâ€ (1966-1976), which set China back by several decades. The notorious Gang of Four, which tyrannized the country during that revolution and of which Maoâ€™s wife was the kingpin, used Shanghai as its power base.

The Chinese 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 took a leisurely walk in the Bund, enjoying everything around. I chatted with tourists passing by and waved to those on boats cruising through the Huangpu River. The 71-mile-long river, 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 night cruise two days earlier.

The night cruise was also an eye-opener for me. It was during that cruise that I realized to what extent capitalism had penetrated Communist China. Billboards and buildings on both sides of the Huangpu River had neon signs advertising products and services of every multinational corporation of repute in the world. The well-lit, colorful river banks added to the pleasure of the cruise, all right. But it also raised a question in my mind: â€œWhy does China still insist on calling itself Communist?â€

Pudong â€“ the Special Economic Zone

Across the river from the Bund is Pudong, the special economic zone of Shanghai. Its Manhattan-like skyline is the outcome of an urban development project undertaken in the 1990s, at a cost equivalent to 40 billion U.S. dollars. Again, it was Deng Xiaoping who quickened the pace of the development. It has been reported that during a 1992 visit to Pudong, Deng chastised city administrators for the slowness of Shanghaiâ€™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 condemned as a â€œcapitalist-roader.â€ In 1966, he was ousted from all positions of power and responsibility.

Once back in power, in 1978, this time as the countryâ€™s Paramount Leader, the one-time â€œcapitalist-roaderâ€ decided to take precisely that road. He did it while keeping the Communist flag still fluttering, though. The result? Flourishing business centers like Pudong began to spring up around the country and Chinese goods began to flood markets around the world. The same Communists who had ridiculed Deng Xiaoping two decades earlier now started singing his praise.

Pudong may boast a Manhattan-like skyline. But the buildings in the area are no match for the graceful colonial mansions of the Bund. Also, the skyscrapers of Pudong have added to the fear, which Shanghai residents have been living with â€“ the fear that their city, which was built on a swamp, is steadily sinking. According to a report, by Jim Yardley, which appeared in the October 14, 2003, edition of The New York Times, the city sank about eight feet from 1921 to 1965. In 1965, â€œofficials managed to correct the problem and virtually stop the sinking â€“ for a while.â€ But only for a while. The same Times report warned that â€œthe city is again sinking, at roughly a centimeter a year.â€

The sinking problem did not stop the building activities in Pudong. And it did not in any way diminish the joy I felt, while viewing Pudong from the Bund side of the Huangpu River.

Caption 1:

The author, on the Bund side of the Huangpu River, in Shanghai, China. On the other side of the river is Pudong. Built in the 1990s, Pudong is the special economic zone of Shanghai. The building with a spire on the top (for radio and TV antennas) is the 1,535-foot-tall Oriental Pearl Tower. It was the tallest structure in all of China until 2007, when the 1,614-foot-tall Shanghai World Financial Centre surpassed it in height.

Caption 2:

A morning scene at a park in Shanghai. Senior citizens engaging in various kinds of exercises, in parks and public places, was a common sight the author witnessed, on most mornings, in all three cities â€“ Beijing, Suzhou and Shanghai â€“ he visited during his 10-day tour of China, in the spring of 2002.

(To be continued)

(M.P. Prabhakaran can be reached by email at prabha@eastwestinquirer.com)

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How a Shanghai neighborhood got an Indian name (Travel with MP Prabhakaran)