Helllloooooo and welcome back to the Yellow River Chronicles, the blog that always takes more that it gives. To bring you up to date, your hardworking YRC staff have returned from a family-oriented sojourn to faire Florida and South Carolina.
We're back, rested and we have something SPECIAL for this week's missive as we continue our sojourn along the banks of the HuangPu!
To begin our story, we will start with some some background and scene setting. Yes, it is perspective time! As you probably know, Shanghai has a, how you say, multi-textured past.
After extensive research for this week's column, the alert YRC staff stumbled across a documentary. Shanghai - Paradise for Adventurers was produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The rather startling video "profiles the growth, flowering, and decay of Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s." (It is a 45-minute video, but rather fascinating if you have time).
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: "Shanghai - Paradise for Adventurers"
"In the period between the first and second world wars, Shanghai was a notorious hot spot of sin and vice. Nightclubs never closed and hotels supplied heroin with room service. No passport was required. Refugees of war, poverty, and politics wandered the streets among the gangsters, prostitutes, and cops."
Yowsers!
However, the Communists came in 1947 and cleaned the whole mess up. Thank goodness! In China today, there are strict bans on everything "sinful", including drugs, pornography and prostitution. There is no nudity or profanity on television or in the movies. There are no "adult" magazines sold in the many news stands. The place is like Disneyworld, run by Mormons, we will tell you. And, given that we have taken 44-minutes of your time for a video, we will take you to The Lair of the Voodoo Shanghai Princesses in Part Two, next week!
We're back, rested and we have something SPECIAL for this week's missive as we continue our sojourn along the banks of the HuangPu!
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| The Bund, circa 1928 |
After extensive research for this week's column, the alert YRC staff stumbled across a documentary. Shanghai - Paradise for Adventurers was produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The rather startling video "profiles the growth, flowering, and decay of Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s." (It is a 45-minute video, but rather fascinating if you have time).
NOT FOR MINORS!!! OVER 21 BIG KIDS ONLY!
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: "Shanghai - Paradise for Adventurers"
"In the period between the first and second world wars, Shanghai was a notorious hot spot of sin and vice. Nightclubs never closed and hotels supplied heroin with room service. No passport was required. Refugees of war, poverty, and politics wandered the streets among the gangsters, prostitutes, and cops."
Yowsers!
However, the Communists came in 1947 and cleaned the whole mess up. Thank goodness! In China today, there are strict bans on everything "sinful", including drugs, pornography and prostitution. There is no nudity or profanity on television or in the movies. There are no "adult" magazines sold in the many news stands. The place is like Disneyworld, run by Mormons, we will tell you. And, given that we have taken 44-minutes of your time for a video, we will take you to The Lair of the Voodoo Shanghai Princesses in Part Two, next week!
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