SHANGHAI

Resumé

The article traces the image of Shanghai

as the whore of the East. Taking Ian

Buruma and Avishai Margalit’s thoughtprovoking

book Occidentalism (2003) as

a point of departure, the author explores

how Shanghai because of its close relationship

to the West, epitomises a Chinese

ambiguous relationship between modernity

and tradition. Since the beginning of

the twentieth century Shanghai has been

associated with the promiscuous good-life

of the English and French colonial elite.

Mao saw Shanghai as the “most Western

whore of them all” and by waging war on

the city he put an end to the decadent

period of Western imperialism. Today

Shanghai is an impressive and at the same

time uncanny monument of China’s economic

growth and a symbol of modernity.

The article suggests that imaginings of

Shanghai are telling of China’s attempt

to develop modernity with Chinese characteristics.

Shanghai’s revival as the new

face of China being a centre of economic

growth and cosmopolitanism has, however,

given rise to a new fear of Westernisation.

Despite efforts to control the social

world including social spaces, changing

lifestyles pose new threats to the Communist

Party’s wish for monopoly of the

definition of social reality. This becomes

clear in a controversy over the novel

Shanghai Baby, which plays on Shanghai’s

previous image as the whore of the

East in a modern guise.