But poverty ran alongside opulence, and many of the lower-class Chinese provided the cheap labor that kept the city running. With dance halls, brothels, glitzy restaurants, international clubs, and even a foreign-run racetrack, Shanghai was a city In its heyday, Shanghai was the place to be - it had the best art, the greatest architecture, and the strongest business in Asia. Shanghai became an important industrialĬenter and trading port that attracted not only foreign businesspeople (60,000 by the 1930s) but also Chinese migrants from other parts of the country. Thus began a mixing of cultures that shaped Shanghai's openness to Western influence. Each colonial presence brought with it its particular culture, architecture,Īlthough Shanghai had its own walled Chinese city, many native residents still chose to live in the foreign settlements. The village was soon turned into a city carved up into autonomous concessions administered concurrently by the British, French, and Americans, all independent of Chinese law. After the first Opium War, however, the British named Shanghai a treaty port, opening the city to foreign involvement. Until 1842 Shanghai's location made it merelyĪ small fishing village. Shanghai, which literally means the "City on the Sea," lies on the Yangzi River delta at the point where China's main waterway completes its 5,500-km (3,400-mi) journey to the Pacific.
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