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In the city of steroids, you can never let things go to waste. Twenty years ago, Pudong and its environs were covered in farmlands. But the rapid pace of urban development has seen pigs, cows and cotton fields dissolve rapidly into glass-and-concrete skyscrapers. The breakneck speed at which the city is rushing to modernize has taken its fair share of casualties. The demolition fever has spread to historic Puxi as well, and here, a once-proud lane house (弄堂) stands, a pale shadow, a sad shell of its former glory.
Still, the Shanghainese are not one to be easily daunted. In the skeletal remains of a house slated for demolition – the ubiquitous “拆” – hardy residents persist in living, loving, working and just surviving. Makeshift second-hand goods shops have sprung up in crumbling front rooms. Families mount TVs in the pitted holes in walls. Children play with bricks and debris. The buildings of old Shanghai may be increasingly swept away by bulldozers, but facets of its life are not so easily demolished. [Loo Ching Ling 吕晶琳] |
