The quay to regeneration

• Source: Global Times
• [10:16 September 08 2010]
• Comments

The newly-developed Shiliupu. Photo: Jerry Lu

By Liu Mengyue

Throughout the rest of China, Shanghai is often referred to as Shanghai Tan (Shanghai Bund) proof, if it were needed, of the importance of the Huangpu River, quayside and surrounding docks that have largely made the city what it is today. Like Rotterdam in the Netherlands, or Newcastle in England, Shanghai is a city built on "dock culture" and nowhere is this more evident than in the rich history of Shiliupu. A once thriving dock, it served as China's largest cruise terminal up until the end of the 1980s. The country's economic reforms, however, meant more and more terminals sprang up along the river and the dock's fortunes gradually declined, leading to its eventual closure in 2004.

But the area was never quite abandoned, becoming an important part of the local government's "Comprehensive Development of the Banks of the Huangpu River" plan. And after six years of investment and re-development the site is now home to a leisure complex that officially opened for business on August 28.

The complex is dominated by three buildings containing 60,000 square meters of available rental space, only 5,000 square meters of which is above ground. "This is to create as much free space as possible on the waterfront so that visitors can enjoy unimpeded views across the river," Zhu Yiran of the Shanghai Huangpu River Banks Asset Management Company told the Global Times. She went on to say that designated "green" spaces will take up 52 percent of the total ground area.

"The central idea of the whole development is to return the river to Shanghai residents," she said. "This means that everyone can visit and experience everything from cruising and dining to general entertainment." Among the area's first tenants (occupying all three floors of one of the buildings) is Song He Lou, the Suzhou restaurant founded in 1737 and which is now famous throughout the whole of the Yangtze River Delta. Shiliupu itself, has an equally auspicious history.

The name can be traced back to the 1860s when government officials created a new pu unit to defend the city against the Taiping army, then threatening Shanghai. In total 27 pu were created in the city, of which the dock area on the Bund was the 16th. After the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the business was nationalized and in 1952 the name Shiliupu Dock was officially adopted. 

Movies and novels about Shanghai's dock culture were once ubiquitous, depicting vivid representations of the lives of boatmen and those who worked on the docks - usually for a pittance.

The famous Chinese writer Xu Zhimo boarded a ship for America from here to attend Clark University, before he went on to become the founder of China's modern poetry movement. Eileen Chang, author of Lust, Caution, wrote of stepping ashore from the ship at Shiliupu, before jumping on a railroad carto go to her home on Changde Road. And the infamous mobster Du Yueshang, "Big-Eared Du," began his dubious career as an apprentice on a fruit stall by the quayside. But perhaps the area's greatest notoriety was as the ultimate destination for men who had been "Shanghaied" in other parts of the world. The term arose in the 19th century when men were coerced or tricked into working aboard ships against their will - many of which were bound for Shanghai. 

Today, the government hopes the area will become one of the region's leading water tourism centers. Most cruises along the Huangpu will now start from Shiliupu's newly purpose-built subterranean boarding hall. Also underground is a 300-square-meter exhibition site of photographs, paintings and videos detailing the history of Shiliupu.

Ma Mingxing, a shop assistant at the Juice Bar near the hall told the Global Times that visitors were few on the ground during the day, "but after four o'clock in the afternoon, there are a lot of visitors for the cruises and the queues get quite long."

Lena Fu, a 23-year-old sales assistant from Chongqing last came to the docks in 2002 and told the Global Times the huge differences she noticed.

"Before it was all demolished, there were many small restaurants, and clothes and antique shops here. It was a shabby place back then and it was known for having lots of thieves. I can't believe how modernized and clean it looks now."

Fu's only regret was the disappearance of the traditional ferry that once carried passengers across the Huangpu for only half a yuan. Today passengers have to travel 400 meters downriver to catch the ferry from Fuxing Road East.