Shanghai Shikumen

Late in June, I went on a tour sponsored by the Shanghai American Women's Club. The tour was led by a Shanghai native, a freelance photographer named Gangfeng Wang. Gangfeng Wang grew up in one of the many lane houses you see all over the city. These lane houses and alley ways are slowly being destroyed to make way for new high-rise developments. These places are often referred to as shikumen ("stone gate"). Residences are connected by alleyways with the entrance to each alley framed by a stone gate or archway.



Here you see the stone gateway that remains while the houses beyond have been reduced to rubble. Soon, the stone gateway will also be gone.

As Gangfeng Wang is familiar with these houses and with the people that there, we were able to see some of the houses within these shikumen.



In front of this soon-to-be-demolished shikumen house is a pile of scrap, all of it for sale. As wood seems to be scarce, the boards likely will go quickly. Also for sale are sheets of metal and plastic and makeshift ladders. Further in the alleyway are the remains of buildings with heaps of unsorted and broken brick waiting to be cleared and hauled away. The brick is unsalable and impossible to be reused for building, so they are free for the taking. A few American ladies tucked bricks into their purses as souvenirs.



Here also is a building built completely of doors, with a stack of spare doors to the side. The Chinese are creative like that.

Many of these lane houses are in desperate need of repair and are oftentimes quite crowded. And not all have indoor toilets. Here you see a picturesque pot in front of this person's house.



It's a chamber pot. Many people have pots like these. You will often see people carrying them in the morning, bringing them to the nearest public toilet or sewer to be emptied.



Here you see the contrast of the old shikumen lane houses in the foreground with the modern highrises in the back. Outdoor sinks like this one are not uncommon sights.



The shikumen we saw that afternoon had all been condemned and would be demolished by the fall. In its place would rise new apartment buildings and shopping centers. Many of us foreigners heave a sad sigh at the loss of these buildings. We are entranced by the history and charm of these places in contrast to the seeming soullessness of yet more concrete and steel high-rises. It's easy to be sentimental when you are not the the one who has to live within the reality of these crumbling old lane houses. Gangfeng says that the demolition of these places is a win-win-win situation in that the people living in these places get monetary compensation and the opportunity to live in a newer, more modern place, the developers will make buckets of money on the new developments, and the government will get their share of the profits while simultaneously improving the city scape. He also stated that the only people really mourning the loss of these lane houses are tourists. All true.

Not many people have the wherewithal to renovate these old houses, though there are lane houses in varying degrees of repair or disrepair available for rent and for sale throughout the city. Xintiandi is a trendy hotspot filled with boutiques and cafes. The place is modelled after these old shikumen and is designed to capture that feeling of old Shanghai. There are rumors that another similar development is in the works in another part of Shanghai.

I hesitated about what to blog about in regards to these shikumen. On one hand you cannot ignore the conditions found in these places. Narrow, rickety stairs; dim hallways; crowded rooms and buildings. Many of us foreigners live in relative luxury here and we tend to forget that back in our home countries, we also have our poor who live in conditions just as deplorable or even worse. I think we tend to notice the poor more here in China because that is what we expect from a so-called developing nation. I've been here only 4 months. In that brief time, I've realized that there really is no single explanation of what China, or Shanghai to be specific, is. Shanghai has its poor and its wealthy; its 5-star restaurants and its hole-in-the-wall restaurants; its shopping malls and its street vendors. I suppose not much different than back home in the U.S.