Shànghǎi: Back to the Bund

13th April 2013.

The next stop on our Shànghǎi city tour with our group was to the Bund.  We had already been here a couple of times, so felt quite at home, but there is always plenty more to learn. 

Here are some of us learning more about the Bund from Ahwen.  We spent the next two weeks following that red flag around – Ahwen hoped we would follow like sheep rather than cats. 

 

I wonder if I could do a wall like this at home….

 

The Oriental Pearl TV Tower peeps coyly over the wall.

 

On the Bund.

 

The building with the clock on top is the Customs House, which was completed in 1927.  The bell in the clock was modelled on Big Ben, and so is called Big Ching.  During the Cultural Revolution, Big Ching was replaced by loudspeakers that issued revolutionary
slogans and songs.

Next to the Customs House is the grandest building on the Bund, the
former Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank.  When the current building was constructed in 1923, it was the second-largest bank in the world
and reportedly ‘the finest building east of Suez’ (Lonely Planet).

While I was taking this picture, I had a whistle blown at me by a policeman, for standing on the strip of grass next to the wall.

 

“The 1911 Shànghǎi Club, the city’s best-known bastion of British snobbery, stood at No 2 on the Bund. Its most famous accoutrement was the bar, which, at 110 feet was said to be the world’s longest. Businessmen would sit here according to rank (no Chinese or
women were allowed in the club), with the taipans (company bosses) closest to the view of the Bund, sipping chilled champagne
and comparing fortunes. It is now the Waldorf Astoria Hotel which, incidentally, has just opened a new Long Bar” (Lonely Planet).

We didn’t go there.

 

The Bund Bull.

Designer Arturo Di Modica credits both Western and Chinese cultures as influences on the work. The bull is symbolic of perseverance, diligence and wealth in Chinese culture. The animal's confident stance represented a bullish and prosperous future for the rising financial centre, Di Modica said. "It must be strong. It's about a strong nation," he says. "If you observe the tail of the bull, the tail is spirally pointing to the sky, meaning a uplifting financial trend," he said.

The bronze bull is the same size as the Wall Street version, but "redder, younger and stronger" Di Modica said (Wikipedia).