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Of Shanghaiand its cultureof embrace

By Chen Weihua
Updated: 2009-09-14 00:00

Haipai, the pride of us native Shanghai people, is often misunderstood and sometimes scorned by outsiders, including those from other Chinese cities. A young woman friend, for instance, finds our haipai, or Shanghai style, just too “unaccommodating”.

She once asked me what exactly is haipai. Without hesitation, I replied: “It stands for tolerance and embrace of people and culture from outside.”

She was obviously not convinced. “But how Shanghainese could deserve such a title when they discriminate so badly against outsiders?” she retorted. She was right, but only partly.

For decades, Shanghainese have been both admired and resented by people from other parts of the country.

People admire the higher living standards in the metropolis, yet they deeply resent being labeled by native Shanghainese as country bumpkins. The mentality of Shanghainese is that they are smarter and more sophisticated than the rest.

That was not the attitude of Shanghainese when haipai was coined in the early 1920s by some Beijing writers who sneered at their Shanghai counterparts for worshipping money and Western culture. Haipai, therefore, was meant to be the antithesis of the traditional jingpai, or Beijing style.

Thanks to its open and generous culture, Shanghai, a treaty port for many years since the early 1840s, had quickly developed into an economic and cultural hub in China and Asia in the 1920s and ‘30s. It had also emerged as a magnet for businessmen, scholars, artists and adventurers from around the country and the world.

In fact, very few people in Shanghai have an ancestral origin in this place. From 1880 to 1949, the real native Shanghainese made up less than 20 percent of the population.

Most Shanghainese came from neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, fleeing floods and famines, as well as civil strife. In the early 20th century, Shanghai’s prosperous foreign concessions and its fast-developing manufacturing industries lured many to make the city their home. The expat population had reached 150,000 by 1942.

Shanghainese in those days were open and generous to outsiders and outside cultures because most were refugees themselves not too long before.

But that started to change around 1949 when many rich businessmen, intellectuals and artists left for Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas.

Indeed, the influx of Shanghai capitalists was a major driving force behind Hong Kong’s rapid industrialization in the 1960s and ’70s.

Some of their descendents, including Tung Chee-hwa, Anson Chan and Rita Fan, have contributed greatly to the development of Hong Kong.

While Hong Kong rose, Shanghai suffered a heavy blow because of brain and capital drain. The situation worsened in the following decades of planned economy when many Shanghai professionals, scholars and artists moved north to Beijing.

Many talented Shanghainese were transferred to the far-away northwest and northeast China to work in new universities and research institutes.

The freeze on migration since the late 1950s only further limited the growth of the local talent pool.

Gradually, Shanghainese became notorious for being mean and rude to outsiders.

In the late 1980s, Shanghai mayor Zhu Rongji, who later became the country’s premier, described his residents as being shrewd but not wise.

His advice is well-heeded. Shanghainese began changing in the early 1990s, when the city led the country’s reform and opening-up drive.

Shanghai is once again the top destination for expatriates, professionals and college graduates. The migrant population now numbers 6 million, about 30 percent of the city’s total.

Shanghainese have not yet fully regained their haipai culture, yet it is fast moving toward that direction.