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| A view of part of modern Shanghai's skyline on a hazy day |
"While the rest of the world faded into black and white during the Great Depression, Shanghai in the 1930s was a glittering metropolis of 3 million people studded with cabarets, nightclubs and legendary bordellos . . . Legend has it that Christian missionaries in the city would shake their heads and muse, 'If God allowed Shanghai to endure, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.'"
This quote is from Once Upon a Time in Shanghai which I saw after finding a link in a short article Shanghai in the '30s and Now: My Father's City. Once Upon a Time in Shanghai has a slideshow of black and white photographs of Shanghai in the 1930s. At the time, Shanghai was one of the most populous and cosmopolitan cities in the world. Things changed considerably after the Japanese invasion and the domestic chaos that followed culminating in the Cultural Revolution. However, today's Shanghai has a lot in common with its 1930s ancestor. Shanghai is again one of the most modern cities in the world with it ever-expanding skyline of skyscrapers. Shanghai also probably has one of the largest populations of any city in the world - estimated at over 20 million. I guess this just reflects the truth in the old saying that "the more things change, the more they remain the same."
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