The Bund in Shanghai

The Bund, from the Hindi word for a band is indeed a crescent or band of European buildings hugging the Huang Pu, centred on the former Shanghai International Settlement. Originally just a British affair, won as a concession in the Opium Wars after 1842, the French and the Americans soon sniffed a profit and followed closely with their settlements, carved to the north and south of the British. Other powers leapt in too, like sharks on a crippled whale, helping to bury China in opium but also making Shanghai a very popular trading port by the second half of the 18th century and a financial hub for East Asia.

In spite of this strong foreign settlement, Shanghai always remained nominally in the hands of the Chinese unlike Hong Kong and Weiheiwei which were sovereign British territories until its return to China.

As for the Bund, the renovations to this relic of the era of Conrad and Kipling and the great Tai Pans of the 19th century has turned what must have been a scungy nightmare of a waterfront into a celebration of a past. That history might embarrass a few now, but at the time, Shanghai was the talk of the world up through the 1930's as the international standard in sin, sex, drugs and gang warfare.

The new waterfront was reopened in March 2010 and it is a triumph of how a city can reach not only out to its history, but rediscover a waterfront that was virtually lost for any useful purpose and somewhat of a sewer by any standard.

From this history, the Bund in Shanghai has a wealth of western architecture heritage buildings that once housed banks and trading houses from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Japan. There was the Shanghai Club, a newspaper and the Masonic Lodge and the usual Pony Club to keep the Sahibs busy.

With the Japanese invasion in the late 1930s, and then the victory of the Communists over the nationalist Government in 1949, the Bund was cleared of its colonial figures and the hotels, financial and trading houses which dotted the Huangpu River were converted into other uses or just left to rot. It was also cleared of elements like the Green Gang that had given it the reputation as one of the world's most evil cities dominated by drugs, crime and gang rule.

With the opening of the People's Republic of China to the world (thank you Mr. Nixon) the Bund was gradually returned to house financial institutions, hotels, high end trading houses and centers of trade. A revitalization program started with a stunning promenade designed by Architect Snoeren.

In the immediate past, ramping up to Expo, a major reconfiguration of the traffic flow and the addition of marginal lawns carefully maintained everyday, made the Bund a place to be. In fact, when you walk through the promenade at night, you will find wedding photo-ops all over the place, bus tours from the boonies and thousands of the happiest people I've seen in a long time.

With a spanking new ferry and tourist boat terminal, the Huang Pu now has more tourist boats than the Zambezi has hippos, and at night, the tourist cruisers outdo each other in a massive light display that establishes whole new definitions of tacky! The mix of colours makes an Indian bazaar look solemn and just when you think it can't fall further, sparklers and flashes and racing twinky lights give a new, more extreme standard for Las Vegas. When 4 or 5 of these monsters get nose to tail, it's best not to have had dinner! It was a spectacle enjoyed by us from our hotel window with a soothing glass of wine.

What a contrast with the beautifully lighted heritage buildings in the Bund and the soaring and often stunning architecture across the river. There was nowhere to hide on those evenings other than the depths of a magnificent restaurant having a taste of the Imperial cuisine cooked and then served to a standard that would make Michelin blanche! Once in a while, one has to leave one's comfort and sample the delights of royalty and hide from those wretched boats.

Welcome back, the Bund. Your dubious history has been somewhat scrubbed but if you squint carefully, you might just see a gang of thieves "shanghai-ing" a collapsed sailor or a great winged four master slipping into a wharf with the smell of the sea and tar and dappled cargoes. It is a fabulous center piece to what once again is among the world's great cities, Shanghai.