[Author's Note] This article was rewritten from the lecture "Shanghai's Cultural Map" at the Huangpu District Library on "World Reading Day" on April 26. Thank you to the Huangpu District Library for the "Walking Reading - Looking at the Good Buildings from Good Books" event, and thanks to Director Hong Yingzhe for his strong support.
Shanghai!
Shanghai, the sixth largest metropolis in the world!
Shanghai, Paris in the East!
Shanghai, New York in the West!
——All about Shanghai and Environs: 1934-35, published in 1935
On March 5, 1908, the first tram line in Shanghai was officially opened to traffic. After that, from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. every day, there will be a tram between Bund and Jing'an Temple . The total length of the line is about 6,040 meters. Half a year after its launch, Hu Shi, who was just 17 years old, also took a tram to hunt for curiosity, and even wrote a limerick poem "Looking at Huangpu on the Shanghai Tram Bridge" to commemorate it. The tram starts from Jing'an Temple, passes through Yuyuan Road, , Hede Road (Changde Road), Aiwenyi Road ( Beijing West Road ), Kade Road ( Shimen 2nd Road ), and Jing'an Temple Road ( Nanjing West Road ) and passes through the commercial avenue of the public concession at that time - Nanjing Road. Along the way, you can see the Hamilton Building, Capital Hotel, Steam Merchants General Administration built by Sassoon on the "Sima Road", as well as the HSBC Bank building located on the Bund, known as "the most exquisite building from the Suez Canal to the Bering Strait in the Far East". Finally, follow the Bund to the terminal Shanghai Club. On December 14, 1933, the "Paramount" that Shanghai people were looking forward to for a long time finally officially opened to welcome guests, and it also became a landmark at the other end of the tram line.
Since the groundbreaking construction a year ago, this place has been the focus of celebrities in Shanghai and is also a fresh topic of talk for ordinary citizens. The beginning of Paramount was undoubtedly a grand event in Shanghai that year. As the largest practice of the Art Deco architectural style of Europe and America in the Magic City in the 1930s, its grand appearance almost overshadowed other Shanghai and western architecture at that time. Paramount is three-story high and has a unique structure and exquisite decoration. There is a glass silver tower on the roof of Paramount at the corner of the intersection. It is said that it is still dazzling several kilometers away every night, which is the most dazzling night view in western Shanghai. Therefore, Paramount was naturally named "the No. 1 Yuefu in the Far East". And this is not just a false reputation written by the media. On the day of opening, Shenbao began to praise Paramount with a series of parallel sentences: "The glass lighthouse is bright ten miles away. The granite surface is solemn and magnificent. Dali stone steps are precious and rare. Steel railings are clever and novel. Glass floor is dazzling and fascinating. Spring floor is flexible and comfortable."
In the past, when it comes to the history of Paramount, Gu Liancheng, a Nanxun silk merchant, is regarded as the boss and creator. In the 1920s, Gu Liancheng did invest heavily to buy a piece of temple land from Jing'an Temple, which also became the location of Paramount in the future. However, it is not just Gu Liancheng who really invested in the construction of Paramount. Sheng Xuanhuai's youngest daughter Sheng Jinru also invested heavily, and there were nearly ten other Shanghai newsmen on the board of directors. In order to ensure the orderly daily operation of Paramount, these investors decided to jointly establish a special agency - Dacheng Company, to be fully responsible. The entire building body of Paramount covers an area of 930 square meters and has a construction area of 2550 square meters. It is a steel-concrete structure building, and the interior and exterior are made of granite marble, which is the most luxurious.
The entire dance hall is about 400, and there are about 250 seats upstairs. The other two banquet halls can also be arranged at least 150 seats, and they can also be divided into partitions, which can meet the needs of various large and large banquets. To create an atmosphere, up to 18,000 electric lights are installed inside the dance hall, and the light intensity can be freely adjusted. The dance floor of the dance hall is forty meters long and twenty-seven meters wide, with a spring floor in the center; around it is a floor with two inches of crystal frosted glass, and colorful lights are installed on the bottom, which complement the indoor light through the glass floor. In addition, in order to avoid turbid air in the dance hall, a fresh air conditioning device was also installed for "ventilation".There are thousands of small holes on the roof of the Paramount dance hall, and the pressure of the steam heat pipes allows fresh air to enter the dance hall. There are suction holes around the floor to discharge turbid air outside, and the air in the hall can be renewed every ten minutes.
Interior view of Paramount Ballroom
At first, Paramount was naturally positioned very high-end. It was not the "Dance Hall" or "Cabaret" that imagined "despicable sounds" floating and groups of dancers in old Shanghai in the future, but the "Ballroom" that took the upper-class social route of Europe and the United States. To this end, Paramount Ballroom specially hires Austrian Joe Farren, a background in music education and social etiquette in Europe and the United States, as the dance hall manager. At that time, guests who went to Paramount to spend the time were required to attend with their dance partners. Westerners have a long history of ballroom dance in Shanghai. At the beginning of the port opening, every Saturday and Sunday evening, the Foreigners' Association held regular social dances at the Richard Hotel and the Calden Theater in the core area of the concession. After Paramount opened, the dance party in the top foreign community was slowly moved here. Among the customers, European and American people account for 80% of them, and most of the rest are elite Chinese in Shanghai. Although
seems prosperous and dazzling, Paramount has a lot of expenses because of its luxurious appearance. Although the nightly revenue can reach a huge amount of 4,000 to 5,000 yuan, it is inevitable that there will be losses. A year later, Paramount, which has always adhered to the "high-end" and "money-burning" route, ultimately could not escape from the investment and had to close its business. In November 1936, the court confirmed that the Dacheng Company's Paramount Hotel went bankrupt. Four months after the bankruptcy, Guodu Company, which was owned by some Shanghai dance hall practitioners, took over Paramount. After the capital took over, the first move was to split the hotel business and focus on the dance hall operation. The second major change is to abandon the upper-class social route, change the pure ballroom into a more popular dance hall nightclub, and then recruit exclusive dance girls. Due to the change in positioning, the music floating in Paramount has also changed from waltz to swing jazz , blues or the popular Hollywood music nowadays, announcing the distant past of the "waltz years" and the arrival of the "swing era".
The "Big Band" in Shanghai in the 1930s
In addition to professional dancers, dance halls of Paramount level will also hire "Big Band" to sing in resident accompaniment. Back then, first-class bands were also the highlights that attracted customers. In the 1940s, the competition between the Shanghai Beach Jazz bands was very fierce. The dance floor of Paramount became a must-fight for military strategists of all first-class bands, and also represented the peak position of jazz performance in China and the entire Far East at that time. At first, most of the bands who were staying in Paramount were Philippine . In addition, the Russian band formed by Oleg Lundstrom from Harbin and his Russian partners are also regular visitors to Paramount. In 1936, they first started their acting career in the dance hall of the Majestic Hotel. It was soon popular among Shanghai dancers and audiences, and then had the opportunity to join Paramount. In the past few years, these Soviet jazz musicians have not only gained a foothold in the Shanghai music circle, but have also become one of the biggest signs for attracting business in dance halls such as Paramount. Even during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Lundstrom band was still sought after, and its members eventually expanded to as many as 19 and developed into a veritable "jazz band". After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Chinese band Jimmy King emerged as the leader of the Shanghai band.
Although the accompanying dance music is becoming increasingly popular, waltz has not disappeared in Paramount, but its nature has changed from high-level social dance to the "advertising dance" of professional dancers. After 1939, there were only a handful of waltzs performed every night, and most of them were slow waltzs followed by another fast waltz. Because of the skillful dance skills, and the male and female dance partners must cooperate tacitly. In the public eye, if you don’t have confidence and confidence, most people can only hide their weaknesses. Therefore, there are fewer dancers on the dance floor at this time, so it becomes the best time for professional dancers to show off their dance skills. In addition, more and more professional dancers performing solo dances, and even become celebrities who attract customers. Dancers of all kinds are also happy to appreciate how dancers with good figures and good looks show their charm. With a stage like Paramount, first-class dancers quickly became a new generation of social stars in Shanghai.Among them, there have even been many well-known foreign dancers, such as the "legendary dancer" Wada Miko (1911-2017) who was active in Shanghai in the late 1930s.
This Japanese woman born in Kyushu and determined to have an acting career wanted to go to the United States to study dance, but her friend advised her to come to Shanghai because "the best dancers in the world are in Shanghai." In fact, as early as the 1920s, Japanese literati were already amazed at the dance scene culture in Shanghai at that time. When the poet Jin Zi Guangqing learned that the department stores on Nanjing Road had dance halls, she sighed: "The department store is a dance hall, and there is a large bathroom next to it. As a department store, it is a completely happy place!" And the founder of the term "Demon City", Muramatsu Shofeng, specifically described the grand occasion of the "Black Cat Dance Hall" in "Visiting for the Xinchina".
So, in 1938, Miko Wada hid her identity and went to Shanghai with an unknown nationality. Soon after, she quickly grew into one of the most well-known dancers in Shanghai at that time and was named "Flower of the Demon City". In 1940, former Paramount's dance hall manager Joe Fallon praised her as a "natural dancer." After the war, Hada Keiko returned to Japan and based on her memories and thoughts about the Shanghai era, she opened her own nightclub "Manuela" (マヌエラ) in Tokyo. Celebrities from all walks of life such as Yukio Mishima, Tagayoshi Aso, Ken Inoka, Ridoyama, etc. are all guests, and Mikiko Wada himself is called the "Mother of Post-War Japanese Jazz". From her, we can see the "Shanghai origin" of Japanese dance hall culture after the war.
Wada's autobiography "Shanghai Rhapsody" (Shanghai ラプソディー―全の女マヌエラララワック, 2001)
Wada's Mikako
Wada's legendary experience has also been borrowed by many Japanese writers into their respective creations, and often flashed on novels and stages. For example, the novel "Roosevelt Assassin" by the well-known Japanese mystery novelist and Naoki winner Masaaki Nishiki is based on it. In 2011, Makoto Kinuchi, a professor at Tokyo Capital University and author of "Shanghai Historical Tour Guide Map" (Shanghai Shigao), had specially verified Wada's residence in Shanghai that year, and inferred that it was at the intersection of Donghu Road and Yanqing Road today. It is said that in his later years, Miko Wada often walks in the old neighborhoods of Shibuya, Tokyo, because you can see the shadow of the old Shanghai there. In her own words:
Shanghai is my hometown. This city has shaped me into "Manuela".
