A Night Walk Down Hengshan Road, Shanghai

A Night Walk Down Hengshan Road, Shanghai
Jan 09, 2009 By Pictures and Article by Susie , eChinacities.com

It’s cold. Winter Wednesday in Shanghai, and the evening has just turned from grey to black. I am standing at the crossroads of Fuxing Xi Lu and Baoqing Lu, where Baoqing shape-shifts into the famous Hengshan Lu. It’s Hengshan that I’ve come to visit. Walking with Oscar’s pub to my left, I step onto what used to be called Avenue Petain. This boulevard, stretching from the middle of the French Concession to the top of Xujiahui, is one of the most famous and popular roads in Shanghai. Lined with bars, shops, restaurants, phoenix trees, and redolent with that quintessential French Concession flair, Hengshan Lu is something of a honey pot for expats and visitors.
 

It is my desire to understand the road better that leads me to walk its length. My knowledge of Hengshan Lu is limited to the sections I know from forays to various bars and cafes. But it’s an important street in Shanghai’s history as well as its modern image, so I want to know more. What I do know is that the street was built in 1922 during the French colonial occupation, and named Avenue Petain after Marshall Philippe Petain. Considering that Petain is now reviled in France as a Nazi collaborator, this is rather ironic. Avenue Petain became a popular place to live for well-heeled expats, and many mansions and villas were built during the 20s and 20s. When the Vichy government handed the French Concession back to China in 1943, the boulevard was renamed Hengshan Lu after the sacred mountain in the Hunan province. The late 90s saw most of the villas renovated and turned into bars, restaurants and clubs, securing Hengshan Lu as one of Shanghai’s premier entertainment districts.

The top section of the road is just as busy as its near neighbours, Fuxing and Huaihai. But the lack of tall buildings gives an almost European air, along with the winter-bare plane trees and fairy lights strewn across railings and shop-fronts. I haven’t walked far before I come to Dongping Lu, and, after it, the glowing red façade of Sasha’s. The building that houses this high-end bar/pizza restaurant is a little hotbed of Chinese history. It’s incredible to think that you’re sipping your red wine on possibly the same spot that one of China’s presidents ate breakfast with his first lady. Meiling Soong was one of the famed Soong sisters who were important figures in the formation of modern China. It was said that each sister married for her own reason: the eldest, Ailing, wed for money, marrying finance minister H. H. Kung; Chingling married for China, choosing Sun Yat-Sen, first president of the People’s Republic; the youngest, Meiling, married for power – her husband was Chaing Kai-Shek, leader of the Kumintang and later president. The women’s brother, Charlie Soong, bought the villa that is now Sasha’s for Meiling and her husband as a wedding present. While the couple were away on state business, the villa was used as a meeting place by government officials. It was seized by the Japanese during the occupation, but given back to the government in 1950 and turned into a music school. Forty years on, a group of expat businessmen leased the building and opened it as Sasha’s. So for a decent glass of wine, some good (if pricey) pizza, and an atmosphere teeming with history and intrigue, there’s no place like it.

Next door is Zapatas Mexican Cantina, accessed by a leafy arch. Less salubrious but just as popular as its neighbour, Zapatas is best known for its quesadillas and bar-top dancing on the twice-weekly Ladies’ Nights. Jaded expats avoid Zapatas, but it’s worth going at least once, even if Latin-themed debauchery isn’t your thing.

After the crossing with Wulumuqi Lu, the neo-classical front of the 41 Hengshan Lu estate looms, mottled grey in the twilight. This block reportedly houses the most expensive apartments in Shanghai. Next comes the Community Church, one of Shanghai’s only Protestant churches; weekly services are run for expats. Opposite is a brightly-lit row of shops including a Turkish restaurant, a couple of hairdressers, a Papa John’s and a Starbucks. It’s a small slice of expat paradise, just before the drag of local-aimed KTV joints and whisky bars. Most expats don’t venture this far down, unless they’re looking for the Metro.

Navigating the crossroads of Hengshan and Gao’an, I suddenly see the monoliths of Xujiahui up ahead. Hazy in the smog, there is something almost sinister about them. On this part of Hengshan, the buildings are low – villas and five-story apartment blocks – so the giant skyscrapers look oddly out of place. The sky opens up once you cross Wanping, throwing the bare plane trees into silhouette against the neon-stained sky. As I walk past Xujiahui Park, I see a group of people practising some sort of line dance in a small glade. The park is flanked by high-rises on the opposite side, which puts me in mind, for a split second, of Central Park.

All that’s left of Hengshan Lu now is the stretch down to Xujiahui. Now a jungle of neon, Xujiahui was once a Catholic stronghold. The area’s name translates as "the property of the Xu family at the meeting of two rivers”. The Xu's were the family of Xu Guangqi, China’s most famous convert to Catholicism. Before his death in 1633, Xu gave large areas of land to the Catholic Church, including the site of the iconic St. Ignatius’s Cathedral. The cathedral, built in 1847, is one of the most famous buildings in Shanghai, and can be seen in the opening of Spielberg’s epic ‘Empire of the Sun’. During the 1700s, Xujiahui was known to western expats as Ziccawei or Zikawei, after the Shanghainese “zi-ga-wei”. Xujiahui fell from Catholic control when the Communists rose to power; the Jesuits abandoned their churches and schools and fled to Macau and Manila. Most of the land was occupied by factories, and Xujiahui was an industrial district until the late 1990s. Nowadays, if you want to buy anything electronic, this is the place to come. Camera equipment, computers, gaming consoles, mobile phones – Xujiahui should be your first stop. There are also several big shopping malls, and what looks like a big glass golf ball nestling between the buildings.

From the heart of the historic French Concession right down to the bright lights of Xujiahui, there’s more to Hengshan Road than tequila and Starbucks.

More info on where to go, what to do, and how to get around Shanghai
 

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