Shanghai Tan

Shanghai Tan [上海滩] (read Tan as in English) is a well-known term to every Chinese around the world. It is a pejorative name of Shanghai during its golden era at the beginning of the 20th Century, where it was a cosmospolitan as fashionable and international as Paris and New York, until it was being taken over by communism around 1948. In fact the name refers to the river side of the city, now called The Bund of Shanghai, where it was partially rent to the British and the French. At the height of its glorious time, Shanghai was partially occupied by British, French, and Japanese chamber of commerce [商会]. Those commercial agglomerates were here not only for commercial purpose, actually making money was an important factor, but were also here to support the interest of their own country’s colonisation plan. They bribe the local government to keep their eyes closed, and take total control of some ports where they could import and export anything they want: goods, opium, people, weapon, historical treasury, etc.

There was a very popular TV series made by Hong Kong TVB channel with the same name. The story talks about some powerful mafia clans fighting for the control of illegal businesses at Shanghai. It also shown that the Japanese used the rent ports to bring in weapons and army to launch the invasion of Shanghai and China. The theme song of that movie is so popular that you can hardly find a Chinese adult who has not heard of the song before, anywhere in the world!

The name of this website, Shanghai Tan [上海坛], is a bit different. It means The Forum of Shanghai. A place where people come to share their living experiences of Shanghai. At this moment I’m the only author of this website, I hope others will join in to post their own stuff here, as well as leaving many comments.