T
here are such beautiful old colonial houses in Shanghai, especially in the French Concession where villas often have a garden and you can imagine them in former times, full of life and wealthy foreign families living the high life.
Many of these houses are of course still here and preserved for posterity. However there are a huge number of them in the area which have been left to go to wrack and ruin and it’s a crying shame when you see it happening. For the want of a bit of TLC and a good scrubbing brush they could at least be given back some of their dignity.
Such was a building I came across this week. I stumbled upon it quite by chance when I was killing some time near Nanjing Xi Lu.
The entrance was impressive, huge sweeping steps into a narrow hallway which opened up into an open oak staircase sweeping up 4 floors.
The walls had original panelling and the floor were beautifully tiled giving at least a glimpse of it’s former glory.
As I went up the filthy stairs someone had tried to cheer the place up a bit by putting a plant on the
windowsills but then there was a full ash tray next to it – like lipstick on a pig. On every floor a row of pots and hotplates, some boiling away and others covered with cloth.
Grease and grime was everywhere on the floors, the walls and hanging in the air.
How can such glorious buildings be allowed to fall into such disrepair and neglect? Is Shanghai so careless with it’s recent history that it is content to see such places in this condition?
In other parts of the world there would be a preservation order slapped on it and a public outcry if it was found to be in such a state of disrepair.
