Shanghai - and for my next trick?

A few weeks ago on one of my regular visits to Shanghai, I saw an old friend who I first met in 1988 when we were both attending an MIT Senior Management Programme. We kept in touch for a while, but then our respective duties grew to the extent that we had little time for social correspondence. My loss, really. The gentleman in question, an official with the Shanghai Municipal Government, eventually became a Vice Mayor - but was given the responsibility for the development of Pudong; the swamp land that has become the financial hub of Shanghai - probably of China - today. Despite his achievements he remains a modest man and, perhaps unusually in China today, is still formally active in his mid 70s, (and a much more fluent speaker of English than I recall). Talent...out of the old school.
Last night, having dinner in a restaurant located in a building on the Bund that once housed the offices of the Chartered Bank of India, China, and Australia (the forerunner of today's Standard Chartered Bank), I was looking across the Whampoa at the handiwork of my friend, and couldn't help but think about the Shanghai of the 1920s (and no, despite comments to the contrary I was not here at the time), the Shanghai of the 50s and 60s, and the Shanghai of today. What contrasts the city has seen, and what lessons should we take forward from this history.
I think you would come to the conclusion that for a city to be successful it never loses sight entirely of the past, (otherwise it would have knocked down its old buildings, especially on the Bund), it always believes it has a future and plans ahead, (and every city has the people who do this, even if the doctrines of the time were not always encouraging), and it uses the best people it has to realise the dream. Funny, it always comes back to people as the common denominator.
Shanghai has almost come full circle. In terms of Asia it is, today, a City of Life. The only problem it needs to consider is how to sustain its momentum...so, as a magician would say "For my next trick..."

Comments

[David Eldon]

I find no one talks about the era - you only see the photographs, so your analaogy with shadows and fading imprints feels right, which leads me to the conclusion that two things happened; either the entrepreneurial spirit of Shanghai never really died during that period and today's, shall we say, "exuberances" are merely a resurrection of what lay dormant under the surface for a while - or that the regional diversity that exists in Shanghai today, with many inhabitants from elsewhere in China, has indeed created a feeling that the past is behind them; a sort of brave new world, but one that I fear is not well enough prepared at present to face the financial consequences of a serious market correction.

[Helen Siu]

I wonder how Shanghai of the Maoist decades is being "remembered" -- a shadow, a fading imprint, or a historical baggage that continues to weigh on (or fuel) the imagination of today's city? Could it be an important factor driving the citizens' eagerness to live the present and future at the same time? Or have they put this past behind them?