New Shanghai: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary City [Paperback]

Pamela Yatsko (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0471479152 | ISBN-13: 978-0471479154 | Edition: 1st

A compelling account of the rebirth of China's greatest city. Earmarked by China's leaders to again become an international business hub, Shanghai, in less than a decade, has blossomed from a depressed industrial town, forgotten by the outside world, into a shimmering metropolis filled with glass skyscrapers, modern factories, and thumping discotheques. Foreign investors are once again flocking to Shanghai, which is commonly seen as an up-and-coming rival to New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong as the world's most important financial centers. But is it?

Is Shanghai, the capitalist Mecca of the Far East in the 1920s, re-emerging as the New York of Asia? The Whore of the Orient? The stomping ground of China's artistic elite? China's version of Silicon Valley? A tinderbox of social unrest as state-owned companies lay off workers by the hundreds of thousands?

Weaving insightful anecdotes with astute analysis, respected journalist Pamela Yatsko addresses these questions and many others to provide a vivid portrait of Shanghai, past and present. New Shanghai's lively narrative, culled from interviews with Shanghainese at all levels of society, explores key aspects of contemporary Shanghai -- from finance, foreign business and state enterprise reform, to vice, culture and social change. New Shanghai takes us into the world of shady Chinese stock speculators, prosperous yuppies, distraught laid-off workers, determined foreign executives and alluring bar girls, giving texture to the tumult that has rocked urban China. By painting pictures of Shanghai today, New Shanghai offers readers a better understanding of Shanghai and China tomorrow.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Anyone visiting Shanghai a decade ago inevitably felt a stab of regret. Instead of the city hailed before China’s 1949 revolution as the Paris of the East and the Whore of the Orient, they found a depressed industrial town forgotten by the world.
Not anymore. Few visitors leave China’s largest city these days without expressing wonder at its renaissance. Pegged by China’s leaders in the 1990s as an international business hub, Shanghai in less than a decade erected a glittering new skyline and miles of elevated highways. College graduates find high-paying jobs in finance; young people pack neon-flashing discos; and foreign investors once again seek their fortunes. Old Shanghai may have died half a century ago, but now a new Shanghai is rising from its ashes.
Is China’s once legendary city re-emerging as the New York of Asia? The Whore of the Orient? The stomping ground of China’s artistic elite? A hotbed of high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship? The headquarters for multinationals in Asia? A tinderbox of political unrest as state-owned companies lay off workers by the hundreds of thousands?
In this penetrating and timely account, journalist Pamelo Yatsko addresses these questions and many others to tell the story of Shanghai’s rebirth. New Shanghai’s lively narrative captures key aspects of the city’s comeback: The wild building spree-turned-glut of the 1990s, Shanghai’s drive to reestablish itself as a financial judggernaut; its cultural reawakening; the growing divide between “haves” and “have-nots”; the return of fortune-hunting foreign business; efforts to reform state enterprises; and the revival of notorious Old Shanghai vices: nightlife, drugs, and prostitution. Yatsko takes us into the world of shady Chinese stock speculators, prosperous white-collar professionals, distraught laid-off workers, determined foreign businessmen, and alluring bar girls.
New Shanghai gives texture to the tumult that has rocked urban China in the 1990s. By painting a vivid yet realistic picture of Shanghai today, it helps readers understand the Shanghai and China of tomorrow.

From the Back Cover

A compelling account of the rebirth of China's greatest city. Earmarked by China's leaders to again become an international business hub, Shanghai, in less than a decade, has blossomed from a depressed industrial town, forgotten by the outside world, into a shimmering metropolis filled with glass skyscrapers, modern factories, and thumping discotheques. Foreign investors are once again flocking to Shanghai, which is commonly seen as an up-and-coming rival to New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong as the world's most important financial centers. But is it?

Is Shanghai, the capitalist Mecca of the Far East in the 1920s, re-emerging as the New York of Asia? The Whore of the Orient? The stomping ground of China's artistic elite? China's version of Silicon Valley? A tinderbox of social unrest as state-owned companies lay off workers by the hundreds of thousands?

Weaving insightful anecdotes with astute analysis, respected journalist Pamela Yatsko addresses these questions and many others to provide a vivid portr ait of Shanghai, past and present. New Shanghai's lively narrative, culled from interviews with Shanghainese at all levels of society, explores key aspects of contemporary Shanghai – from finance, foreign business and state enterprise reform, to vice, culture and social change. New Shanghai takes us into the world of shady Chinese stock speculators, prosperous yuppies, distraught laid-off workers, determined foreign executives and alluring bar girls, giving texture to the tumult that has rocked urban China. By painting pictures of Shanghai today, New Shanghai offers readers a better understanding of Shanghai and China tomorrow.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (May 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471479152
• ISBN-13: 978-0471479154
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,712,433 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read!, March 3, 2001

By 

Bryan (San Diego, US, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: New Shanghai: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary City (Hardcover)

Pam Yatsko's book is a terrific contribution to the understanding of modern Shanghai - and China by extension. The reader is treated to a wealth of personal stories that Ms. Yatsko collected over her several years of living in Shanghai. While many writers tend to focus on the sensational, Ms. Yatsko examines what is really happening in people's lives and why. She has taken the Chinese economic policies that appear to most people as nothing more than news blips in the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, and shown how they have dramatically changed lives in modern China - bringing enormous rewards for some, significant hardship for others.

I have been visiting Shanghai since 1982 and have had an office in the city since 1995, so it is a particular pleasure for me to find an author who not only obviously shares my great love for the city, but who also chronicles the remarkable changes and array of paradoxes that define the city in such a compelling and engaging manner. So whether you are a business person looking to understand the business environment in Shanghai or an armchair traveler looking for insights into the rapidly changing culture of one of the world's largest cities, New Shanghai is a wonderful passport to the real world of Shanghai today.

Bryan Batson, President, The China Business Group, Inc., Boston, MA

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book on China's Urban Revolution, December 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: New Shanghai: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary City (Hardcover)

I view "New Shanghai" through the prism of someone who worked in business in Shanghai during 1995-97 and has travelled there frequently from a base in Hong Kong during the last few years. Simply put, I can think of no more useful and interesting book for anyone who does any kind of business in Shanghai or just wants to understand the recent historic transformation of the city. Frankly, I can think of no more interesting or useful book about the metamorphosis of urban China. Among the things that makes this book great is the way Yatsko lets the city speak through the voice if its own people -- some chapters read like a more analytical version of one of Studds Terkel's great oral histories.

As a businessman, I found especially interesting the chapters on the quirks of the local economy, on the experience of foreign investors, and on the city's sputtering efforts to build its financial markets. In each case, her analysis is right on as she makes clear what is going both right and wrong. She observes, for example, that while the local economy has grown respectably in recent years, overly interventionist bureacrats have trampled Shanghai's efforts to build its own brands and to nurture technical innovation. On foreign investment, she offers us the condensed wisdom of most of the smartest people operating in Shanghai today. And on the capital markets, she recounts great tales of scandal and unfulfilled dreams.

Here and elsewhere this is a book filled with fun and revealing stories that show the real fabric of a city in the midst of revolutionary change. Some of my favorite tales come in the chapter on the return of the vices, where Yatsko tells all about her nocturnal explorations. We learn, for example, how kept women in China, known as "caged golden birds", keep themselves amused while the master is away by renting "little wolf dogs", or younger pretty boys with slick hair and cute suits.

Shanghai's re-emergence is a great tale, rich in heroes and villains and a bizarre mix of the city's spectacular visible, physical progress and its profound failures. I so wish this book would be read by all overeager urban and national leaders so that they could realize both what they should do to build their cities as well as the tragic consequences of trying to do too much.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Shanghai, October 6, 2002

By 

Ying Liu (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Shanghai: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary City (Hardcover)

I found "New Shanghai" not long ago as I was preparing to visit Shanghai after six years in the states, and was attracted to it immediately. Having lived in Shanghai most of my life, I have to say that the author knows about Shanghai better than I do. I'm only familiar with the life of my like, but the book has a broad coverage, from the upper class to the cultural underdogs. In particular, I liked to read Yatsko's interviews with various people, which added a sense of reality.

Yatsko has captured Shanghai's fastest socio-economic changes since it lost the luster as the most prosperous city in the Far East early last century. With her solid knowledge of economics and first-hand experience, the stories are credible and the analysis is insightful. Whereas "old Shanghai" has aroused most scholarly interest due to its relation to modernity, Yatsko's depiction of Shanghai's rebirth in the 1990s also offers a unique hindsight on its past.

Although I wish I could have read this wonderful book earlier, it's not so late in the sense that I now know more interesting places