The Hill Street Outrage and the Chinese Communist Party inspired violence of 1928

One of the forgotten episodes in Singapore’s history is one involving the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP, which recently celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary, also took its fight against the Chinese Nationalist government in its early years, to the Nanyang to which it sent five secret envoys to in late 1927 and early 1928. The arrival of these envoys coincided with the formation of the Nanyang Provisional Committee (NPC) of the CCP and heralded a violent phase in the CCP’s operations here. What soon followed in February and March 1928 was an attempt to assassinate three visiting Nationalist leaders, which resulted in a gunshot injury to Dr Lim Boon Keng, and a series of bombings as a means of intimidation during a strike of shoemakers.

The incident involving Dr Lim, which was described in the press as “the most sensational political outrage that has occurred in the colony for many years” and also the “Hill Street Outrage”, played out on the evening of 8 February 1928 at Hill Street and targeted Dr C C Wu (Wu Ch’ao-shu) a visiting Chinese Nationalist party (Kuomintang or KMT) politician. Shots fired from a revolved were fired in the direction of Dr Wu as he was leaving the premises of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) on Hill Street, where he had just met with prominent Chinese residents. Fired by Cheung Yok-kai — one of the five so-called secret envoys, the shots missed their intended target completely. One however grazed the nose of the unfortunate Dr Lim who was just behind Dr Wu. Dr Lim was reported to have fallen with blood streaming from his face, was fortunately not badly hurt. Another local leader, Lim Nee Soon, also fell during commotion and hurt his ankle. Two crude home-made bombs were also thrown during the incident. Packed in thermos flasks with explosives, nails and broken glass, the bombs both exploded but did not cause any further injuries. Cheung, who was arrested after a chase and tried after the incident, was sentenced to penal servitude for life, died at the age of 36 in Changi Prison in December 1940 – 12 years into his sentence. In a statement made to the judge during his sentencing, Cheung said that he had been sent by the CCP to “bring light to the labouring classes in Malaya. Cheung’s other KMT targets were Sun Fo, the son of Dr Sun Yat-sen and Hu Han Min, who were also in Singapore at the time. The incident was also the first to involve an assassination attempt of the life of a rival politician in the fight for control of China.

The old(er) Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Housed in one of the so-called “four grand mansions”, the house of Wee Ah Hood, it was the scene of the “Hill Street Outrage”. The incident, which saw an attempt mounted by the Nanyang arm of the Chinese Communist Party on the life of KMT politician Dr C C Wu – who survived unscathed, resulted in a facial gunshot injury to Dr Lim Boon Keng.

Following on the failed assassination attempt, members of the NCP – which could be thought of as the predecessor to the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) – were also involved in instigation of violence during a strike of shoemakers that stretched from the end of February into April 1928. During the strike, bombs of crude constructions similar to the bombs used in the assassination attempt on Dr Wu featured, some packed in thermos flasks and other in containers such as empty milk powder tins were thrown into shoemakers’ shops across Singapore in an attempt to terrorise and intimidate employers as well as non-striking shoemakers. The campaign caused little in terms of injury or damage, except perhaps on two occasions: one which involved an informer beings stabbed an seriously wounded; and another in which a body found in a sack which was thought to have belonged to an injured striker, could be thought of being among the first acts of communist inspired terrorism to occur in Singapore.

The former house of Wee Ah Hood on Hill Street as the SCCCI.

The new SCCCI Building on Hill Street, at its opening in 1964.

The SCCCI in more recent times.

My Shanghai Story: marketplace Shanghai

I would probably be the last person to admit this, but hitting the places to shop at was one of several things that I did thoroughly enjoy about my recent visit to Shanghai.

Shanghai’s does offer a wealth of opportunities for retail therapy …

Shanghai does have some wonderful places to satisfy that urge to spend that Yuan in. And like me, if parting with the wad of currency notes isn’t as therapeutic as it might be for one of my blogger friends who was on the trip who did seek to fill that excess volume she did ensure she had in her choice of luggage; there are several destinations in the busy city’s retail scene that are worth a look at just for the opportunity they present to discover the Shanghai that lies behind the glossy veneer that the now ultramodern metropolis seems to want to wear.

… that goes beyond the glossy veneer of the modern metropolis that it does seem to want to wear (photograph is of the brightly lit and trendy Nanjing Road).

The bold excitement that the bright lights of Nanjing Road offers is a good place as any to start with for the would be shopper. While the experience provided by many of the shops along the famous street is perhaps replicated in many other Chinese cities, a stroll down Nanjing Road does provide the feel of what the Chinese idiom 人山人海 (literally mountains of people, sea of people) seems to well describe.

The modern experience of Nanjing Road and the sea of people.

There is also that huge and rather interesting food hall on Nanjing Road to wander into, the Shanghai First Foodmall (photographs). With its four floors of nothing but food ranging from snacks, traditional dried foods, and some quite exotic looking foodstuff, it certainly is worth a peek into.

Dried pieces of pork include rather bizarre looking pig heads at the Shanghai First Foodmall.

The bazaars, such as the one by Yu Garden (photographs), are for me also worth wandering through, not so much for the shopping experience, but more for the life provided by the crowds of out-of-town folk who descend on it, as it is for the colour and sometimes bizarre sights that they do tend to provide.

Decorative items at a street bazaar.

Two places that did thoroughly fascinate me, within a stone’s throw of each other and in the heart of the city not far from Yu Garden, were the Dongtai Road Antiques Market and the Flower, Bird, Fish and Insect Market. It is in the rough-and-tumble of places such as these that I often find myself in on the road, seeking to discover a feel for a place beyond its main tourist sights, although admittedly, the two, especially the antiques market, does seem to wear a somewhat touristy face.

An antique reflected off an antique mirror in the sea of antiques at Dongtai Road Antiques Market.

Dongtai Road Antiques Market (photographs), which sadly would not be around the next time I visit Shanghai – it will, I am told, be a victim of urbanisation and will make way for the next phase of the Xintiandi (新天地) development in July this year, is probably where you might find more junk and souvenirs rather than antiques. A walk by the market’s two streets centered on the crossroads of Dongtai and Liuhekou Road and lined with makeshift stalls with shops in the back, takes one past piles of old and mostly unserviceable goods such as tattered pieces of luggage, cameras, music instruments, sporting goods, implements in all shapes and sizes, dolls with western features, Mao and Soviet era memorabilia, along with replicas of terracotta warriors, tee-shirts, and other souvenir items.

Time is ticking on Dongtai Road Antiques Market – it will soon be a victim of urbanisation.

It is across Xizhang South Road, which runs perpendicular to Liuhekou Road, that one is greeted not so much by the melody of birds, but by a cacophony of crickets. The huge fighting crickets, kept in baskets of woven rattan or plastic mesh, and also in clear containers of plastic, is one of several fascinating offerings of the Flower, Bird, Fish and Insect Market (photographs).

Baskets containing fighting crickets at the Flower, Bird, Fish and Insect Market.

The market, possibly one of the last such markets in the city, also offers a range of other items as its mouthful of a name does suggest and strolling through its narrow passageways that takes one well  away from the Shanghai that never seems to slow down.

Birds on sale.

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My Shanghai Adventure was made possible by Spring Airlines, China’s first Low Cost Carrier. Flights from Singapore to Shanghai were launched on 25 April 2014 . More information can be found on Spring Airline’s website. Do also look out for Spring’s special deals which are regularly posted on their website and also on their Facebook Page.

Previous My Shanghai Story posts:

• Shanghai’s many shades of green
• Contrasting escapes from the tempests in teapots and more
• The arrival of Spring

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Photographs

Dongtai Road Antiques Market

 

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Flower, Bird, Fish and Insect Market

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Nanjing Road and the Shanghai First Foodmall

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Bazaars near Yu Yuan

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Where time stands very still in Macau

One of the many life experiences that I am glad to have had is the opportunity provided to discover a world which might otherwise have remained hidden to me – that of the magical world of Coloane Village in Macau. The village is one I first got a glimpse of, on a stopover during a whirlwind trip to Macau with nine other bloggers, sponsored by the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO), as a prize for last year’s edition of the Singapore Blog Awards. The visit was brief, but enough to give me a yearning to return to the sleepy village and its labyrinth of narrow passageways and discover it in full.

Time seems to stand very still in Coloane Village on a sleepy afternoon.

The labyrinth of narrow lanes provides many opportunities for little discoveries.

The opportunity for a quick return came with the prize I got for winning the blogging contest for the first trip, which again was sponsored by the MGTO. This allowed me not just to make a second trip, but also to time it to include two of the former Portuguese colony’s more colourful festivals and plan my own itinerary around it, such that I could have the experience of two of the faces that the normally sleepy village of Coloane wears.

Eduardo Marques Square.

Coloane is now perhaps more of a tourist destination as a stopover for the sweet and irresistible treat which the famous Lord Stow’s Bakery provides and at the same time to see Eduardo Marques Square (Largo da Eduardo Marques) and its little chapel, which is a popular spot for wedding photography. There is however certainly much more of Coloane, both the island as well as the village, for any visitor to discover.

Life in Coloane, like the village itself, seems to come very much to a standstill.

Villagers watching the world go by.

Just a short bus ride from the glitz of the Las Vegas like Cotai Strip, Coloane Village, tucked away in the rolling hills of the west of the island of the same name, does seem a world apart from the strip, and where time does seem long to have stood still. Much of the village is bathed in that old world charm that Macau seems to be slowly but surely losing, wearing the look of that the blending of east and west most of the first half of the  century that has passed – when most of the village’s development did take place.

There is very much an air of the old world, just a stone’s throw away from the glitz of the Cotai Strip.

A house in Coloane.

Laid out along the shoreline which looks across a narrow channel to the Zhuhai area of China – seemingly an arm’s length away, the village’s many narrow passages reveal quaint rows of pastel shaded houses, making it a photographer’s dream. In all of this, one stumbles on Eduardo Marques Square (Largo da Eduardo Marques) where a lovely little chapel, St. Francis Xavier’s (see a previous post), can be found. The chapel once housed the relics of the Catholic saint it is named after, a saint who is very much revered throughout Asia for his pioneering ministry to an area of the world which has largely resisted the many attempts at its Christian conversion.

The view across the channel to Zhuhai.

The Chapel of St. Francis Xavier at one end of Eduardo Marques Square with a monument erected to commemorate the victory of the Portuguese over pirates in 1910.

Shutters of a shop.

Besides the Portuguese influence being very much in evidence, there is much that is also to be found of Coloane’s origins as a village. A walk along the northern reaches of the seaside promenade takes one along zinc walled shelters built on stilts – shelters used by the village’s folk who lived off the harvest from the sea.  Their descendants of the village’s fishermen, are the ones perhaps who sit by the shelters, keeping watch on a world which may soon pass them by.

The Portuguese influence is very much in evidence.

A passage through the village.

Zinc shelters on stilts can be found along the water’s edge at the northern reaches of the village.

Across the road there is more evidence of the once thriving trade. The tiniest of temples – the Sam Seng or Kam Fa temple which is dedicated to the goddess Kam Fa can be found. The temple traces its origins to a time some two hundred years ago, when a statue of the deity brought to the village by its fisher-folk.

Smoke trails from incense coils at the Sam Seng Temple.

A window into the past.

Just up from the temple lies Coloane Pier (Ponte Cais de Coloane) around which several other reminders of the village’s past awaits. One is a coal tar coated anchor mounted on a circular pedestal close to the pier’s front. It is more however, the sight of salted fish on sale, which provides that link to the past which does sum the origins of the village up. Originally known as “Salt Stove Bay”, it was also where sea salt was farmed, as well as being a fishing village.

An anchor mounted on a pedestal near the Coloane Pier provides a link to the village’s maritime past.

Salted fish on sale also provides a link to Coloane’s origins – the village was where sea salt was farmed as well as a fishing village.

Turning right past the pier, I hear the sound of animated voices which punctures the calm and quiet on what was a sleepy afternoon. The voices are ones which come from a small crowd gathered in front of a building which has retained much of the flavour it must have had under the Portuguese. The women each bore loads of detergent and liquid soap, providing a clue as to why they had congregated by the building – one used by the Customs (Alfândega).  The loads they bore were typical of mainland Chinese headed home, as the women must surely have been and were probably standing in queue to purchase tickets for the ferry across to Zhuhai.

Benches line the wall of the Customs building which transports one straight into the colonial era.

Coloane in the mid 20th century – taken off an exhibition of old photographs at the village square.

The road by the Customs building narrows running up an steep enough incline to have me huffing and puffing. It was an effort that was rewarded by the sight of rather a sad looking shack of wood and zinc.  It is under this structure, one of several which dot the coastline as it runs north-east, where the sheltered slips and berths of an abandoned boat yard can clearly be seen along with chains and blocks dangling seemingly precariously from age worn wooden beams. This again, provides a reminder another side of the village’s past. The village had once had the proud distinction of being one of the main centres in the Pearl River Delta area for traditional wooden boat and junk building.

The sheltered slip of a abandoned boat yard. The village was a main centre for traditional wooden boat building in the Pearl River delta.

While there is of course much more to Coloane – I got to see a gaier and festive side of it during the Tam Kung Festival (of which I will devote another post to), it is this side I was able to discover that does appeal most to me. Coming from a part of the world where there is little left to remind me of a beautiful world that did once exist there, it is always nice for me to find a place such as this which does show how progress and the gentler side of life is able to co-exist.

The Tam Kung Temple.

The glow in the dark

Wandering around in the glow of the Shanghai night, I was reminded of the fascination I have always had for the bright lights of a city. Somehow, wandering around in the warm glow of city lights seems to provide me with a lift, transporting me at the same time into a world that seemingly is one where fairytales would be made of. It is perhaps that same magical feeling one gets in the fairytale world of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, where one somehow becomes immediately immersed in the delightful fantasies that the gardens had contributed to Hans Christian Anderson in the telling of his stories. It is a wonderful feeling that the glow of a city gives, whispering in the language of the hustle and bustle of the streets that seem, as in the words of the Christmas tune “Silver Bells”, to be “dressed in holiday style” by the luminescent neon and incandescent glow.

The lights of Shanghai draw people from all over China ... a tourist waits in the bus in the warm glow of the Shanghai night.

The National Billboard on North Bridge Road (source: Derek Tait)

I suppose my fascination had started all those years back when as a child, Singapore seemed to be awash in the glow of lights. Neon signs seemed to be omnipresent and one could never seem to escape being bathed in the glow of neon. I remember Guillemard Circus being particularly bright – dominated by the huge advertisement billboards that glowed in the dark. Speaking of huge billboards, the mother of all billboards, one that rose some 50 metres above ground and with an area of some 186 square metres, had stood above the National Showroom along North Bridge Road, in between Capitol and the big Bata store, dominating the skyline of the civic district. That billboard stood for some 11 years, having been erected sometime in 1963, before being taken down in 1974 when the National Showroom shifted out to make way for redevelopment. The blocks of flats that I had lived in didn’t escape as well. A huge flashing neon Setron advertisement wrapped around the cylindrical water tank could be seen for miles (Setron was a homegrown maker of TV sets).

The glow of Shanghai on a rainy evening.

The dimming of Singapore started in 1972, when a ban on flashing neon signs came into effect. The oil crisis of 1973 played a part as well, as efforts to save energy came into effect and bright light started losing favour. Further restrictions came into effect in the late 1970s as the use of outdoor advertising and neon signs was discouraged, making it difficult to obtain a license for erecting billboards and neon advertisements, for reasons ranging to the distraction these would have to motorists, to the clutter that it was said to add to the skyline. Still, there were those occasions when Singapore still had a bit of a glow, one of which would be the light-up which put a glow on the evening of National Day. Many buildings in the civic district would be illuminated, and it was during those occasions that it was always nice to wander around the city. The grandest buildings that would be lit up would be the Supreme Court, City Hall, the Victoria Memorial Hall and Empress Place Building, the GPO (now Fullerton Hotel), and the building that housed the school that was to become my alma mater which is now the Singapore Art Museum. One light up that I always looked forward to seeing was the one that involved the filter beds at the corner of Cavenagh Road and Bukit Timah Road, opposite the Japanese Club, where there would be the streams of the fountain dancing in the coloured lights.

The neon glow of Shanghai.

What is nice to see these days is that some of the glow has been regained with a rethink of restrictions that now see areas such as Orchard Road brightened up. It is also nice that many of the wonderful buildings we have are also aglow, and with the first ever F1 night race in Singapore, for three evenings, audiences worldwide are treated to the spectacle of not just of a race under lights, but one that provides the world with a view of the beautifully illuminated edifices in our civic district. Whether I am in Singapore, or in a city like Shanghai, the warm glow of the illuminated cityscape is something that never fails to lure me and it is something that I can’t help but marvel at.

The street circuit, seen during the inaugural F1 night race in 2008, runs through the beautifully lighted iconic structures of down town Singapore.

More photographs of the Shanghai glow:

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The living streets of Shanghai and the less Singaporean Singapore that we have become

One of the things that struck me when I was wandering through some of the streets of Shanghai was that many of the streets were “living”, despite the modernisation that has engulfed much of the city. It is much the same in many of the cities of Asia where there is an interesting mix of old and new, of tradition and modernity, where old trades are often found amidst the office blocks and shopping malls that have sprouted up alongside the older buildings where people are living as well as making a living very much in the same way they may have done half a century ago. It is always nice to see that in a city, it is the living streets, each one different from the other, that often give a city its character.

Singapore has an absence of street life which can still be found in many of the modern Asian cities.

It's always nice to see vendors on the streets that cater to the day-to-day needs of the people who live in the cities rather than to the tourists.

In Singapore, we have unfortunately lost all that. Wandering around the streets of Chinatown one morning, it felt as if I was in an empty amusement park before opening time. It was empty, devoid of all life. Not the Chinatown that made Chinatown, Chinatown. This is a sad reflection of what we have become. We had wonderful living streets, some that never slept, where people lived their lives on, where colourful food stalls lined the streets, stalls selling produce in the mornings, dried sundries, clothes and whatever one needed all day, and brightly lit food stalls serving a delicious choice of street fare that somehow seemed to taste that much better off the streets. There would be the crowds that throng the streets all day, housewives doing their marketing in the mornings, shoppers looking for a bargain in the afternoons and the multitudes out on the streets in search for a sumptuous feast. We now have lost all that to the glitzy shopping malls, office blocks and the giant amusement park that Singapore has become. A reader Greg, lamented about our lost buildings around the Raffles Place and Collyer Quay area – yes there were certainly some magnificent examples of colonial architecture that we have lost, replaced by towering masses of glass and steel. Not only we have lost that, we have lost the soul of what Singapore was. Even in areas where attempts are made to conserve some of the beautiful edifices, the structures stand without a heart and soul, as it is in Chinatown. Where we once saw people going about their day to day lives, we now see hordes of tourists fooled into thinking it is the genuine Chinatown they have been brought to. Where traditional trades supporting the day-to-day needs of people living around had once thrived, the buildings now are saturated with businesses that give the tourists what they think they want at a price that is set by the profits that the landlords and business owners so crave.

An already somewhat sanitised Chinatown in 1984, with some semblance of street life. The corner of Smith and Trengganu Streets is seen here.

The same corner today ... where tourist shops being rented at high prices have replaced what were shops catering to the day-to-day needs of the people around.

The streets of Chinatown today are quiet and without the soul that made Chinatown what it once was.

The streets of Chinatown are no longer coloured by life on the streets, but by symbols that fool people into thinking that the Chinatown they see is authentic.

Where traditional businesses once thrived, shops selling expensive suggestions of what we would like tourists to see Chinatown as.

Street markets of the tourist kind - nothing like the atmosphere found in the street markets of old.

Much of the effort to modernise Singapore took place when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, when many were moved out of the streets of the city and the villages in the rural areas into the housing estates that lack the character that the older streets and villages had. I suppose some may argue that that is the price of progress that we must pay and that we should be thankful for improved conditions in which many of us now live in with comfortable housing units, clean water and proper sanitisation. But, we have paid a price in that we have in sanitising Singapore, also sanitised the richness and diversity that could only be found in Singapore. In modernising Singapore and in attempting to selectively retain what makes us Asian, we have also discarded not just the street life, but also the many unique sub-cultures that were very much a part of what made Singapore, Singapore. We have become less of the unique Singapore that the tourist board might have many believe, but a Singapore that bears very little of the microcosm of Asia it once was.

The streets of Shanghai each have a unique character that is lacking in much of Singapore.

Where you can still find people plying trades that were once a common sight on the streets of Singapore.

The streets of Singapore used to be filled with vendors selling wares and produce that cater to the needs of the ordinary folk on the street.

Moments in space: Changzhou, China

There is nothing I enjoy more than seeing and being able to immerse myself in the sights, smells, tastes and sounds of a new place. I enjy being able to do so, especially in much of Asia, where the streets are very much alive with people living their daily lives. There are times, however, when passing through a place, or on a working trip, when the situation does not permit me to do that, and I have to contend with looking from a distance, from a vantage point that provided me with some wonderful childhood memories – the backseat of a car.

Looking at the streets of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, from the backseat of a car.

Finding myself in Changzhou for a two day visit, and without much of an opportunity to do what I would like to have done, I could but only have an experience of the city through the windows of the backseat of the car, which was a pity as there is a lot more to see and feel of the sprawling industrial city in Jiangsu, with a bit of history and what is also the world’s tallest Pagoda. So it was that I became that child again, looking at wide avenues of Changzhou from a distance, looking at what I see around me with the curiousity of a child. It is wonderful these days to be able to so easily capture the images that I see, as I look at the world, even if it is difficult to manage a good photograph through the tinted, dust covered window of a moving vehicle. It doesn’t matter I suppose, as it provides me with the opportunity to freeze not just a moment in time, but to capture what I see in time and in space – what is to me that moment in space. Space and what we do see at any moment in space being very much influenced by the passage of time.

Looking from the backseat provides me with a reflection of how life is in a world other than my own.

Watching the world pass him by through the window of a bus.

A glimpse of life can be seen on the streets anywhere in the world, even from the vehicles parked on the streets.

Getting home to watch the World Cup?

The scene of a minor accident.

A two dimensional balancing act.

What's that doing up there?

Plastic pipes.

Anywhere is a good place for a shut-eye.

Including on a motorcycle!

Crossing the wide intersections in Changzhou can prove to be a challenge.

... especially if you need to text.

Public transport blues.

but ... there's an alternative waiting!

... or you could rely on the good old method of getting about ...

... or you could hitch a ride ...

A walk down the Bund

The Bund in Shanghai has been a place that I have, for a long time, wanted to visit. It wasn’t because of reading so much about it and its association with two unpleasant chapters in the history of China, or beacuse of watching the Steven Spielberg movie based on the semi-autobiographical novel written by J. G. Ballard, “Empire of the Sun”, but strange as it may sound, because of its rather odd sounding name, which seems out of place for a city in China. That the Bund features many magnificent and excellent examples of European styled architecture over the one mile stretch of Shanghai on the west bank of the Huangpo River, is in itself, a reflection of the strangeness of this. There are reasons for this oddity, one of historical significance, one that had for many years, been a sore point for many Chinese. It is an oddity that speaks of the attempts by the European powers to dominate a once weak China. The name is derived from the Hindi word for an embankment, and was said to have been brought over by the family of the very successful Baghdadi Jewish hotel owner and businessman, Victor Sasson. Sasson once owned one of the buildings that dominates the Bund, the copper roofed Cathay, now the Peace Hotel.

The Bund by night offers a breathtaking view of the mile long stretch of buildings and the contrast that Shanghai offers

The buildings which feature styles of architecture providing a glimpse into a Shanghai of a time when European powers attempted to dominate China, are beautifully illuminated at night.

I can now say that I have finally done what I had longed to do, managing to take a stroll down the Bund, as many in the crowd that one can never escape from on the streets of Shanghai had gathered to do on the cool and foggy midsummer’s evening, and taking in the magnificence of the view on offer. The view of the mile stretch is even more breathtaking by night, the glowing green roof of the Peace Hotel featuring prominently in the row of beautifully illuminated buildings that revel in the attention that a wealthy China can now give, that having been built in the lavish styles that only money made from the exploitation of the concessions that were made by a once crumbling China, they could only have only previously begged for. It is a sight that having for so long wanted to see, will certainly long remember.

Architecture that speaks of the money that the business that thrived from the concessions.

The former McBain Building at No. 1 marks the beginning of the one mile stretch.

No. 2, the former Shanghai Club.

No.3 (left), the former Union Assurance Building, and No. 5, the former NKK Building.

No. 6, the former Commercial Bank of China Building.

No. 7, the former Great Northern Telegramme Company Building (now Bangkok Bank).

No. 9, the former China Merchants Steam Navigation Company Building.

No. 12, the former HSBC Building, now the Pudong Development Bank.

No 13 (far right), the Customs House.

No 14, The former Bank of Communications Building.

No 15, the former Russo-Asiatic Bank Building.

No. 16, the former Bank of Taiwan Building.

No. 17, the former North China Daily News Building (now AIA Building).

No. 18, the former Chartered Bank Building.

No. 19 (left), the former Palace Hotel, now the Swatch Peace Hotel.

No. 20, the green roofed former Cathay Hotel owned by Victor Sasson, now the Fairmont Peace Hotel.

Another view of the former Cathay Hotel.

No. 23, the Bank of China Building.

No. 24, the former Yokohama Specie Bank Building, now the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Building.

No. 27, the former Jardine Matheson and Company Building, now the Foreign Trade Corporation Building.

No. 28, the former Glen Line Steamship Building, now the People's Broadcasting Station.

No. 29, the former Banque de l'Indochine Building, now the Everbright Bank Building.

European high fashion on the former European High Street of the Far East.

The Signal Tower on the Bund.

Another view of the Bund by night.