Does China Know How to Balance Its Culture History with Progress?

Yesterday I decided to take a walk to the redeveloped portion of Shanghai’s Wujiang Lu — one of Shanghai’s famous food streets. I was surprised at the new portion of the road. It was clean and wide. There were shopping malls on either side connected by walkways over the street.

 As nice as it was above the street, the best part was that the old portion of the street with many of its famous traditional snack shops was still there. It was like old and new Shanghai mingling together. And that was awesome to see especially after five years of watching old Shanghai getting wiped away for another shopping mall or luxury apartment complex. Sometimes commerce can hurt an area as much as it helps it.

But when I looked over at the old section of Wujiang Lu, I saw that commerce was probably the reason the old section was kept open. When I was there it was 11:00am and most of the people were on the old section buying snacks. That made me a little disappointed. It seems everything old in China is only kept open or preserved for one of two reasons: a) it’s something to do with the communist party or b) it can still make money. Isn’t there a third option where something can be kept open just for its cultural value?

I know that this is an idea that isn’t really practiced in Chinese society. A lot of my Chinese friends are always surprised when I say I like old things like hutongs or Shanghai’s lao fangzi. But let me put it into a wider perspective that might be easier to understand.

For the last month all during the build up to and the two-week run of the Olympics, I heard that China is a country with 5,000 years of history. Well why aren’t more cultural sites preserved for their cultural significance?

This isn’t a a post saying save all the hutongs, but keeping one or two just so that people know that they existed at one time is a good idea. If a country destroys all of its history in the name of progress, it’ll destroy its culture too.