As I mentioned previously on this site, Nanjing, my current base of operations, is a city with a lot of character, and a long, important history. It's a place where the past is never that far from the surface, and the legacy of bygone eras is still visiblein the form of the city's still-intact, Ming Dynasty walls and other cultural relics. At sites like ZhongHua Men Gate, an impressive, towering stronghold that looms over the core of the city, Nanjing gives visitors a glimpse into its past. The walls are cracked and overgrown with weeds. They provide a visible reminder that this city is old, and has seen a lot of change in its recent past.
Places like ZhonghuaMen distinguish Nanjing from other cities in China. Many cities only bear the faintest traces of their former landmarks: a name on a sign, a plaque on a roadside. In Beijing the city's walls were the envy of many an urban metropolis. Now their path is marked by a wide-laned highway. The names of subway stations mark the sites of former gatehouses: Dongzhimen, Andingmen, Xuanwumen. In Jinan, streets where shopping malls and public squares now stand bear the names of former temples. Nanjing, however, is somewhat different. Unlike other second-tier, provincial capital cities, its old spaces, for the most part, survive. You don't find wholly intact city gates in Zhengzhou, or Datong, or Lanzhou. It's a rarity. Which is why I was intrigued by what I saw when walking atop the city walls to the South of the city near ZhongHuaMen on Wednesday.
From five storeys above the city streets, the grand scheme of Nanjing's development and city planning strategy comes into sharper focus. Here, atop the walls, the city appears in panoramic view, and the new (like the Xinjiekou luxury-shopping district downtown) contrasts itself with the old (the walls, the gates, the low houses that ring downtown). Walking east, I happened upon the LaoMenDong (老门东) High Street, a relatively new development for shopping, and hanging around in coffeeshops/cafes/bars/clubs/etc. LaoMenDong is indicative of the kind of development happening everywhere in China: an upgrading/updating of urban space. Neighborhoods that may once have been afterthoughts in the minds of city developers seeking to build sleek, ultramodern towers and contemporary glitz are now undergoing a different type of transformation. Developers places these old spaces in their crosshairs, marking them as potential sites for new, chiq, trendy commerce. Shanghai's XIntiandi and Tianzifang areas are prime examples: 18th century buildings now retrofitted to house Haagen-Daas, designer clothing stores, souvenir stands, Starbucks coffee, nightclubs, etc. Call it Chinese-style gentrification (in truth, it's not so different from the kind of thing that Americans see in Brooklyn, or Harlem, or Chicago, parts of New Orleans, and countless other cities). From my vantage point on top of the walls it looks like this:
This kind of development isn't unique to LaoMenDong. The former Confucian Temple area of Nanjing, called FuziMiao (夫子庙) displays a similar style of development, wherein, the temple is flanked by streets lined with KFCs, Starbucks, Nike and Adidas outlets, etc. It's not even unique to Nanjing. It happens everywhere in China. What's intriguing, however, about LaoMenDong is that the old houses in the neighborhood are being knocked down to be replaced by... newly constructed old houses? In this development, old buildings are being replaced by neo-"old" buildings. Like this:
From the street level, you can see the neo-antiquity of LaoMenDong being built up. Check out the cranes and concrete supports in the pictures below.
When I see development like this, it always seems like I jarring experience. I'm used to seeing the repurposing of old houses for new commerce. This happens in a lot of places. What's old becomes new again, as someone's house becomes a guesthose, a cafe, a t-shirt shop, etc. Cities like Lijiang, Dali, Pingyao, and Xi'an are famous for mining existing cultural resources like architecture and reselling it as a valuable consumer commodity. This kind of ethnopreneurship is par for the course in China and elsewhere. But what's happening in LaoMenDong is more rare. Here, what new is old again. Instead of repurposing the old buildings that currently stand in the neighborhood, developers have decided to rebuild them entirely from scratch. The result is a vision of antiquity that exists out of time. The stone and woodcarved buildings of LaoMenDong suggest an idealized past, one that blends elements of what Old China may have been, or could have been. The kind of Old China that exists in romantic visions of simpler times, or in fantasies, or imaginings about heritage. An Old China laden with symbolic importance. One that has been distilled, crystallized, polished, shaped into the essence of what China was supposed to have been. What era do these buildings belong to? The Ming? The Qing? The Republican Period? None of them. All of them.
In my mind, I've taken to calling this kind of development "山寨 (shanzhai, or fake) auntiquity." The word shanzhai usually refers to consumer goods. People buy shanzhai iPhones, shanzhai MP3 players, shanzhai Louis Vuitton, etc. China's shanzhai economy is pretty prodigious. Just ask anyone who's come back from their three week tour of the country with a pair or "genuine" Rayban Wayfarer sunglasses, or a great new "Rolex" watch (I won't pretend I've not enjoyed some of this stuff: I have a great collection of soccer jerseys with Nike swooshes and Adidas logos that look like they might be the real thing). The kind of development going on in LaoMenDong is very similar. It's antiquity for mass consumption. It's a version of China that is well-branded, and recognizable (in a manner in which John and Jean Comaroff might recognize as being not unlike the Ethnicity, Inc. they describe in their landmark work). Perhaps my assessment is a bit harsh. Indeed, the concept of "authenticity" is so complicated and fraught with loaded cultural assumptions that it's really difficult to say what "authentic" really means, much less identify things that may be considered "genuine" or "authentic." I'm aware of this critique. And so for me, the question worth asking is not whether this vision of China's past is "real." Instead, I'm curious about what the choice to represent China in this way means for the people who identify with it. What significance is contained in these glimpses of an idealized Old China?
I'm not alone in noticing this kind of neo-traditionalism. My colleague at OU, Kevin Carrico, has written extensively about this longing for a fantastical imagined past among people who are part of China's "Han Clothing Movement" that advocates wearing "traditional clothes" from the Han Dynasty era (though what this attire should actually look like is totally unclear, and thus the attire worn is basically an imagined version of traditional garb). Like much of the world, China is currently looking back at its own past and figuring out what to make of it. The United States is doing much of the same thing as we struggle to understand antebellum America, and what to make of the complicated heritage of race, slavery and civil war in our own country. China is striving toward becoming a developed nation (and by some standards it has already succeeded). At the same time, it is trying to understand and preserve millenia worth of culture and history. Places like LaoMenDong are the frontlines of this change. The image of China projected there is important for understanding not just where China currently is, but where it is going, and how it sees itself. The picture is still somewhat blurry and out of focus, but at places like LaoMenDong, its becoming clearer, sharper, more intelligible. It's a space worth watching