Despite its self-endowed nickname, Las Vegas is no ‘sin city’—nor ever really was. It is simply the city that slapped “vice” on a lunch box. Havana for Californians. Like Havana in the 1950s, Vegas maintained an allusion of international diversity, despite that the diversity was owned and operated by Americans down to that Eiffel Tower restaurant. Afraid of going to France for fear of non-English speaking waiters? No worries in Las Vegas because while things are exotic, they aren’t “too exotic.” As a side note, Vegas’s Eiffel Tower holds many self-proclaimed advantages over the actual Eiffel Tower, including “awe-inspiring views of the city's international airport.” Awe-inspiring, indeed. Look over there! Now look back. This post has a new subject and for it, we go to Shanghai, China, circa 1930.
Shanghai was a vibrant port city during the 19th century, largely thanks to China’s favorable trade agreements and treaties with England. “Favorable” being a one-sided term, as China paid England millions of dollars to legally control parts of the city, though under no obligation to enforce anything—which reduced pesky tariffs to the point of international kleptomania. This led to a Chinese civil war and the repeated battles for Shanghai--not to be confused with either of the two previous Opium Wars. For the next seventy-some years, Japan, Russia, America and France elbowed their ways into similar positions as the British. While regular trading in the 1920s worked out pretty well, the drug trade turned out to be just criminally profitable.
Enter the Green Gang—an Asian criminal organization so scary that stories about them are used to terrify the Yakuza. This Big Green specialized in opium, gambling, prostitution, labor unions, bribery, protection, soccer championships, murder and just generally being jerks. These guys were not the slap-stick, tutorial-level villains of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"--the prequel/sequel of a superior film. However, that movie's production and conceptual mood did capture the mean-spiritedness of the city's vibrantly violent underground.
No, the Green Gang was serious and notoriously difficult to out-maneuver and fight for the police because of the city's international settlements. Basically, embassies act like foreign soil—as a way of maintaining international peace. However, in Shanghai, these embassies weren’t so much gated compounds but rather just streets and places on the second floor. You could walk through six countries on your way to pick up your mail—and nobody wanted anybody getting arrested on their land. And nearly everybody and, by extension, their mother had diplomatic immunity from somewhere. Several of these districts later came together, collectively known as the International Settlement. The France streets, because it’s France, did not join the settlement, but rather formed The French Concession. Unlike their other concessions, this one did not give land to the Germans and is still around today, possibly known as “Little France.” Anyways, the Green Gang—who were they again?--had a magnum opus and it was their hand in the Shanghai Massacre of 1927.
In April 1927, the Chinese military--pressured by foreign investors--moved in on a bunch of communists in Shanghai and started arresting people. For whatever reason, the communists felt this was worth protesting. Here, things start getting a little “unofficial.” What is known is that hundreds of people were arrested, a lot of people (in China and internationally) feared communist revolutions, several hundred people were (legally) executed, the Green Gang had a lot of guns-for-hire and over 5,000 people went missing and presumed (illegally) executed over a couple of days. This started another--goddammit--Chinese civil war that was so violent that WWII (1938-1945) merely acted as a halftime show.
We could've used a couple of these bad boys during that Black Eyed Peas performance.
Despite, or because of, the violence, money kept pouring into Shanghai. In this case study, and in every other example, money combined with a poor legal system to allow a prostitution boom (chicka-boom-boom). Shanghai was basically the Internet of the 1930; sexual exploitation at your finger tips. If you tripped in the city, you were as likely to land on a prostitute as you were to land on the ground. By some accounts, nearly one in three women, at some point, were prostitutes—also known as "the Jersey Shore ratio." Most of these women were streetwalkers, but if that style was too "Eddie Murphy" for you, there were also a couple of brothels in town. The Japanese navy used over a 150 of them. The French Concession alone had an estimated 70,000 prostitutes—which is what, like, four Tri-Delta sorority houses? Kidding. But seriously…
As the 1930s stumbled onward, several Europeans visited Shanghai to see to the famed Foocow Road (the entertainment strip of the International Settlement). Several, several more Europeans just didn't feel like being bothered by that looming war in Europe/Africa/Russia. This would be something like trading in your Titanic ticket because the Hindenberg sounded safer. Years later, Shanghai was brutally occupied by the Japanese--still leaving sensitive international relations on par with that one time you were drunk and peed on your friend's bed. It takes about a century to get over it.
Regardless.
Several generations later, after prolonged bouts of opium-trading, opium-fighting, civil war, local corruption, international occupation, gambling-sprees, civil war (again!), labor disruptions, panics, recessions, depressions, gang warfare, several asteroids in Armageddon and rampant prostitution, Shanghai has become the centerpiece (or perhaps the whole dinning room) for China’s international cocktail party. Just in 2010, Shanghai hosted the World Exposition, attracting some 70 million visitors--even after it was confirmed China was not giving out leftover Olympic medals.
It’s just a city done right and city with more authenticity in one stoplight than Las Vegas--the flaccid owner of the 'Sin City' nomenclature--has in its entire city limits. City limits. Shanghai doesn’t have city limits; it’s a city unlimited.
Well done, you crazy city. Well done.
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