The annual Shanghai Literary Festival is a great time to see literary luminaries and engage in intellectual debates of sorts. I went to an event this past weekend featuring the famed Chinese author Su Tong whose book “Wives and Concubines” was later adapted into the iconic film “Raise the Red Lantern”.  The theme of his talk was ‘Child, Memory and Inspiration’. During the Q&A session, the audience asked questions which I though revealed quite a stark contrast between how the West and China view memory. A few people asked Su Tong what he thought of the relentless tearing down of old buildings for new urban development in China, namely how it was destroying the memory of the society. Su Tong, while lamented such insatiable speed seemed quite ambivalent as well. For him, the real issue was to know where to draw the line between casting away and destruction. It seemed he was not emotional enough about the old buildings as many hoped him to be.

So where do you draw the line? During the taxi ride home, an interconnecting web of elevated roads took me through a jungle of skyscrapers, posh condominiums and the occasional old lane houses in Shanghai. I tried to think what had been there before the flashy premium properties. My memory was limited to the fuzzy old photos of colonial mansions and propaganda pictures of slums pre-1949. At that moment, I felt maybe the real fear was that a lot of people like myself don’t even know what has been lost.

Taking the focus back on buildings, Shanghai’s cluster of historic ones lies along the Bund and in the former French Concession. They were Baroque and Art Deco style buildings built by foreign settlers but have come to symbolize Shanghai. A number of them were destroyed over the years. But a large number of the surviving ones have been preserved or put into commercial use. They make up a cosmopolitan Shanghai: glamorous, nostalgic but comforting for a local. At the other end of the spectrum are the cramped Shikumen (old lane houses). They housed the vast majority of locals in the first half of the 20th century. These houses define another side of Shanghai: delicate, convivial but petty at times. The narrow streets, stone brick constructions  make for charming photos and postcards. But the memory of living in them is less charming. Most of them have no toilet facilities. People have to use a bucket even until today. Most of those lived in them jumped at the chance of moving out when they could, although they all reminisce about the old days at some point.

So I guess for a lot of people in China, memory is something that needs to be reset, because it has not been very good for at least 200 years. Buildings are torn down, for profit, for a modern China and sometimes because no one wants to live in a place with no toilet in it.