Talk:Shanghai

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[edit] Nongtang/longtang

The word 弄堂 or alley or lane, is, according to the dictionary, pronounced "nong tang" in mandarin. however, every single shanghai native i know, myself included, pronounce it as "long tang". anyway, i've changed the reference in the article to "nong tang". but what is the policy in these cases? if a word in one language is pronounced differently in another area, how do you label the pronounciation? Can the experts resolve this?? --Sumple 12:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

- The Shanghainese pronunciation for 弄堂 is /loNdA~/. In Microsoft Pinyin IME 2003, nongtang does not produce 弄堂, but inputting longtang gives you 弄堂. The word 弄堂 is originally a Wu dialect (吴方言) vocabulary, it is not of Mandarin origin (Mandarin is 胡同 hutong), hence longtang is the Mandarinized pronunciation of the Shanghainese. Personally I think Shanghainese cultural terms native to Shanghai or Jiangnan region should directly use the local pronunciation to avoid these problems, like the Cantonese term Dimsum 点心 (don't you think it would ridiculous if we romanized it as Dianxin?). Unfortunately, there is no standard Shanghainese romanization system, we should stick to a Shanghainese romanization system in the future on Wikipedia. BTW, we don't distinguish -n and -ng. 英 in = 音 in; 声 sen = 森 sen. naus 03:50, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

off topic, but dianxin is not an exclusively cantonese word. it's in mandarin and wu as well.

anyway, Shanghainese romanisation is problematic because of the large variations in pronunciation. There isn't really a "standard" accent - the dialect spoken in the walled city of Shanghai is/was much closer to the Suzhou dialect than the contemporary Shanghainese dialect. Those spoken in the port districts are influenced by different dialects again... I took a look at the Shanghainese romanisation system (? romazi or something?) listed here and there on wikipedia, and it doesn't seem a good representation of the actual sound in many cases. --Sumple (Talk) 11:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Skating Park

Does anyone want to put a bit on the Shanghai page about the new Skating Park that China is building?I heard about it on NPR, they are adding a massive skating park with ramps and stuff.. - Anonymous

[edit] Jai Alai

There was a Jai Alai court there in the 1930s, wasn't there? -- Error

is this a court of law or what?? --Sumple 11:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Municipality

Is Shanghai Municipality = Shanghai? (note that it is not the case for Chongqing Municipality and Chongqing City). If it is the case, then we should probably merge the 2 articles. olivier 16:57, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Shanghai municipality is the administrative unit. It includes the notional Shanghai city as well as several other towns. What I'm trying to say is that, administratively there is no "Shanghai city". You have several districts which make up what ppl would think of as "Shanghai city". these districts, together with several other townships, form the administrative unit "Shanghai municipality". am i making things clear or confusing you even more?--Sumple 11:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abbreviations

The article says: "In China, Shanghai is also known as Hu4 (滬 or 沪) and Shen1 (申)." What does this mean? Could this be explained for non-Sinophones? Adam 11:18, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I've paraphrased it. Major Chinese places (all province-level entities, for example) have one-syllable abbreviations, which may or may not be a syllable from the multisyllabic placename. In Shanghai's case, the abbreviation Hu means "fence used to catch fish". The other alternative abbreviation Shen is an ancient Shanghai ruler's name. (See fr:Shanghaï#Nom) --Menchi 00:45, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Chinese name systems are an enduring mystery. Perhaps someone could write an article about them. Adam 05:03, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There is Chinese name and Chinese family name. But they're not on placenames. --Menchi 06:04, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

i've added an explanation for the names. hope it helps! --Sumple 11:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map

Someone find a map so we can fill up the hideous space next to "administration". --Jiang 00:24, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I have an early 1900s administrative map of Shanghai drawn by British Surveyors. It's HUGE though (takes up a whole wall) and I would have to scan it in parts. It'd be great to get online, but it might be best to external-link it. Unsure on copyright too. I can't get at it for about 10 months though, as it's back in Australia (I'm in Shanghai now) --Pratyeka 01:33, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It'll be very useful re: history of Shanghai. Seeing how Shanghai was developed and organized systematically after that. We may have to create early twentieth-century Shanghai just to explain some of the buildings on the map. But this map is not suitable alone for Shanghai. Do you have a district outline map? -Menchi 02:03, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

If you're looking for modern districts, I have never seen a general map with only districts marked. If you're looking for the classic early 20th century "French city", "Chinese city", etc. then I have seen a few, but they've all been in modern books and are thus likely in copyright. I can certainly work on drawing my own maps (traced over scans) once I get back home next year, if nobody's done anything by then. Interestingly, one of the academics at my university has recently published a(nother) book on the history of Shanghai, so I could probably make this in to a pet project and get help from her, though again this would have to be next year. --Pratyeka 07:40, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Here are some district maps in various years: [1] But they're copyrighted I believe. --Menchi 08:02, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I have a new computer here in Shanghai now, so I can produce some new maps from those. I'll give it a whirl. I think the size will end up being necessarily large though, as the changes over time in the size of the city's borders (or whatever the large blue region is) are not very extreme, and will be unclear on a smaller resolution image once I overlap the borders of various yea:rs. --prat 23:02, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)

Well, I just layered them up in Illustrator but came to the conclusion that the maps are unusually large scale for the early 20th century period and are thus likely not really all that useful after all. The major changes visible as you progress through time are redivisions of existing land within greater Shanghai, particularly around the city's outlying areas. I can certainly produce a map illustrating these Changes but it would not be in the classic early 20th century central city map style... --prat 23:33, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)

Hi, sorry I didn't realize there was some discussion about maps already. I drew a Shanghai district map using several scanned tourist maps as a base. Should I upload the plain district map without any district highlighting to Shanghai main page? you can see the highlighted maps under different district pages. Also, should those small Puxi districts actually have a district map which only shows Puxi and part of Pudong. Huangpu, Luwan and Jingan are especially tiny on that Shanghai municipality district map. -- Huopa 2004-10-09 13:22 (GMT)

I've made a map from Huopa's district maps:

-- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 17:01, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I'm experiencing some weirdness with the uploading of the map... I've uploaded a new version that has the word "Minhang" cross the Huangpu River, but it's not showing up for me (ISP cache?). So can you guys please help me confirm: is the word "Minhang" on the left bank of the Huangpu or does it cross over?

Thanks in advance. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 17:25, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

I can see it crossing over the river, and not squeezed against the left -- only if I go to the image directly: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4b/Shanghai.png and force reload. Just a cache delay it seems. --Menchi 18:12, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation placement

Why is it appropriate for the Solitaire game definition to be at the top of this page? Surely it is a rather minor meaning compared to what I am guessing most page visitors are looking for? It was put there and called "disambiguation" but that is not what I understand it to be, just an alternative and rather minor meaning. I feel that it shoudl be at or near the page bottom. Nevilley 10:07, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The solution now in place, of putting in a proper disambiguation block, is much neater. Whatever the standard is supposed to be, it cannot be right that visitors to a page about a city see an alternative meaning, looking like a definition, before they even get to the city. I think that was ruled out by common sense and I am glad to see something more suitable now in place. Thanks to ?Menchi who I think made this amendment. Nevilley 10:31, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's lucky that there are actually other encyclopedic things with "Shanghai" in it. In accordance to current disambiguation policies that Bryan brought up, if shanghai is used only as the Mahjong name and the verb that means "rob", then I'm afraid every single visitor to this article be struck with that obscure solitaire game screaming at them for attention, every single time they read that page. Phew!

Anyway, thank you for bringing up this aesthetic/stylistic issue. --?Menchi 10:39, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Music schools

We've got a colleges and unis section in this article... in Shanghai there are at least two specialist music schools (perhaps many more, for all I know!). Whilst one of these was I think for younger kids (i.e. school age) and hence perhaps outside the scope of the section, I am *moderately* sure that one is providing a graduate-level education to post-school-age people and therefore, like many music schools and conservatoires elsewhere, operating at the university/college level. Is there a knowledgable person who can fill in for my ignorance and provide the listing, if it's appropriate? Thanks. Nevilley 10:30, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There's the Shanghai conservatory of music, and there's the conservatory high school.--Sumple 12:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Simplified vs. Traditional

At the risk of beating a dead horse, given that Shanghai is on the Mainland and that Traditional characters are extremely uncommon here, it might make more sense to refer to things in Simplified characters. At least, if traditional characters must be included, at least include simplified as well, preferably first. It makes as much sense to refer to Shanghai-specific places and people's names using Traditional characters as it would to talk about Taibei-specific places and names with Simplified characters.

For example, hu4 (used on license plates to refer to Shanghai, and in other places as well) is refered to almost exclusively using traditional characters, except at the beginning of the article. I've lived in Shanghai for a long time and I can honestly say that I have never seen the traditional form used here. For someone not particularly fluent in written Chinese, this could be confusing. Those of us able to read Chinese reasonably well of course understand both, usually.

Changed the characterization of new migrants as "Mandarin-speaking". Actually most of the migrants are no more or less Mandarin-speaking than Shanghaiese.

Roadrunner 17:17, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

You know what would be great? A picture of the Pudong skyline. It represents the incredible economic progress Shanghai has been through in the last 10 years or so.

[[User:Colipon|Colipon+(T)]] 17:21, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have some such photos on my little personal web site [2], in case anyone feels this would bebe a suitable link to the page... -JL - 12:39, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

irrelevant comment here, but does anyone else wonder what drugs the architects were on when they designed these new buildings in shanghai? --Sumple 11:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pollution

shanghai has "surprisingly little air pollution" we learned in school that shanghai was very industrialized and had lots of air pollution. who's right?

does anyone have any information on this? -- Tyagi 01:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

From what I can see (not now, its night now) the sky sometimes seems very dusty, sometimes very clear. Compared to what i've seen when I was in Beijing the sky here does look very clean. I can't compare it to other city's though because of lack of experience. CyeZ 16:47, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Errr... It needs a little more scientific evidence as oppose to observational evidence. People used to living in polluted are usually used to it and won't think of it as bad as it is. I'm sure there are air pollution/smog indices available. --Kvasir 17:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

As for being used to living in smog: I definetely am not used to live in smog, the town I lived in less than a year ago had less than 1000 inhabitants and wasnt near any big city. CyeZ 13:15, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The official data for the overall air pollution of major cities in China in 2003 is here (in Chinese). Shanghai ranks 22nd best among the 42 cities, while Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing ranked 36th, 35th and 41st respectively. R6144 17:23, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah that is great. a simple comparison statement and a link to the webpage would be great re: air pollution in Shanghai in the article. --Kvasir 20:31, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about you, but from an airplane above (very recently) you just don't notice Shanghai as a city with "little air pollution". The smog can be seen, although not as clearly as Beijing. In Beijing it literally just hovers above the buildings. Colipon+(T) 20:41, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. R6144 13:40, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I've been looking at the data... but are you really sure you are not reading the table in the wrong direction? It seems to me the higher bars would indicate higher polution, in that case polution in Beijing would be considerably higher than Shanghai. But my Chinese reading isn't very good yet, so I'm not entirely sure. CyeZ 13:52, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the rankings I gave above are counted from best to worst, or from right to left in the figure.

Daily air quality for all major Chinese cities can be found on the State Environmental Protection Administration page, in English: http://english.sepa.gov.cn/

[edit] Nickname

Shanghai is sometimes referred to as the whore of the East. Can someone back me up on this. Here are some websites: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

I hope this term stands and isn't reverted for supposed vandalism. CoolGuy 07:30, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

the nickname of Shanghai described on this page is inaccurate, "Queen of the Orient"? how come I've never heard of that one? The most famous nickname of Shanghai is "The Paris of the East", "The Pearl of Orient", and "The Whore of Asia"

"cradle of revolution", that's what i grew up with. talk about cultural differences, eh? --Sumple 11:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Westernization"

It is written under the economics headline that Shanghai has recently been improving its banking etc. sectors to compete with Hong Kong. A glaring error in this entry is the use of the term "westernize." This term is vague and hints of racial superiority. Please edit by replacing the term "westernize" with "modernize."

I replaced one of them, but other instances of "westernize" appeared to be correct - for example, "The Pudong district of Shanghai contains purposefully westernized streets (European/American 'feeling' districts)" - where the text actually was referring to western culture and such. Feel free to make further edits yourself, if there are others I missed. Bryan 06:47, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

- This is actually somewhat a ridiculous statement, Bryan. Many Shanghai streets before WWII were "westernized streets" too. Pudong is not unique, this is what makes Shanghai Shanghai.

I think it would be good to show how Pudang district was before, since its a pretty new area- does anyone have pictures? --200.158.156.40 22:03, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

you can still see "old" pudong out beyond the new glitzy weirdo buildings. lots of canals, some drab streets... rice paddies here and there. --Sumple 11:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

I deleted a section that said something like "Shanghai in Shanghainese is pronounced "Zanhe" with "Zan" sounding like "zon" in Amazon, and "he" sounding like "hey".

This was written by someone who either knows no Shanghainese or has a very weird accent in English. The "Shang" part is pronounced like "zarn", with "arn" as in barn. the "hai" part is pronounced like a bit like "hair", but withou the "err" bit at the end. In any case, i think the pronunciation is best left to the IPA. --Sumple (Talk) 23:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

- I think it's best (most text efficient and informative) if we made a recording. The Shanghainese pronunciation ranges from the "awn" in English "lawn" to Mandarin "ang". "arn" is a little off (kind of "bent" feeling). Nishishei 06:33, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

on second thought, yeah it does sound like "awn" or "zon" in horizontal. but the second part is not so close to "hay" coz its /he/ not /hei/ (sorry i cbb typing the IPA characters: hope you know what i'm talking about) --Sumple (Talk) 05:07, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delisted GA

Hi. I have removed this article from the Wikipedia:Good article listing due to the following:

No references. One of the GA criteria is that a reference section must be provided. Inline citations are preferred but not required. When this issue has been addressed, please feel free to re-nominate. Thanks! Air.dance 04:06, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Busiest Port

Previously, there was a passage in the page as followed, "Shanghai is also home to the world's busiest port, followed by Singapore and Rotterdam." However, there is no standardised means of evaluating port performance and traffic. It is very doubtful, and possibly inaccurate to write 'Shanghai is the busiest port in the world.' Therefore, recently I have changed the wording to become "Shanghai is also one of the world's busiest ports." Apprently less decriptive, however, I believe the wording is less controversial, as we can see there are other sources say that Singapore or Hong Kong is the busiest port in the world seperately. Here are some links for your references, and if you search in Google or other search engines, you will find more than one answer to the question: which is the busiest port in the world. [8] this one claims Singapore [9] this one claims Hong Kong

Hopefully, the change of the wordings will be understood by some anticipated wikipedians who are also enthusiastic about the international status of Shanghai. C n ho 18:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shanghai Global Paradise

Would you write a few words about the above? See [10] Adam78 21:24, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shanghai's Infobox

Can the person who keeps changing the format and looks of Shanghai's infobox stop for a moment and try to be consistent? Please make Shanghai's infobox look roughly similar to that of Beijing, Chongqing, and Tianjin's infobox. All four are Chinese municipalities and should have the same infobox template format. Okay, save the picture of Shanghai's skyline. But the other things must be consistent. If anybody here is willing to help, maybe somebody can also upload a skyline image each in the Beijing, Tianjin, and Chongqing's infobox section too? And actually, the current Puxi skyline image is really ugly (slanted, foggy, not clear in distance). Anybody have better picture of Shanghai for the infobox? --Heilme 23:19, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Several people have been tweaking the new infobox format. Beijing is consistent with Shanghai... The new style is more aesthetically pleasing, because the geographic location map background matches the table background. Also, the official English name of Shanghai is "Shanghai Municipality" not Hanyu Pinyin "Shanghai Shi." The old style's abbreviations placed way at the top with a gray bar underneath is also arbitrary and unnecessary. I am in the process of updating Tianjin and Chongqing, that's why I have been reverting. Once Tianjin and Chongqing are done, then at least the 4 municipalities will be consistent. We can work on the provinces slowly. Naus 02:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I am OK with this, if we can all make 4 municipalities consistent, then start tackling the other provinces. But, is there any Wikiproject for this, new format agreed by everyone, or is this just your idea? I am not aware of any such new discussion. However, as I mentioned in your talk page, this new style (created last week) is actually a direct copy of Berlin's infobox style. Heilme 02:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Shanghai article

It looks like the history section of the article is now long enough to be spun off as a separate article. The whole Shanghai article is probably too long, anyway. Please comment before I or someone else makes the change. --Easytoremember 03:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Support. --Sumple (Talk) 04:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shanghai vs. HK

Can someone think of a way to diplomatically point out that, while Shanghai has stronger links to the central government than Hong Kong, that is not a clear advantage. Hong Kong is directly controlled by a competent administration (with some meddling by from Beijing), while control of Shanghai is spread between an often incompetent central authority in Beijing and a slightly less incompetent, but far from sophisticated, municipal government. --Easytoremember 08:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

... who said it was a clear advantage? what is this perceived shanghai vs hong kong rivalry anyway? the two cities are clearly miles apart in many different aspects. Until the day when the streets in Shanghai do not flood every time it rains, there is no competition. --Sumple (Talk) 04:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Shanghai gets more typhoons I think than Hong Kong, so while Shanghai has less annual rainfall than Hong Kong, Shanghai has heavier pours during typhoon season. Plus, Shanghai is on lower geographic elevation (easier to flood). So that's not a fair comparison. You are right, there is no rivary, China's definitely large enough to have several Shanghai and Hong Kongs. People who believe there is some kind of rivarly between the two are usually not from either city. ;). Naus 23:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Haha I concur. --Sumple (Talk) 03:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

i'm thinking of using Shanghai as a template for improving other Chinese city articles...is there an infox format for cities? or does one have to go through all that bgcolor and stuff to edit...thx...and btw...is the shanghai article quality like really, really good? i've read it and i must say not bad...but u guys have worked on this for like ever...thoughts? suggestions? Edit: srry forgot to sign zeChinaman 04:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too many photoes

There are too many photoes in this article. This is also the case for some other cities in China. These unnecessary photoes make these articles flashy and shadow. Wikipedia articles about other international major cities usualy have less than 5 photoes.

Definitely agree. Too many photos and they keep changing the photo so often. This is an encyclopedia, not a public photo gallery. Plus, the pics are basically the same: the same old boring skyscrapers. Heilme 15:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos

I agree, there are way too much photos. Most of them unnecessary Someone should remove quite a few off.

i like them. i added some more. who said that encyclopedia has to be boring? and who has the time to read all those articles? only old people. most people don't have time to sit here to read everything. a pic is way better than a paragraph.

I deleted some of your out of context photos. We don't need 10 pictures of Pudong and 10 pictures of the Bund. That's too cliche for an encyclopedia. Shanghai is a lot bigger and more interesting than the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Yeah it's beautiful, but I'm sick of seeing it in every section of this article. If you ask an old Shanghainese like me, I don't even consider Pudong part of the city core. Pudong is a glamorized suburb. In recent years, Puxi has become just as developed as Pudong, but with a lot more cultural flavor. Also, the pictures that some of you keep uploading are pretty low in quality, very amateur. There are tons of higher quality photos of Shanghai on Flickr and many are Creative Commons licensed (so available for use on Wikipedia). --Naus 16:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

This 71.156.40.101 and 75.8.211.164 guy has been very disruptive, posting out of context photos and writing Chinese titles. --128.135.60.9 04:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sister City

In the Guayaquil page it says that Shanghai is one of its sister cities, but I coudln't find anything about it in this page. Maybe it should be added?

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