Shanghai Nostalgia-an Investigation Of Its Meaning Through Contemporary Lens

Strolling on the streets of Shanghai, one will find it easy to discover that thereminiscence of the old Shanghai is permeating in the city’s cultural scene: Cafes,boutiques and restaurants decorating themselves in the style of the Shanghai inRepublican era, reprinted posters from the1930s and1940s enjoying popularity, andcommodities utilizing the themes of the old Shanghai are not difficult to see. Such anoverwhelming trend to embrace the Republican Shanghai interested the author. Theold Shanghai repeatedly appearing in the cultural scene is mainly pointed to theRepublican Shanghai from the historical period of1920s to1940s. The author cannothelp but being curious why people started to look back on the past when the raceforward into the future seems like the mainstream. More importantly, what is themeaning of Shanghai nostalgia? And what is it about Shanghai’s prime years in theRepublican era that this nostalgia attempts to capitalize on?Since Shanghai nostalgia is much manifested in the visual culture, that is, in what wesee, the author employs the semiotic approach, a constructionist method in analyzingthe visuals, including social semiotics, in the analysis. Meanwhile，a socio-historicalapproach to contextualize the subjects under study is also used in the analysis of thisthesis. A collection of several photographs from a photo album named “ShanghaiVertical” was selected as the primary subjects in this study. This photo album featuresShanghai’s past, present and future, and captures the cultural heritage left of the city’sprime years in today’s contexts. Through analyzing the photographs, the author foundout that although the representation of the reminiscence of the old Shanghai is muchreflected in consumerism, its meaning can be extended far beyond that. The meaningmaking of Shanghai nostalgia is more related to the intercultural-ism andglobalization in old Shanghai’s golden years. This nostalgia, in fact, represents acultural imaginary for the city’s future identity---to resume the seat of a globalmetropolis and the site where the East and the West, the best and the most advancedfind their expressions.