The nude women first appeared a century ago outside the ballroom, with the opening of the Cercle Sportif Français, the first building in Shanghai to introduce Art Deco design to a city that quickly became one of the world’s premier showcases of modern architecture.

一个世纪之前，随着法国总会开业，裸体女性雕塑首次出现在其舞厅之外，这是上海首座引入装饰艺术风格的建筑，而这座城市也迅速成为全球现代建筑的顶级展示窗口之一。

The nudes, molded in plaster on pillars at the top of a grand staircase, vanished after Mao Zedong’s conquest of China in 1949, hidden behind screens put up by prudish commissars scornful of what they saw as Shanghai’s shameful corruption by decadent imperialists.

这些以石膏塑造、位于主楼梯顶端立柱上的裸像，在1949年毛泽东夺取中国政权后便销声匿迹。保守的政治委员鄙视这些雕像，认为它们是上海被腐朽帝国主义玷污的耻辱象征，用屏风将它们彻底遮蔽起来。

They were still covered when I first visited Shanghai more than 45 years ago, but came back into view shortly afterward as a new leadership in Beijing, headed by Deng Xiaoping, pushed China to modernize by opening up to the world.

如今距我初次到访上海已有45年以上，当年这些雕像仍被遮盖；但不久后，随着以邓小平为首的新一届中央领导层推动中国向世界开放、实现现代化，这些雕像重见天日。

前法国总会内的石膏裸女像这家已停业的社交俱乐部现已成为花园酒店的一部分。

In Shanghai — China’s most cosmopolitan city, but also a hotbed of xenophobic politics during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution — the change of direction in the 1980s forced a rethink of history and its message for the future. While Shanghai embodied everything the Communist Party hated — capitalism and imperialism — it also showcased China’s early mastery of modern ways.

上海是中国最具国际化气质的城市，却也是1966年到1976年文革期间排外政治的温床。上世纪80年代的政策转向迫使人们重新审视历史及其对未来的启示。尽管上海体现了共产党所憎恶的一切——资本主义与帝国主义——但它也展现了中国早期对现代文明的驾驭。

“Shanghai was never a foreign city, just China’s most foreign-influenced and most modern city,” said Wu Jiang, a professor of architecture at Tongji University.

“上海从来不是一座外国城市，它只是中国受外国影响最深、最现代化的城市，”同济大学建筑学教授伍江说。

The city’s many different layers of architecture, culture and politics, however, have made it a difficult fit for the Communist Party’s preferred narrative of Chinese victimhood and Western sins, especially when it comes to deciding what stays and what goes.

然而，这座城市在建筑、文化与政治印记上的多重层次让它难以契合共产党偏好的中国受害论与西方有罪论叙事，尤其在保留什么、拆除什么的问题上。

Professor Wu, who served for five years as deputy director of Shanghai’s municipal planning bureau in the early 2000s, pushed to preserve old buildings that many in government saw as uncomfortable reminders of unwelcome foreign intrusions.

伍江在21世纪初曾担任上海市规划局副局长五年，他力主保护那些被许多政府官员视为外国入侵尴尬印记的老建筑。

“People kept asking me: ‘What are you doing? Why do you want to preserve all this imperialist culture?’” he said. “History does not depend on whether you like it or not. You can’t just get rid of everything that makes you feel bad.”

“总有人问我：‘你在做什么？为什么要保护这些帝国主义文化？’”他说。“历史不取决于你喜不喜欢。你不能把让你不舒服的东西全抹掉。”

He recalled initial resistance to any slowing of the frenzy of demolition that started in the 1990s to make way for the shopping malls and high-rise towers that now dominate the urban landscape.

他还记得，上世纪90年代开始，上海掀起拆迁狂潮，为如今遍布全城的商场与摩天大楼让路，当时，任何放缓拆除的提议都遭到了阻力。

Art Deco architectural jewels, preserved during the Mao era largely by economic stagnation, were suddenly under threat. Some survived, however, helped by a growing recognition of their value as an important part of Shanghai’s unique character — and of the role played by Chinese, not just foreigners, in creating them.

那些在毛泽东时代很大程度上因经济停滞而得以保存的装饰艺术建筑瑰宝突然陷入危机。不过，人们渐渐认识到，作为上海独特气质的重要组成部分，这些建筑极具价值，而且在它们的创造过程中，不仅是外国人，中国人也发挥了作用，就这样，其中一些建筑得以幸存下来。

“Some of Shanghai’s most iconic and creative Art Deco building were created by Chinese architects,” said Tina Kanagaratnam, a longtime Shanghai resident from Singapore and a founder of Historic Shanghai, an organization that has worked to safeguard the city’s architectural heritage.

“上海一些最具标志性、最富创意的装饰艺术建筑出自中国建筑师之手，”蒂娜·卡纳加拉特纳姆说。她是新加坡裔上海老居民，也是“上海旧踪”保护组织创始人之一，该组织长期致力于保护这座城市的建筑遗产。

The Majestic Theater, which has screened movies and hosted shows of Chinese opera and Western ballet since the 1940s, was designed by Robert Fan. The Yangtze Hotel, an Art Deco gem that hosted the city’s first all-Chinese jazz band in the 1930s and is now an upscale boutique hotel, was designed by Paul Li Pan.

美琪大戏院自上世纪40年代起放映电影、上演京剧与西方芭蕾，由范文照设计；扬子饭店则是一座装饰艺术精品，上世纪30年代有上海首支全华人爵士乐队演出，如今是高端精品酒店，设计者为李蟠。

扬子饭店是一座由中国设计师打造的装饰艺术风格瑰宝，上海第一支全华裔爵士乐队曾在此演出。

Westerners enjoyed immense privileges in foreign-run enclaves like the French Concession, site of the Cercle Sportif, a now-defunct social club. Seized by the state after the 1949 revolution, the property became an exclusive retreat for model workers and Communist Party functionaries. Mao used its swimming pool, since demolished, during his visits to Shanghai from Beijing. (Today the building is part of the Japanese, luxury Okura Garden Hotel.)

在法租界这样由外国人管理的飞地，西方人享有极大特权，法国总会便坐落于此——这家社交俱乐部现已不复存在。1949年革命后，该建筑被政府没收，成为劳动模范与共产党干部的专属疗养院。毛泽东从北京来沪时，曾使用过这里的游泳池（现已拆除）。如今，这栋建筑是日本奢华酒店花园饭店的一部分。

Foreigners, however, were always a minuscule minority. They accounted for only around 1 percent of the population of a city with around six million residents by the time Mao’s troops arrived. And most were far less wealthy than the Chinese tycoons who controlled some of Shanghai’s most lucrative textile factories, flour mills and banks. Chinese built and owned the four biggest department stores.

但外国人始终是极少数。毛泽东军队进驻时，上海约600万人口中，外国人仅占1%左右。他们当中大多数人的财富也远不及掌控上海最赚钱的纺织厂、面粉厂与银行的华商巨头。上海四大百货公司也均由中国人建造并拥有。

How to reconcile what Rao Shushi, an early leader of the municipal party apparatus, described as Shanghai’s pre-1949 role as “city of parasites” and “foreign adventurers,” with its role as a breeding ground for Chinese talent, entrepreneurial flair and creativity — and also the Chinese Communist Party — has been a long struggle.

早期市委领导人饶漱石曾将1949年之前的上海称为“寄生虫的城市”和“（外国）冒险家的乐园”， 如何将这样的角色与上海作为中国人才、企业家精神、创造力乃至中国共产党的摇篮这一角色相协调，长期以来都是一场艰难的博弈。

The city has two separate municipal public history museums, each telling a somewhat different story. The Shanghai Municipal History Museum at the base of the Oriental Pearl Tower, a tribute to modernity built in the 1990s, celebrates the city as a melting pot where “the merging of traditional Chinese cultural spirit and Western modern civilization made Shanghai a glamorous metropolis.”

上海有两座独立的市级历史博物馆，叙事各有侧重。位于东方明珠塔底层的上海城市历史发展陈列馆落成于上世纪90年代，以现代化为基调，赞颂上海是一座大熔炉，“传统中国文化精神与西方现代文明在此交融，造就了魅力四射的国际大都市”。

由一名中国法官和一名西方法官共同主持法庭审判的场景，这是上海租界地区曾采用的司法制度。

Also known as the Shanghai Urban History and Development Museum, it nods at the dire poverty and exploitation that afflicted parts of the Chinese population, but mostly avoids bombastic “patriotic” messaging. Citing an influx of foreign cigarettes as an example of how Westerners inadvertently spurred China’s economic development, one display explains that “foreign competition for the market compelled domestic industry to rise up with spirit to face the adversary.”

展馆虽提及部分中国民众曾深陷赤贫与被剥削的境遇，但整体避开了浮夸的“爱国主义”说教。一处展区以外国香烟涌入为例，说明西方人如何意外推动中国经济发展：“外货抢占市场，迫使国内工业振作精神，挺身应对挑战。”

Among those who thrived was Rong Zongjing, a flour magnate and cigarette producer whose former mansion, originally built by a German but extensively remodeled by an early 20th-century Chinese architect, has now been lavishly restored by the Italian luxury brand Prada. It is used for fashion shows and exhibitions, and has a chic cafe popular with young Chinese eager for a taste of what they imagine as the elegance of old Shanghai.

那个时代的佼佼者中就有面粉大王和烟草生产商荣宗敬。他的旧居最初由德国人建造，后经20世纪初一位中国建筑师大规模改建，如今被意大利奢侈品牌普拉达斥巨资修复。这里时常举办时装秀与展览，还有一家时髦咖啡馆，深受渴望感受老上海风情的中国年轻人青睐。

位于荣宗敬旧宅内的一家咖啡馆。这座昔日的豪宅现已由意大利奢侈品牌普拉达进行了修复。

The glamour of that era gets short shrift in the Shanghai History Museum, housed in the former Shanghai Race Club, once a bastion of foreign privilege next to the city’s long vanished hippodrome. Merged in 2017-18 with the Shanghai Revolutionary History Museum in response to an ideological tightening ordered by China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, this museum leans heavily into politics, decrying foreign misdeeds and the suffering of Chinese under foreign oppression.

而在上海市历史博物馆，那段黄金时代的魅力却被轻描淡写。这座博物馆位于原上海跑马总会大楼，那里毗邻上海早已消失的跑马场，曾是外国特权的象征。2017-2018年，为响应现任领导人习近平收紧意识形态的要求，该馆与上海革命历史博物馆合并，高度侧重政治色彩，痛斥外国的恶行与中国民众在外国压迫下的苦难。

That same reading of history suffuses a must-see stop on China’s Red Tourism trail — the French Concession building where Soviet agitators, Mao and a dozen other Chinese Communists met in 1921 to hold the Party’s founding national congress. The message hammered home here is that Shanghai “suffered greatly under the colonial yoke,” subjected to “plundering, imperialism and exploitation.”

同样的历史解读也贯穿中国“红色旅游” 路线上的必经之地——法租界的建筑群中。1921年，苏联鼓动者、毛泽东与其他十余名中国共产党人在此召开中国共产党的成立大会。这里反复强调的信息是：上海“在殖民枷锁下饱受苦难”，遭受“掠夺、帝国主义与剥削”。

上海市历史博物馆经过重新规划，使其更具“爱国主义”色彩，此举是为了响应中国现任领导人习近平下令加强意识形态管控的号召。一幅描绘1949年革命的画作。

Anti-foreign sentiment reached its peak in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards ransacked the homes of residents suspected of harboring fondness for the old days. Any connection to the West — even possession of a piano or foreign books — invited beatings, sometimes to death.

在文化大革命期间，上海的反外国情绪达到了顶峰，红卫兵大肆抄查被怀疑思念旧时代的居民住宅。任何与西方有关的联系——哪怕只是拥有一架钢琴或几本外文书籍——都会招致殴打，有时甚至致死。

The trauma of that decade, however, does not feature in any of the city’s museums or exhibition halls. Red Guard slogans sometimes resurface, briefly, when bulldozers move in to demolish old buildings, dislodging layers of paint and plaster covering up now-taboo calls for merciless struggle against class enemies and imperialists.

但这十年的创伤在上海任何博物馆或展厅中都无迹可寻。推土机拆除老建筑时，偶尔会短暂露出红卫兵标语——随着覆盖在墙上的油漆与石膏层层剥落，那些号召无情打倒阶级敌人与帝国主义、如今已被视为禁忌的口号便得以短暂地重见天日。

描绘这座城市不同历史时期场景的壁画，装饰着这个已人去楼空、静待重新开发的街区的建筑。一个计划进行再开发的旧城区。

Wang Hongwen, a radical textile worker elevated to the rank of China’s vice chairman by Mao during the Cultural Revolution, is never mentioned, despite his being Shanghai’s most prominent representative in the national leadership for years. His former workplace, the Shanghai No. 17 Cotton Textile Mill, a center of Cultural Revolution fervor, has been redeveloped and became the Shanghai Fashion Center, an outlet mall.

王洪文曾是一位激进的纺织工人，文革期间被毛泽东提拔为国家副主席，尽管多年来他是上海在中央领导层最显赫的代表，却从未被提及。他工作过的上海第十七棉纺织厂曾是文革狂热的中心，如今已被改造为上海国际时尚中心，一家品牌折扣购物中心。

With China’s economy cooling amid a prolonged property crisis, the frenzied destruction of Shanghai’s past has slowed. The city government also put a brake on willy-nilly demolition by drawing up a long list of protected heritage sites.

随着中国经济在长期地产危机中降温，上海疯狂摧毁历史的步伐也已放缓。市政府也列出一长串受保护遗产名录，叫停了随意拆除行为。

A big problem today, Professor Wu said, is the decay of districts slated for redevelopment during boom years but which, emptied of residents to make way for bulldozers, are crumbling because developers ran out of money. “Slow decay is sometimes worse than demolition,” he said.

伍江说，如今最大的问题是：繁荣期被划入拆迁范围的街区，居民已被清空，建筑等待被推平，却因开发商资金链断裂而日渐破败。“缓慢的腐朽有时比直接拆除更糟，”他说。