Demon Capital Shanghai: The "Modern" Experience of Japanese Intellectuals - Chapter 6 The "Modern City" and the Shōwa Period

Abstract

In this final installment of Liu’s book, we see Shanghai at the peak of its prewar exuberance and decadence. Skyscraper architecture, every style from the West, widespread strikes—it is a time when Shanghai became both “modern†and “mass.†We follow the writers Yokomitsu Riichi, Yoshiyuki Eisuke, and others to Shanghai and back, and we learn about the many movies made in 1930s and 1940s Shanghai. We conclude with a reflective epilogue on Shanghai’s place in modern China’s and modern Japan’s cultural life, as well as self-reflective thoughts of the author on what Shanghai meant to him as a youngster growing up in Shenyang.