Why Have Port Cities Such as Odessa and Shanghai Been Mythologized as 'cities of Sin'?

Why have port cities such as Odessa and Shanghai been mythologized as 'cities of sin'?

There is a danger when approaching the word 'mythologization' to assume that stories of Shanghai and Odessa are fictitious. These two port cities have, through literature, become immortalised as havens of iniquity and sin. Just as in the stories of the lost city Eldorado, 'Old Shanghai' and 'Old Odessa' are fabulous lost cities, inspiring wonder amongst those who have heard their tales. Books, folk songs, plays and even films, to this day commemorate Odessa and Shanghai's reputations as cities of crime, narcotics and carnal pleasures, regardless of the cities they have become or the truths of their pasts. Certainly the stories of these two ports of Sin have received more attention than other comparable ports, and indeed their stories are more fantastical. However, both 'Old Odessa' and 'Old Shanghai' cannot be entirely viewed as a construct. Their stories are not without foundation. Myth need not necessarily imply falsehood.

Certainly these myths have at times been embellished, with the storytellers wrapped up in the nostalgia of the past. The stories of Odessa present it as a city run by a criminal Jewish contingent of swindlers and thieves and the stories of Shanghai describe a city filled with opium dens and women of the night, and yet they remain almost mystical places of wonder. However for a myth to flourish there must be a certain truth behind them, and much of the mythologization of these two cities are based on their actual characteristics. Isaac Babel's stories of a city of 'foreign wines' and Jewish 'gangster kings,' are reflected in the city's relationship with Economics and European Jewry. In Shanghai, James Lee's world of 'secret chambers of vice' can be seen in the port's links to the opium trade and the vast throngs of prostitutes. Although literature has much to do with the mythologization of these two cities, their economics, demography and legislation, especially in the international context of revolution and war, were the basis of why these cities became notorious as cities of sin.

Due to its economic freedom, its huge wealth, and the cosmopolitanism by which almost every European power had a foothold, Shanghai grew faster from the 1890s to the outbreak of World War II than any other Chinese city. With this growth and economic freedom, came an unusually wide array of occupational groups: Chinese novelists, foreign journalists, filmmakers, sailors and actresses and sex workers. These became the stereotypical inhabitants for which Shanghai was famed, and this atmosphere of freedom and earthly pleasures turned the city into a temple to both the glamorous and the decadent. The economic opportunities in Shanghai caused massive immigration, with almost every European nation being represented in the cities' legislation. Shanghai did not have to answer to a single power, but every power. East didn't meet west in Shanghai, Russia met Britain, Japan met Portugal, India met France and all met China.

Like most port cities, Shanghai was split into different areas of residence according to ones nationality, the most economically dynamic foreign section being the ''International Settlement'. This area was governed by a locally elected body that was unusually cosmopolitan, with members of every European nation with interests in Shanghai represented. The rest of the city was split into two separate concessions, each under a different jurisdiction. The cosmopolitanism and dispersal of power was reflected in the city's lax legislation. To cope with this otherwise complicated system of lawmaking in Shanghai, by which interests between countries would have otherwise been conflicting; laws outside the economic domain were essentially relaxed. Before 1927, Shanghai did not have to answer to any single government body. This situation gave rise to a city that facilitated the proliferation of racketeering, narcotics and vice. Chasing riches became the only concern to the under governed Shanghai, and the city became known as a city where 'money talks and nobody walks' , where the riches and hedonistic pleasures was prised above morality.

Shanghai's lax legislation also gave rise to a tolerance for Opium, which was to make the city both extremely profitable and give it a reputation as a city of iniquity. Especially in James Lee's account of Shanghai, this link to the Opium trade was an important factor in the mythologization of Shanghai as a city of sin. Lee in his book 'The Underworld of the East' describes his opium-fuelled journey through Shanghai, and his description of the opium dens and Chinese coolies was not without foundation. Shanghai was a city that was dependent on the money coming from the illegal opium trade, a city 'literally built on Opium' . In the early part of the twentieth century, $40 million dollars worth of Opium flooded Shanghai's streets every year, and there were over 1,500 opium dens in the city. Even when in 1912 the Shanghai Municipal Council shut down the opium dens in the international settlement, the cities need for opium was not assuaged. Opium distribution was simply pushed underground and into the hands of the 'Green Gang' and other criminal contingents. The International Settlement in Shanghai was policed as effectively as any city in the world, yet no amount of policing in Shanghai could stop the smoking. As Perry Finch writes - 'Pipes burned within the shadow of the central police station. Opium remained in Shanghai, a defining characteristic of the city. Lee observed, 'the very air seemed to be flavoured with the smell of burning opium.'

Similarly Odessa was a 'free port'. Not only did this mean free in the economic sense, but also in the affairs of the cities inhabitants. Freedom to trade meant freedom to establish businesses of all sorts, which in turn enabled a certain license in public affairs, which was unknown in other parts of the Russian empire. The economic freedom filtered down to the demography of the city. Odessa's commercial prosperity, lax legislation and balmy southern climate attracted legions of adventurers seeking easy wealth and earthly pleasures throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, perhaps the most significant of which were the European Jews. Odessa became a city that was more a city of Europe, (or a city perhaps of global Jewry) than a city of Russia. Much like Shanghai, Odessa became vilified as a city of Sin. However what sets Odessa apart from other cities of sin was its relationship with European Jewry, and the 'Port Jew.'

Lois Dubin and

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