Before We Begin: Places No One Can Avoid
First, what this part gathers
Part Three gathers places worth going to — places you come to "see". Part Five gathers places you cannot get into — places you come to "understand". Part Six gathers places you have read about — places you come to "remember".
This part gathers a fourth kind: places that are impossible to avoid.
They are not measured by whether they are "worth it", because you do not go to them "on purpose" — you will certainly go:
- If you take a train, you cannot avoid Shanghai Railway Station;
- If you look for somewhere to settle your heart, you may well walk into Lingquan Church;
- If you see a loved one on their last journey, you may well arrive at West Baoxing Road;
- If you want to watch a circus, you will go to Shanghai Circus World.
They do not exist for you to understand Zhabei; they exist for your life in the first place. Zhabei's history is written on the battlefield and in books, and it is written in places like these too — places that sit quietly inside ordinary life, welcoming and seeing off, year after year.
A boundary line
This part is the easiest of all to confuse with Part Three. The line is this:
The "notable sites" of Part Three are Zhabei's "sights"; the "landmarks" of this part are Zhabei's "everyday". A sight can be seen and then left behind; the everyday cannot be shaken off — because you are in it yourself.
There are exceptions. Baoxing Funeral Home stands on West Baoxing Road — the boundary road between the former Zhabei and Hongkou, and administratively part of Hongkou. This book includes it because, in the memory of old Zhabei people, "West Baoxing Road" was always part of their own lives. It stands at the edge of the district, yet what it does serves half of Shanghai.
This category: four places
| # | Place | Type | Location | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shanghai Railway Station | Transport | 303 Moling Road | On 28 December 1987 the "Shanghai Station" signboard moved from the old North Station to the "new station" |
| 2 | Lingquan Church | Religion | 1555 Linfen Road | From a gathering point to a church that can hold a thousand people, it waited eight years |
| 3 | Baoxing Funeral Home | Farewells | 833 West Baoxing Road | "From a distance it looks like a park, up close like a hotel, and only when you walk in do you know it is a funeral home" |
| 4 | Shanghai Circus World | Performance | 2266 Gonghexin Road | "China's No. 1 Circus City": first the circus, then the park |
A few reminders
- This is not a "sightseeing list". These four places each have their own rules of entry: the station needs a ticket, the church has service times, and the funeral home is even less a place to "visit". Please follow the notes in each piece's "Practical tips".
- Read them alongside the other parts. The station is where the old trilogy ends and the new story begins — its "predecessor" is in Part Three, its "locomotive bloodline" in Part Five; Circus World was the first move in Daning's development, and the follow-up moves are all in Part Two's piece on the sub-district.
- A sense of direction in the names. "East Baoxing Road" and "West Baoxing Road" were once the same "Baoxing Road", and were only divided into sections in 1995 — this detail is in the "Baoxing Funeral Home" piece.
- This category will grow. Zhabei's "places no one can avoid" are more than these four. Most of them are not in travel guides, yet they are on a generation's daily schedule — places like these deserve a part to gather them.
So let us begin with the platform of a station.