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The Park Hotel – Ballard’s View

Posted: April 22nd, 2010 | No Comments »

Rather surprisingly it has taken me quite a while to get around to reading the late and sorely missed JG Ballard’s autobiography Miracles of Life. I had it sitting there and admit to saving it for a day when everyone else in the house was out and I could devote a few hours to reading it from start to finish in one sitting. And fantastic it is too – especially for me as both a die-hard Ballardian and with an interest in Shanghai (and, incidentally, living just round the corner from Ballard’s boyhood home).

He has nice comments on many places in Shanghai – including the Park Hotel which I have referred to before and has recently been undergoing yet another ‘refurbishment’ – this must be about the fifth in the last 15 years and every time a few more original art-deco features disappear to be replaced by faux marble, plasterboard and other ephemeral glitter so beloved of Shanghai refurbishers. Of course given my own research interests and current writing projects dealing with the seedier side of foreign life in China before the War his comments pleased me immensely.

Ballard has a couple of nice descriptions of the Park:

‘…the army of prostitutes in fur coats outside the Park Hotel, “waiting for friends” as Vera (Ballard’s stern White Russian nanny) told me.’

‘The Park Hotel, overlooking the former racecourse and a vast brothel for American servicemen after the war, had been one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai…’

Guess those two quotes probably won’t make it into the new brochure!

park hotel



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