Shanghai is now truly a global city. Not because it is the financial center of the country that holds an estimated $2 trillion in U.S. currency and assets. And not because next year it will host the first World Expo in China and the “developing world.” Shanghai has finally joined the ranks of London, New York and Tokyo because it is the location of China’s first true Haunted House. And it is a transcultural and commercial success.
Each night some 800 people pay US $14 each to be frightened senseless by local actors playing ghosts, goblins and demons. Its Chinese and American creators, who “studied” the ins and outs of the haunted house industry at HauntCon, the American “haunted attraction national tradeshow and convention,” held this April in Milwaukee, are so overwhelmed by demand they are scrambling to stay open past 万圣节 (wan sheng jie, or Halloween).
Thirty years ago, events like Halloween were condemned as “bourgeois liberalism” and Western “spiritual pollution” by Chinese cadres. Back then such a Haunted House would surely have been banned. Although Shanghai’s leaders have not commented publicly on the Haunted House, it is likely they are at least passive supporters. The House, after all, is good for business (and taxes). And business is always good for Shanghai. Even if most of the customers are expatriates — some 100,000 foreigners live and work in this city of 20 million — the House helps show the world that Shanghai is cosmopolitan. “We have everything … even a haunted house!”
The House does indeed represent another milestone in China’s opening up to the outside world, a tangible sign of increasing interest in foreign cultures and customs. Young Chinese typing “Halloween” into Baidu, China’s version of a search engine and Wikipedia, will find an eclectic archive of materials. Everything from the history of All Saint’s Day to the lyrics of Lou Reed’s “Halloween Parade” and, of course, how to say “Trick or Treat” (不给糖就捣蛋: bu gei tang jiu dao dan) and “Smell My Feet” (闻闻我的脚 : wen wen wo de jiao ) in Mandarin.
The Haunted House also represents a local response to the growth of a global entertainment industry. Its creators are reaching out for the interest and incomes of the hundreds of millions of China’s middle class, who are at the same time also being courted by American and Western cultural industries. If you are hot — Beyonce — you have to see your Chinese fans this year. And if you are trying to stay hot, you also need to come to China. Andrew Lloyd Webber recently announced he will stage Asia’s first production of the Phantom of the Opera in Shanghai.
And so now Shanghai has adult Halloween Dance and Music Party events for its own middle class, as well as a Garden of Eden (Halloween Night) affair for expats. It even has two events for its increasingly active gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community: Sexy Halloween Party and a Demons and Ghosts Halloween Night Party. All of these are hosted by trendy bars and professional party and music event companies that, as with the Haunted House, are mergers of transnational labor, capital, ideas and technology.
And yet US $14 is a lot of cash for many in a city where average salaries are less than US $6,000. But maybe a global city can afford to charge global prices. As part of its very aggressive plan to push its citizens toward public transportation, the Shanghai government put up only 8,000 automobile license plates for auction this month, causing online bids to soar above US $5,000. And recently more than 20,000 young Shanghainese toured the annual education fair for overseas education, where more than 300 foreign schools sought to attract the more than 200,000 Chinese students going overseas each year. Unlike previous periods, many of those going abroad will pay their own way.
It may be a while before Shanghai is able to advance to the next level of cosmopolitan sophistication and host an American-style Howl’oween costumed pet parade. On the other hand, only some 160,000 babies were born in Shanghai last year, and yet in that year Shanghai issued at least that many dog licenses. With annual tuition at a prestigious American university more than US $30,000, and the cost of a dog license a mere US $300 per year, it may be only a matter of time before dogs with faux horns and cats with capes are seen parading down Nanjing Road and Huai Hai Avenue.
Steven W. Lewis is the Baker Institute’s fellow in Asian studies and faculty adviser for the Jesse Jones Leadership Center Summer in D.C. Policy Research Internship Program. He is also a professor in the practice and an associate director of the Chao Center for Asian Studies, as well as an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Sociology, at Rice University. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies, one of China’s top policy think tanks and a research partner of the Baker Institute.