Reflections by Joanne

AMERICANS IN SHANGHAI

Hoffmann, an American, moved to Shanghai in 1995, when the city was on the brink of arguably the biggest construction boom in history. I met him at the US Consulate Economic Briefing and has since then been working with him as he documents the changing face of a metropolis, which in the Sixties was home to the most hard-line brand of Maoist communism, but now brings into focus all the disparities that emerge when market forces are unleashed so suddenly across a vast society.

Most stark are the social divides. In one world, Shanghai's new middle class is discovering the pleasures of fashion, nightlife and weekends away; under their noses, some three to four million rural migrant workers have become part of the urban backdrop. These peasants are the willing cannon fodder in China's modernization push - and Shanghai is the front-line.

Shanghai may still be run by a repressive Communist government, but there is considerable scope for an enterprising foreign photographer. I remember accompanying Hoffmann talking his way past the security guard on the Jinmao site, and asking for the management building. "Someone handed me a hard hat and a badge, and said: 'Be careful'. This is one of the great things about being a photographer in China. In the same situation in the US, I'd never have got in there so easily."


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	AMERICANS IN SHANGHAI Hoffmann, an American, moved to Shanghai in 1995, when the city was on the brink of arguably the biggest construction boom in history. I met him at the US Consulate Economic Briefing and has since then been working with him as he documents the changing face of a metropolis, which in the Sixties was home to the most hard-line brand of Maoist communism, but now brings into focus all the disparities that emerge when market forces are unleashed so suddenly across a vast society. Most stark are the social divides. In one world, Shanghai's new middle class is discovering the pleasures of fashion, nightlife and weekends away; under their noses, some three to four million rural migrant workers have become part of the urban backdrop. These peasants are the willing cannon fodder in China's modernization push - and Shanghai is the front-line. Shanghai may still be run by a repressive Communist government, but there is considerable scope for an enterprising foreign photographer. I remember accompanying Hoffmann talking his way past the security guard on the Jinmao site, and asking for the management building. "Someone handed me a hard hat and a badge, and said: 'Be careful'. This is one of the great things about being a photographer in China. In the same situation in the US, I'd never have got in there so easily."