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Italian takes rickshaw tour of Shanghai in 1924
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In November 1924, Italian physician and travel writer Ezzelino Magli visited Shanghai for the first time and traveled in a rickshaw on an insightful three-day trip — without the typical European baggage of Asian stereotypes.
He visited both the upscale spots in the international settlement and French concession and the long, twisting and smelly longtang (alleyways) in the Old Town.
Magli (1872-1939), the doctor for an Italian shipping line, was well traveled and he published six books about his observations in Australia, Africa and Asia. He was also a collector, establishing his private Oriental museum in Bologna in the 1930s.
In 1925, he published “China Gate (Shanghai)” in Italy, with photos of city scenes, people he talked to, and crafts he bought. Last month, the book was republished in three languages — Chinese, Italian and English.
“This book is very important because this is the only travel book published in Italy at the time and it focused entirely on the old Shanghai,” says the book’s discoverer, Stefano Piastra, professor of the Institute of Historical Geography at Fudan University. He is also a professor of the University of Naples.
“Magli only spent a few days in Shanghai, but sometimes the quality of the work is not directly related to the quantity of time you spend in a place.
Other Italians may have stayed longer, but they were fascists and colonialists, because fascists took power in Italy in 1922,” he adds. “Magli, on the other hand, was outside of that mainstream colonialist thinking and more of an objective observer of the city, not burdened too much with stereotypes (of Asia).”
Piastra notes that the Italian community has always been a minority among Shanghailanders.
There were fewer than 100 of them before 1900, around 200 in the 1920s when Magli visited, and the number peaked at only 1,048 in 1945. There are many books about other Shanghailanders, but very few specifically about Italians in old Shanghai.
“Magli was interested in the cultural roles of Italians in Shanghai and the book also truthfully reflected that,” the professor says.
The re-published trilingual version has retained the design of the 1925 original.
Taking a rickshaw, the physician spent his first day in the international settlement, where many Italians lived and worked. On the second day, he visited the French concession and the Old Town, talking to Italians and Chinese. He spent the last day in Xujiahui and Lunghwa.
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