In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

REVUES
Wherever the French writer Paul Morand goes in his voyages around the
world, he seeks the exciting atmosphere of high-rise buildings: "Spasmodic
conflagrations of publicity. The burning skyscrapers, the hanging
gardens of the Plaza, the Majestic, and the Carlton, the greatest hotels
and brothels of Shanghai belong to the Spanish Fathers. In those luxurious
rooftop clubs dance the wives of English officers ... , judges of the
Joint Commission, and Russian refugees" (Morand, 67). But a dance
show that he sees at the roof garden of a skyscraper in downtown
Shanghai provokes in Morand an abrupt negative reaction-and even
feelings of cultural self-hatred: "Tragic entrance of a music-hall act: six
women, three costumed as yellow jockeys and three as pink horses. What
are Asian epidemics next to these Western poisons?" (67-68). [see Roof
Gardens] Why does Morand describe this spectacle as "tragic" and
"poisonous" when, at the same time, he admires Shanghai's advertisements,
traffic, architecture, and bars, which are also the products of
Western colonization? [see Action = Impotence (Tragedy)] Accustomed
to the spectacles offered on the stages of North American and European
cities, he sees this show in Shanghai as an inferior imitation-a paltry
entertainment with only six dancers, who moreover are quite unglamorously
got up as jockeys and horses. Revue directors in Paris, Berlin, and
New York may easily spend a quarter of a million dollars on costumes
and sets for a single production (Klooss and Reuter, 53). They employ
hundreds of stagehands and use ultramodern technical equipment-such
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