Demon city / Magic city

Book excerpt: When the Japanese writer Muramatsu Shōfu visited Shanghai in the spring of 1923 he found a city of stark contrasts. There was the glamour and modernity of its nightclubs and European architecture, the vice and sedition of its brothels and gambling dens. He named his bestselling travelogue “魔都” (Mato), Japanese for “Demon City”. In Chinese, “魔都” translates as “Magic City”, which remains a popular nickname for the metropolis to this day. Muramatsu wrote with humour and pathos about his time in Shanghai, his drinking sessions with poets and prostitutes, his trips to the racetrack and the amusement parks, and his turbulent relationship with a Japanese dance instructor who he shared a room with in the house of a Russian émigré. He would return to China many times and become a respected authority on the country. Alexis J Brown is a translator living in London. (Note on the text - Original work published in 1924 by Konishi Shoten, digital copy available here: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/en/pid/972136/1/1 at the National Diet Library Digital Collections. This translated work only includes the chapters “魔都” and “南京”)