But scratch the surface, and there are scores of festering sores underneath the facade of China's most liberal city. For those on the fringes of society, Shanghai is still an unpredictable place. For awhile anyway. The notice was posted last fall, part of the annual cleanup before National Day on October 1.
Campaigns are commonplace in the People's Republic.
Party officials scour the country. Clubs close, prostitutes are jailed, as China tries to sweep some of its sleaze out of view for a while. But last year, the crackdown in Shanghai was anything but usual. For one thing, it never stopped. Babylon reopened, closed, opened and was shut again.