Вайбаиду: История и значение моста-символа Шанхая

The Waibaidu Bridge , called the Garden Bridge in English, is the first all steel bridge, and the only surviving example of a camelback truss bridge, in China. The present bridge is the fourth Western designed bridge built at its location since 1856, in the downstream of the estuary of the Suzhou Creek (formerly known as Wusong or Soochow Creek), near its confluence with the Huangpu River, adjacent to the Bund in central Shanghai. It connects the Huangpu and Hongkou districts and was opened on 20 January 1908. With its rich history and unique design the Waibaidu Bridge is one of the symbols of Shanghai. Its modern and industrial image may be regarded as the city's landmark bridge. On 15 February 1994 the Shanghai Municipal Government declared the bridge an example of Heritage Architecture, and one of the outstanding structures in Shanghai. In an ever changing metropolis, the Waibaidu Bridge still remains a popular attraction, and one of the few constants in the city skyline.

There is considerable debate about the exact meaning of Waibaidu (外白渡), the name given to the wooden bridge erected by the Shanghai Municipal Council in 1873. According to one source, "The upper stream of any river was called li 裡 (internal, inside); the lower stream was called “wai”." Xue Liyong (薛理勇), indicates in his book on the history of the Bund:
In several cases, the Chinese used the terms li 裡 (internal) and wai 外 (external) to indicate the greater (nei) or lesser (wai) degree of proximity of a location. There was even an intermediate degree with the use of zhong 中 (middle) for places located between these two extremes. There remains several place names in Shanghai that are linked to this practice. The Chinese name of the Garden Bridge – waibaidu qiao 外白渡橋 – is such a case. The name makes sense only in relation with another bridge called libaidu qiao 裡白渡橋 that was located further inside the Soochow Creek, whereas the Garden Bridge was located at the mouth of the creek where it merges into the Huangpu river. Another source indicates that in Shanghainese, waibaidu means passing through the bridge without paying. Because there was no longer any toll collected to cross the bridge, it began to be called Waibaidu, but "whereas the old name meant 'foreigners/outer ferry crossing bridge' the character bai was changed to a homophonic that altered the meaning to 'outer free crossing bridge'".

Before bridges were built over the Suzhou Creek (then known as the Wusong River), citizens had to use one of three ferry crossings: one near Zhapu Road, one at Jiangxi Road, and one near the mouth of the Suzhou River. These crossings (du in Chinese) were the only way to ford the river, until the construction of a sluice gate built in the Ming dynasty, later known as "Old Sluice", where the current Fujian Road bridge is located. During the Qing dynasty, another sluice bridge ("New Sluice") was constructed during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor (1723–1735), near the location of today's Datong Road bridge. With Shanghai becoming an international trade port through the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, and foreign powers being granted concessions in the city, traffic between both sides of Suzhou River soared in the 1850s, increasing the need for a bridge close to the mouth of the river.

With profits for the wooden bridge decreasing, the Soochow Creek Bridge Company decided to build a new bridge. According to Pott, "When the company attempted the erection of a new iron bridge in 1871, two poles gave way and the part of the bridge that had been completed sank into the river."

The Shanghai Municipal Council resolved the situation by approving the construction of a new wooden floating bridge, several metres west of Wills' original wooden bridge, to be opened to the public in September 1873. The Soochow Creek Bridge was built by S. C. Farnham & Co. at a cost of 19,513 taels (exclusive of the stone abutments). The new bridge was opened to traffic on 2 August 1873. because "here may be seen the most abject poverty and human misery, sights pitiful enough to draw tears from the eyes of the gorgeous granite stone dragons who watch the passing, living stream of human wretchedness. The deformed, the leprous, the blind, and the most hideous and disgusting semblance of humanity squat in rows and knots along the sides" of this bridge.

The wooden Garden Bridge was demolished in 1906 and a new steel bridge was constructed to accommodate both trams and automobiles. This bridge was built under the supervision of the Shanghai Municipal Council, and imported the steel from England. of Singapore. The Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company Co. Ltd. of Darlington, County Durham, England, who had built the Victoria Falls Bridge over the Zambezi River in Rhodesia the previous year, were responsible for building the bridge, which started on 4 August 1906. The bridge was completed on 29 December 1907. It was the largest steel bridge in Shanghai and was the first steel truss bridge to be built in China, and is the only surviving example of a camelback truss bridge in the country. The bridge had a "total length was 104.39 metres, with 11.20 metres for vehicles and 2.9 metres on each side for pedestrians. The space between the bridge and the river reached a maximum of 5.57 metres at low ebb and 3.25 metres at high ebb." According to Cranley, "The local governor (taotai in Wade–Giles) declined the SMC’s request for Chinese government investment in the construction of the new Garden Bridge, which replaced Wills Bridge in 1907. So residents of the Chinese municipality enjoyed free crossing of the Suzhou Creek from the 1870s thanks to the ratepayers of the International Settlement (a majority of whom were wealthy Chinese, who were taxed but did not have the right to representation on the SMC until the 1920s)."

At noon on 10 November 1915 Admiral Tseng Ju Cheng (pinyin: Zheng Ru Cheng; 鄭汝成), governor of Shanghai district loyal to the Beiyang government, was assassinated on the Garden Bridge en route to the Japanese consulate, with a bomb thrown by Wang Mingshan (王明山), and eighteen shots fired by Wang Xiaofeng (王晓峰), another anti monarchist revolutionary, using two Mauser automatic pistols. Revolutionary general Chen Qimei (陳其美), who was loyal to Sun Yat sen, commanded the operation.

The shelling of the Zhabei District during the Shanghai Incident on 28 January 1932, resulted in over 600,000 Chinese refugees attempting to cross the Garden Bridge into the International Settlement. The Japanese military restricted access to the bridge for several weeks. By 20 February 1932, the approaches to "the garden bridge into the foreign settlement again [was] glutted with a human" tide of those "writhing this morning with the torch of war against her breast". Many White Russian female refugees became prostitutes in Shanghai. The final (or lowest) stage for a courtesan was known as "walking the Garden Bridge", as it involved soliciting on the bridge.

During the Battle of Shanghai, the Waibaidu bridge had an important role. On 12 August 1937, thousands of refugees, "a milling mass of humanity", from Greater Shanghai streamed into the foreign settlements through the Garden Bridge to escape the Japanese. Journalist Rhodes Farmer recorded:Word had been passed back that barbed wire and Japanese sentries blocked all the approaches to Shanghai save Garden Bridge and the twenty foot wide crossing that led to it over the stinking, garbage filled [Suzhou] Creek. The mid day sun scorched down pitilessly, for it was still the season of tahsu — the Great Heat the mass pressed on at snail's pace toward what was becoming the bridge of life." At the end of August 1937, the Japanese military restricted foreigners from crossing the Garden Bridge: "There is much local criticism of the Japanese naval authorities who, still persist in their refusals to permit foreigners to cross the Garden Bridge." After August 1937 the Waibaidu Bridge was the de facto border between the International Settlement and Japanese occupied Hongkew (now Hongkou) and Zhabei. As Mark Gayn recalls: "The creek became the boundary between two worlds. To the north was the world of fear, death, and the Japanese bayonet. To the south, law was still supreme and life remained as normal as it could be with bombs exploding Of all the bridges, the Garden Bridge alone remained open to traffic, and on its narrow roadway the two hostile worlds met and glared at each other. ", The west end of Garden Bridge, was guarded by members of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. Harold Rattenbury recalls: "Japanese and Scottish sentries face one another on the Garden Bridge. To the Japanese all Chinese must remove their hats; so I took pleasure in removing mine to our Scottish sentries also." Kemp Tolley indicates: "A Japanese sentry stood on the Garden Bridge, over odoriferous Soochow Creek, which separated Honkew from the rest of the International Settlement. Foreigners were expected, on pain of a possible slap in the face, to bow gently from the waist when passing the sentry. Chinese coolies grunted, groaned and yei hoed, pushing heavily loaded carts up the bridge's steep approaches. An occasional bayonet thrust into a bale or a prick in some tender part of a coolie's anatomy reminded everyone who was boss. Although Honkew was a part of the International Settlement, the Settlement taxis and rickshaws were not allowed there. One had to hire a ramshackle vehicle especially licensed — or walk across the bridge, bowing en route, and pick up a conveyance in Japanese "territory." Rickshaws were not permitted to pass the Japanese sentries on the Garden Bridge. Japanese soldiers on both sides of the bridge would stop any Chinese, humiliate them and punish them if they hadn't shown proper respect. Foreigners were also expected to bow to the Japanese sentries, with some men and women forced to strip to the waist. Rena Krasno, a Jewish refugee remembered: "Everyone crossing the Garden Bridge is compelled to remove their hat and bow The tram halted in front of the Japanese guards, all the passengers bowed and the bayonet clasping soldiers waved us on with their free hand." For the Japanese, "the sentry was the personification of the glory and power of the Japanese army, and woe befall those who did not pay proper respect to him." In August 1937 Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, Commander in Chief of the US Asiatic Fleet, was "deliberately and grossly insulted by Japanese naval sentries on the Garden bridge." On 27 December 1937 Japanese authorities announced that foreigners would be permitted to cross the Garden Bridge without passes. In late February 1938, the garrison commander of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces in China released a list of regulations and inducements to encourage foreigners to return to the Hongkou District to live, shop or do business: "Foreigners returning to districts North of the Creek are especially requested to respect the sentry on point duty at the Garden Bridge and at street corners by giving him a gentle bow, and wishing him 'GOOD MORNING.' Foreigners must realize that the Japanese soldier doing such duty represents the EMPEROR OF JAPAN." In June 1938 an American physician Dr J. C. Thompson was slapped by Japanese sentries on the Garden Bridge. In early July 1938 bombs were thrown at a Japanese sentry post on the Garden Bridge as part of a co ordinated attack by Chinese resistance fighters on Japanese businesses. From 20 July 1938, the bridge was again referred to as "The Bridge of Sighs", as a result of handing Jiang Haisheng, a nineteen year old student who had been apprehended with a grenade in the International Settlement, to Japanese military authorities at the Garden Bridge. Later that month Miss Dorothea Lintihac was "rough housed" by Japanese sentries because she and her mother crossed the Garden Bridge on the wrong side of the street to avoid both dangerous traffic and barbwire entanglements. Subsequently, they were arrested and detained later. The British Consul General Herbert Phillips protested the incident and the "increasingly belligerent attitude" of the Japanese sentries. In the early hours of 8 December 1941, as Pearl Harbor was being attacked, the International Settlement was occupied by Japanese military forces. Now that "they controlled all of Shanghai, the Japanese removed the hut on the Garden Bridge that used to mark the border between Hongkew and the International Settlement." Additionally, "there was now a barrier at the Garden Bridge over the Soochow Creek, sealing off the Japanese quarter from the rest of the Settlement. Barbed wire barricades were set up throughout the city, and Japanese sentries posted at all bridges." An American resident, Edna Lee Booker, recalls: "The arrogance and possessiveness of the Japanese began at the top with the Gendarmerie and the inquisitors, and carried down. The Garden Bridge, which leads north into Hongkew, was the scene of many slappings and strikings and jabbings by the Japanese guards."

Since the 1940s, the Waibaidu Bridge has undergone four major repairs and reinforcements, including the most recent one in 1999. By 1947, after 40 years of service, the municipal government did a check that revealed weakness in the structure and a tendency to sink into the ground (12.7 cm since 1907). In June 1947, a private company was contracted to reinforce the structure and prevent further sinking. No other major work was done thereafter, except the widening of the walkways for pedestrians after 1949.

In 1957 The Shanghai Municipal Council's Engineering Bureau, and the Municipal Engineering Design Institute, conducted an extensive examination to assess the condition of the bridge in its fiftieth year of use. Repairs were made and measures taken to conserve the aging bridge. while Red Guards renamed the bridge, "Anti Imperialism Bridge". In 1970 extensive sandblasting was conducted on all the steel components of the Waibaidu bridge to remove all rust. A rust proof zinc spray was then added to the bridge, and the sidewalk railings repainted grey, while the side safety fences were painted white. In 1977 the Shanghai Municipal Design Institute examined and reinforced the beams of the bridge.

In 1991 the Shanghai Municipal Council had the Shanghai Railway Bureau assess the Waibaidu bridge. In July 1991 the Shanghai Shipyard completed an overhaul and restoration of the bridge.

In December 2007, the Waibaidu bridge celebrated its centenary.

2010 American series The Amazing Race 16 featured the bridge as a Route Marker with teams knowing the bridge only as the "Garden Bridge".