Shanghai in Cubao

I recently spent an afternoon in old Shanghai, the glamor and the squalor of that fabled Paris of the East captured in two landmark films – the 1932 Shanghai Express and the 2007 Lust, Caution.

Both films are set during turbulent times in China – Shanghai Express during the civil war and Lust, Caution during the Japanese occupation. The films are based on a story and a novella which were, in turn, loosely based on historical events (the seizing of the Blue Express train in Shandong province in 1923 and the attempted assassination by a Chinese woman of a Japanese collaborator in 1940).

Lust, Caution – directed by Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi among other outstanding films) which won the Golden Lion at the 2007 Venice Film Festival and the 2008 BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film – runs for two-and-a-half hours and is set in Hong Kong and Shanghai, with some scenes filmed in the old houses in Penang, Malaysia. Shanghai Express is, as its title suggests, set on board a train from Beijing (Peking at the time) to Shanghai. In both films, a rape triggers a series of events that leads to a fatal – although vastly different – conclusion.

The main stars of Shanghai Express are Caucasians, except for Anna May Wong as the exotic inscrutable Chinese, but she does play a pivotal role. Chinese actors are used as mere extras – train passengers, soldiers, coolies.

Lust, Caution has an all-Chinese cast, with stars Tony Leung and Tang Wei delivering stellar performances. The film stirred a lot of controversy, getting NC-17 ratings and was even banned in some countries before extensive cuts were made on the protracted explicit sex scenes of the two leads (a word must be put in though that it’s not merely prurient voyeurism). In fact, Tang Wei was banned in China from working for three years because of this; Leung was not censured, since he is from Hong Kong.

The star of Shanghai Express, a black and white film, is without doubt Marlene Dietrich, whose performance, under director Josef von Sternberg, is luminous. That look, that face, the nuances of gesture and body language – the powerful combination of actress and director is breathtaking. It calls to mind the actress Gong Li and director Zhang Yimou in my favorite movie Raise the Red Lantern (1991) – the opening scene of a very tight close-up of Gong Li’s face as she is telling her mother to stop talking already since she’s been talking for three days straight and that yes, she will go and marry the man she’s been promised to… it’s resignation yet defiance, capitulation yet empowerment.

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I watched the films at the invitation of a friend, a diehard film buff, in his house in Cubao (he put in a lovely pocket garden of rocks and tall bamboo, to obstruct the garish building next door), and I have to admit that it was a challenge going there, even with Waze; I was afraid of missing a turn or taking the wrong lane and ending up in terra incognita, aside from holding my breath while dodging buses and jeepneys and taxis and karetons and tricycles and hordes of maniac motorcycle drivers.

I used to make weekly visits to Farmers Market in Cubao, particularly for seafood and vegetables, fruits too, but now most of my sukis from there have conveniently set up shop in our neighborhood Sunday market. There used to be an extensive section that sold plants and plant supplies, as well as cut flowers (so we didn’t have to go all the way to Dangwa).

The last time I was in Cubao (but that time I didn’t drive) was for a PVL finals match between Choco Mucho and Creamline a few seasons ago at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, the iconic “Big Dome” that has been, for the last 60 years (it opened on March 16, 1965 with a bout that had the great Flash Elorde taking the world junior lightweight belt), the site of concerts of big-name local and foreign artists, circuses and ice shows (remember Holiday on Ice?), countless basketball games and other major sports events, like the Ali-Frazier Thrilla in Manila in 1975.

Cubao itself is an icon, the central business district of Quezon City and the country’s pioneer commercial center. There used to be just the Araneta Coliseum, Farmers Market, New Frontier Theater (which had, if memory serves me right, an ice skating rink) and Ali Mall. Now the center is so crowded, with buildings all over the place, many housing BPO centers (hopefully not POGO hubs!), and a spanking new (well, maybe not that new, or new only to me) Gateway Mall that is spacious and modern, with the requisite lineup of upscale retail outlets.

Cubao is still a transport hub, where the MRT line on EDSA connects with the LRT-2 line going down Aurora Blvd. to link with the LRT-1 line at CM Recto, from where the train goes all the way to Sucat, Parañaque, where The STAR office is located.

There is no other place like Cubao, and looking up the name I found an interesting story that said the district was once a jungle inhabited by white ants, termites and shape-shifting witches who usually take the form of a hunchback. People who caught sight of the witch would shout, “Kuba, o!” (“Oh, a hunchback!”) and the name stuck. Another source said the name refers to kubaw, a banana-like plant. I like the kuba version better.

For the infrequent visitor like me, going to Cubao is an existential experience, equal parts excitement and anxiety, expectation and confusion. Much like Shanghai, Cubao is right in the heart of the madding crowd and you may find, perhaps not a kuba, but the quintessential Pinoy, and come face to face with humanity in all shades of you and me.