Shanghai as a Cultural Icon

According to writer Yvonne Chang, prewar Shanghai became an icon for Taiwan in the early 1980s, where the island witnessed a "cultural nostalgia trend."

Chang noted that as Taipei and Kaohsiung (高雄) developed into modern metropolises, city dwellers "tried to come to terms with the tantalizing and disorienting urban lifestyle."

During this period, the media fully exploited people's curiosity about the "forbidden motherland", to the extent that even the places that zhiqing (知青, or educated youths) were sent to perform manual labor during the Cultural Revolution became "exotic and alluring."

Indeed, this fascination with the "forbidden motherland" lasted for several years, at least until the annoucement that Taiwan residents were allowed to travel to the mainland in the early 1990s.

It seems that a forbidden fruit is always sought after. And in the case of China, even though it is no longer the same forbidden fruit that it used to be, the place (especially Shanghai and its surrounding areas) is still attracting large numbers of Taiwanese such that Kunshan (昆山) is now known as the "Little Taiwan" of China.