End of the line

In the middle of Xujiahui, one of Shanghai's busiest shopping districts, two railway carriages and a locomotive engine are next to a three-storey colonial building. 'Old Shanghai Station' reads the sign over the door.

Visitors who believe that the railway line never reached this part of town soon discover they were right as the restaurant was never a station, despite the magnificent carriages. One was built in Germany in 1899 and used by the Dowager Empress in the Qing dynasty and the other, made in Russia in 1919, was used by leaders of the Nationalist government and Soong Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen . Each carriage has five tables, so you need to book in advance.

No, the station is just a theme and it is important in a city of 10,000 restaurants. The colonial building was a convent built in 1921 for Chinese and foreign nuns, part of the large Jesuit area in Xujiahui, which the order acquired in 1847. The Jesuits built churches, schools, orphanages, seminaries and a planetarium. The wooden floors, big stained-glass windows and spartan appearance retain the atmosphere of a Catholic seminary.

On the wall hang photographs of the pre-1949 period. In one, shortly before the communist takeover, dozens of Catholic priests are standing in front of the cathedral that is still operating today opposite the former seminary. Another shows the convent with several one-storey buildings next door that were demolished after 1949.

With a pre-1949 revival occurring, how about returning the convent to the Jesuits, I asked one of the managers.

'No chance,' Yu Ming said firmly. 'We need the capital, skills and technology of the foreigners but not their culture. That is imperialism. Let in the missionaries and they will take over our brains. Although it came from India, Buddhism is different, since it was an official religion in the imperial age. Christianity is foreign. In China, Chinese must control it. That is the view of the government,' he said.