J.G. Ballard was a creator of bleak man-made landscapes, chronicler of dystopian modernity and revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the psychological effects of 20th Century technological, social and environmental developments. He was a young Shanghailander, born in the city on November 15, 1930 and raised in the dying days of the “fifty-year long party that had been Shanghai.”
J.G. Ballard at his UK home in 1996.
Deeply affected by the party coming crashing to an violent end, and his subsequent experiences in a Japanese internment camp (documented in the loosely autobiographical Empire of the Sun), he ascribed the sudden disappearance of conventional existence as a major shaping influence.
"In wartime Shanghai I saw so many horrors," he said. "Civilized life is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions, and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us.”
Ballard's character in the film version of Empire of the Sun (1987), portrayed by a young Christian Bale.
Ballard's home as depicted in Empire of the Sun. Scenes were shot in the United Kingdom, Spain and Shanghai. Director Steven Spielberg and filmmakers scoped around Asia for locations that resembled 1941 Shanghai before being granted permission to film in the city for three weeks in March 1987.
A scene recreating Ballard's Shanghai neighborhood (along Amherst Avenue, now Panyu Lu) in Empire of the Sun. It was the first American movie to be filmed in Shanghai since the 1940s.
The empty swimming pool in Empire of the Sun.
Ballard’s boyhood home, 31A Amherst Avenue, stands on what today is Panyu Lu (just a few blocks south of the recently revived Columbia Circle). When Ballard returned to visit the home in the early 1990s, he discovered it was "still standing, though in a state of extreme dilapidation."
"It had served as the library of a state electronics institute, and metal book racks had replaced the furniture on all three floors," he continued. "Nothing, otherwise, had changed and I noticed that the same lavatory seat was in my bathroom."
The home as seen in 1991, when Ballard revisited Shanghai as part of a BBC documentary.
As Shanghai's construction boom commenced, Ballard worried that his boyhood home would be demolished.
"I feared that my old family home would soon be replaced by a high-rise block of flats," he wrote to a fan, who had sent him photos of the still-standing property in 2007. "It is good to see that it's still there."
At some point during the turn of the century, the home was converted into Chinese restaurant SH508. When That's Shanghai visited the restaurant shortly after Ballard passed away on April 19, 2009, there were some notable changes. (The restaurant eventually closed in late 2009).
SH508 Restaurant before it closed in October 2009.
Gone was 'the drained swimming pool,' (drained swimming pools, low-flying aircraft and eerily deserted hotels and casinos appear in many of Ballard's novels and short stories). Where the pool had been portly pigeons strutted the lawn; fittingly symbolic of the city's of reviving fortunes.
Through the seated garden and inside, where he – or a fresh-faced pre-temper-tantruming Christian Bale in the film version – wheeled around the abandoned house on his bicycle, French windows allowed light to pour into a main dining room.
SH508 Restaurant before it closed in October 2009.
Nosing around, small staircases led us into grandiose private dining rooms with crystal glasses, velvet-covered chairs and a musty smell that only added to the atmosphere. Room after room, the sprawling oak-paneled, antique-furnished mansion left one in no doubt that young Jim was a child of substantial colonial privilege (and it is safe to assume that the chop-stinging, eye-watering slap dished out to him by his Amah at the bottom of the grand staircase was a long-time coming, and one dished out with considerable relish).
SH508 Restaurant before it closed in October 2009.
Talking of dishing out, the food – which we weren’t really there for – was over-priced, bland and most notable for some weird combinations of ingredients; that might have brought a wry smile to Ballard’s lips.
Commenting on the history of the property, a spokesman for SH508 told The Telegraph in 2009:
"It is ancient history. We do not even know who lived there in the 1990s." He added that no one at the restaurant had heard of Mr. Ballard.
The property underwent a big makeover in 2009 after SH508 closed. Image via jgballard.ca
After SH508 closed, the building was revamped as an exclusive dining venue called Xinyue Club. Reviews of the club on popular Yelp-like review platform Dianping indicate that the facility was used for hosting weddings and other gatherings. But Xinyue Club has since shuttered, with the last user review for the venue dating back to February 2015.
Xinyue Club in 2011. Image via jgballard.ca
It's unclear what happened to the venue after that. When That's Shanghai visited the spot in mid-2017 and again in April 2018, we found the entire premises had been closed off to the public, surrounded by tall gates and an electric fence. To add to the mystery, there were no businesses listed for the Panyu Lu location on Dianping or Baidu Maps.
But a peek through the gates of the secluded private property revealed that the house was indeed still standing. While many of the original exterior features had been drastically changed by the time SH508 opened, the main structure remained intact. With the exception of some changes to the second floor and a newly-added swing set, trampoline and other child-friendly playground equipment visible on the front lawn, the property looked virtually unchanged from its Xinyue Club days.
The site of Ballard's childhood home in 2018.
Unlike other buildings in the neighborhood, however, there's no sign to indicate the property is part of the Shanghai Municipal Government's "Heritage Architecture" program.
And sadly, it may stay that way. As iFeng noted in July 2017, there don't appear to be any plans by the local government to mark the building as protected, despite a steady stream of foreign visitors to the otherwise unassuming location.
This article originally appeared in the June 2009 issue of That's Shanghai. It has been updated and republished on April 20, 2018.
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