ZHANG CHEN "Shanghai"

[/color]:[/b] Zhang Chen (张琛); Municipality of Shanghai (上海市)
Nickname/Alias: "Shanghai" (上海), Chen (橙; this Chinese character, compared to the one in her full name- which means 'gem' or 'treasure'- means orange), Oranges (due to the aforementioned Chinese character on her nickname which means 'Orange'; usually used as a joke nickname on her)
Gender: Female
Character Type: City
Country or Country of Origin: China
Canon or Original: Original
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[/color]:[/b] Blue Violet
Hair: Dark Orange
Height and Weight: 5'03"; 121 Lbs.
Other Distinguishing Features:
Two, hair buns on both sides of her head, always seen with a red cheongsam and with a red-and-gold motif. Usually seen with a parasol.
Overall Appearance:
Chen is a brightly-colored City (in terms of appearance), reflecting her bright skyline and colorful history from her humble beginning as a small, port town once upon a time. With her vividly, orange hair tied in a twin bun, bright blue-violet eyes and light-yellow skin (like most Chinese), it was safe to say that she has a sense of 'oriental beauty' in her own way. She is a bit shorter than expected, despite being one of the largest cities in the world, but it doesn't seem to falter her much with what she does.

Shanghai is often seen wearing the usual Chinese female garb, though she opted for something that can make her move freely just so she can show off her kung-fu skills or land judgement on them without bothering about restrictions and a parasol, sometimes just for aesthetics' sake and sometimes as a form of her non-lethal weapon.

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Market (and all the things being sold)
Fireworks - Loves making those
The Skyline at night
Chinese New Year - New year = lanterns = fireworks
Chinese art
Fashion - They seem to hold their own style of fashion, not that she's a fashionable person herself but, you know...
Shanghai-style cooking - Like her 'master', Chen knows how to cook with her own style of cooking
Chinese Martial arts - Very proficient with the martial arts

Dislikes:
Yangtze river overflowing (Flood) - They're one of the cities affected if the Yangtze river overflows
Pollution - Lots of those in her place
Oranges - Well... rather, just the name for various reasons.
Famine
Britain/British - It's all their fault and that opium war....
Russia - The only nation Shanghai, for some reason, can't seem to fight back, though she doesn't have any antagonistic approach with him

Strengths:
Loyalty to China & its people
Economical Productivity
Able to manufacture everything - Well... Almost everything.
Cheerful City
Strong family ties
Able to communicate and interact with almost every nations for trade
'Flashy' festivals (Fireworks all the way)
Cooks wonderful Chinese meals

Weaknesses:
Overpopulated
Most manufactured items are either second-rate or copycats - She's just one of those...
Can't cope with floods
'TOO' flashy - There's such thing
Brawler by nature
Too Proud in nature
Show-off

Fears:
Overpopulation
Lack of rice - Chinese people need rice!
China's downfall - Who will she serve after that?
Yangzhe River - Lots of things if ever something happens to the river; overflowing, suddenly drying up, etc.
Another Opium war - Damn European nations...

Secrets:
- Forever detesting her orange hair. The reason she is called 'Oranges' by foreign nations is because of her hair.
- Tends to stalks follows China whenever he's going somewhere she doesn't know. She's very loyal to him.
- Not a secret; she likes fireworks and will find an excuse to show off her fireworks. A secret; she actually likes things that go 'boom'. Closet pyromaniac, slash arsonist.
- Tends to 'act' like China's loyal, pet dog at the point that she secretly watches China taking a bath in his home, but that's just her excuse.
- Actually older than she looks. Yet, she likes to pretend she's younger. Must be from China.

Any Quirks/Habits:
- Very profecient with Chinese martial arts and the use of Chinese weaponry, though it seems she fancy 'showing off' her skills using her parasol.
- Like most stereotypical Chinese characters in the world of anime China, she ends her sentence with an '-aru' affix.
- Prioritize both food and trade (and China) above everything else.
- Most of the time, when China is at home, she is seen in his premises or outside his gates, keeping an eye on any guests/intruders.
- Very proud of her Chinese heritage hence she won't pass a chance of exclaiming about it once in a while.
- Worries about the Yangtze river every time it rains since not only it's one of her ways to provide trade with her fellow Chinese brethren but if it overflows it might destroy her and her economic trade.


Overall Personality:
Shanghai is an odd character, both as a city and as Chen. She is friendly as she is erratic, very loyal to China and, above all, quite strong and steadfast. Despite her appearance, she is actually as old as Wang Yao (maybe below him in a few decades or so) though it doesn't seem to show her wiseness due to her unpredictable nature and the world's modernization. Nevertheless, it seems that Shanghai knows what she is doing (3/4ths of the time) and doesn't seem quite ashamed of what she does, save for some secret stuff she rather not discuss with.

When it comes to selling things, trading or even interacting with foreigners, she is as cheerful as she is lively. She makes bargains and haggles, hoping to get the best of the items she sells, and very much a talkative yet economically inclined person. When money comes to the topic, she immediately will do what it takes to have the best deal when selling, and to get the lowest amount possible when buying. She loves to cook foods and eat, or sell, it, and enjoys festival to the point of making it as flashy as possible. She tends to show off from time to time, especially if she have something new in store, and is very proud of her accomplishments, may it be good or bad. To China, she is a loyal person (even at the point of having to stalk him just for the sake of making sure he's fine) and will do anything to her power to keep him away from harm and to make sure that those European countries knows their place whenever they are in the Chinese territory.

As for her faults, Chen is very proud, at the point that she'll overlook everything else just to gain attention to her. She is also temperamental and tends to end up in a fight from time to time, at the point that she'll even use some martial arts to inflict pain, and that she tends to take things a little too literally, especially concerning to the foreign cultures. She tends to worried about the Yangtze river in seasons that is not favorable, whines a bit when she doesn't sell something and tends to 'cheat' on making stuff or 'copy' them from someone. Thanks to the Opium war, Shanghai seem to hold a bit of a grudge towards some of the European nations and, thanks to WWII, she seems to fear Russia at the point of hiding behind China if he's around.

Despite all that, Chen- the Municipality of Shanghai- is quite a character full of spark and cheer who willingly shows to the world what the Chinese can do and do it well with a proud look on her face.

Oh, and like China, she also likes cute stuff. Nuff said.

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During the Song Dynasty (AD 960–1279) Shanghai was upgraded in status from a village to a market town in 1074, and in 1172 a second sea wall was built to stabilize the ocean coastline, supplementing an earlier dyke.

From the Yuan Dynasty in 1292 until Shanghai officially became a city for the first time in 1927, the area was designated merely as a county seat administered by the Songjiang prefecture.

Two important events helped promote Shanghai's development in the Ming Dynasty. A city wall was built for the first time in 1554 to protect the town from raids by Japanese pirates. It measured 10 metres high and 5 kilometres in circumference. During the Wanli reign (1573–1620), Shanghai received an important psychological boost from the erection of a City God Temple in 1602. This honour was usually reserved for places with the status of a city, such as a prefectural capital not normally given to a mere county town, as Shanghai was. It probably reflected the town's economic importance, as opposed to its low political status.

During the Qing Dynasty, Shanghai became one of the most important sea ports in the Yangtze Delta region as a result of two important central government policy changes: First, Emperor Kangxi (1662–1723) in 1684 reversed the previous Ming Dynasty prohibition on ocean going vessels – a ban that had been in force since 1525. Second, in 1732 Emperor Yongzheng moved the customs office for Jiangsu province from the prefectural capital of Songjiang city to Shanghai, and gave Shanghai exclusive control over customs collections for Jiangsu Province's foreign trade. As a result of these two critical decisions, Professor Linda Cooke Johnson has concluded that by 1735 Shanghai had become the major trade port for all of the lower Yangtze River region, despite still being at the lowest administrative level in the political hierarchy.

International attention to Shanghai grew in the 19th century due to its economic and trade potential at the Yangtze River. During the First Opium War (1839–1842), British forces temporarily held the city. The war ended with the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, opening the treaty ports, Shanghai included, for international trade. The Treaty of the Bogue signed in 1843, and the Sino-American Treaty of Wanghia signed in 1844 together allowed foreign nations to visit and trade on Chinese soil, and Britain, France, and the United States all carved out concessions outside the walled city of Shanghai, which was still ruled by the Chinese.

The Chinese-held old city of Shanghai fell to the rebels of the Small Swords Society in 1853 but was recovered by the Qing in February 1855.

In 1854, the Shanghai Municipal Council was created to manage the foreign settlements. Between 1860–1862, the Taiping rebels twice attacked Shanghai and destroyed the city's eastern and southern suburbs, but failed to take the city.

In 1863, the British settlement to the south of Suzhou Creek (northern Huangpu District) and the American settlement to the north (southern Hongkou District) joined in order to form the Shanghai International Settlement. The French opted out of the Shanghai Municipal Council and maintained its own concession to the south and southwest.

Citizens of many countries and all continents came to Shanghai to live and work during the ensuing decades; those who stayed for long periods – some for generations – called themselves "Shanghailanders".

In the 1920s and 1930s, almost 20,000 White Russians and Russian Jews fled the newly established Soviet Union and took up residence in Shanghai. These Shanghai Russians constituted the second-largest foreign community. By 1932, Shanghai had become the world's fifth largest city and home to 70,000 foreigners. In the 1930s, some 30,000 Jewish refugees from Europe arrived in the city.

The Sino-Japanese War concluded with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which elevated Japan to become another foreign power in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai, which were soon copied by other foreign powers. Shanghai was then the most important financial center in the Far East. All this international activity gave Shanghai the nickname "the Great Athens of China"

Under the Republic of China (1911–1949), Shanghai's political status was finally raised to that of a municipality on 14 July 1927. Although the territory of the foreign concessions was excluded from their control, this new Chinese municipality still covered an area of 828.8 square kilometers, including the modern-day districts of Baoshan, Yangpu, Zhabei, Nanshi, and Pudong. Headed by a Chinese mayor and municipal council, the new city governments first task was to create a new city-center in Jiangwan town of Yangpu district, outside the boundaries of the foreign concessions. This new city-center was planned to include a public museum, library, sports stadium, and city hall.

On 28 January 1932, Japanese forces struck and the Chinese resisted, fighting to a standstill; a ceasefire was brokered in May. The Battle of Shanghai in 1937 resulted in the occupation of the Chinese administered parts of Shanghai outside of the International Settlement and the French Concession. The International Settlement was occupied by the Japanese on 8 December 1941 and remained occupied until Japan's surrender in 1945, during which time war crimes were committed.

On 27 May 1949, the People's Liberation Army took control of Shanghai, which was one of only three former Republic of China (ROC) municipalities not merged into neighboring provinces over the next decade (the others being Beijing and Tianjin). Shanghai underwent a series of changes in the boundaries of its subdivisions, especially in the next decade. After 1949, most foreign firms moved their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong, as part of an exodus of foreign investment due to the Communist victory.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Shanghai became an industrial center and center for radical leftism; the leftist Jiang Qing and her three cohorts, together the Gang of Four, were based in the city. Yet, even during the most tumultuous times of the Cultural Revolution, Shanghai was able to maintain high economic productivity and relative social stability. In most of the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC), in order to funnel wealth to the rural areas, Shanghai has been a comparatively heavy contributor of tax revenue to the central government. This came at the cost of severely crippling Shanghai's infrastructural and capital development. Its importance to the fiscal well-being of the central government also denied it economic liberalizations begun in 1978. Shanghai was finally permitted to initiate economic reforms in 1991, starting the massive development still seen today and the birth of Lujiazui in Pudong.

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Link to my other character's app for RP reference

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[/color]:[/b] Icchan
Timezone: +8:00

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