A storyteller from nature

Major boulevards in Shanghai. [Photo by Feng Xiuxia/China Daily]

Residents here also remember how the road would be closed to traffic as the motorcade for State guests passed through. Primary school students would form the first row on both sides of the road while performers from art troupes and People's Liberation Army soldiers formed the second. Civilians occupied the third rows.

"We stood on chairs to watch the motorcade. We were really excited when the motorcade arrived but I didn't dare to shout anything that might be improper," said Huang.

"We couldn't see the leaders every time because only the head of a socialist country sat in an open-topped limousine while the others sat in vehicles with curtains covering the windows."

Another resident Wang Changxiong said he remembered the first State guest of the area being Haile Selassie I, the then emperor of Ethiopia, who was in Shanghai in 1971. Wang said that he also managed to catch a glimpse of former US president Richard Nixon in 1972.

"We were required to remove all the clothes, quilts and mops from laundry racks outside our windows when Nixon visited," recalled the 78-year-old.

Adjacent to Xinhua Road is Shaoxing Road, and this two-lane street that measures only about 400 meters is easily missed if not for the tall plane trees that tell of the area's equally rich history.