mediators for the western companies. Many compradors were on the leading edge of the movement to modernize China. Shanghai was then the biggest financial city in East Asia. Chinese society Chinese society was divided into native place associations or provincial guilds. These guilds defended the interests of traders from shared hometowns. They had their own dress codes and sub-cultures. Chinese government was hardly organized, for the foreign governments controlled the economy. Instead, society was controlled by the native place associations. The Guangdong native place associations represented the skilled workers of Shanghai. These native place associations belonged to the top of Shanghainese society. The Ningbo and Jiangsu native place associations were the most numerous. They represented the common workers. Some came from the north of China. They were on the bottom rung of the social ladder. Many of them were forced to work as seasonal workers or even mobsters. Shanghai Grand During the 1920s and 1930s Shanghai became known as "The Paris of the East, the New York of the West". Shanghai was made a special city in 1927, and a municipality in May 1930. The city's industrial and financial power increased, because the merchants were in control of the city, while the rest of China was divided among warlords. Artistically, Shanghai became the hub for three new art forms: Chinese cinema, Chinese animation, and Chinese popular music. Other forms of entertainment included Lianhuanhua comic books. The architectural style at the time was modeled after British and American designs. Many of the grandest-scale buildings on The Bundsuch as Shanghai Club, the Asia Building and the HSBC Buildingwere constructed or renovated at this time. The city created a distinct image that separated it from all other Chinese cities that had come before it. "Bizarre advertising displays were an everyday reality ... though I sometimes wonder if everyday reality was the one element missing from the city," British novelist J. G. Ballard, who was born and raised in Shanghai during this era, recalled in his autobiography. "I would see something strange and mysterious, but treat it as normal ... Anything was possible, and everything could be bought and sold." The experience inspired much of his later fiction. Economic achievements include the city becoming the commercial center of East Asia, attracting banks from all over the world. When movies and literature depict the golden days of by-gone Shanghai, it is generally associated with this