By Nick Baker

The year was 1948. The message was simple: Do not come home - the revolution has started. Chinese ports are closed to foreign ships.

A group of Shanghai sailors who had signed on to British ships, not believing that the revolution would spread so fast, found themselves stranded in Liverpool, which was to become their home for 50 years.

"People were very nice", remembers one of them, Sing Zay Wu.

"We mainly kept ourselves to ourselves. If we wanted a drink we'd go down the pub. If we wanted to gamble we'd go to Chinatown."

They married English girls, put down roots, and thanks to the influence of one Harry Lo - another exile who had been a ship's cook - some of them started fish and chip shops. During the late 1960s, these were to become the familiar Chinese take-aways.

Building links

Liverpool's Chinatown is the oldest and by far the biggest in Europe. This is the result of its history as a port.

Five or six years ago, the mainly Cantonese restauranteurs held a competition to design an archway - like the ones in China town in Manchester or London.

By chance, a Shanghai design won, and since October, a group of Shanghai builders, painters and technicians have been building the archway - the largest in the world outside China - at the top of Nelson Street.

Liverpool and Shanghai decided to capitalise on these links, in the hope of stimulating further trade and friendship between the two ports, whose waterfronts, though different in size, bear an uncanny resemblance.

Liverpool, though, is a fading city, whereas Shanghai already with a population the size of Australia's - has an economic growth rate of 14%.

Yet there is something about the spirit of both cities which makes them similar.

Shared sense of humour

Shanghai people have the reputation of being shrewd, a little hedonistic and humorous.

And Shanghai people have their own special dialect, which is almost a language of their own.

Ask anyone in Shanghai what they know about Liverpool and they will not say the Beatles any more: they say football.

China is very keen to get into the international football scene and develop the sport at home.

As a result, Liverpool Football Club were persuaded to send out their youth team for a friendly match - watched on television by millions across China.

The team spent most of their spare time looking for bargain designer wear that did not look too fake.

Shanghai combined its youth teams and held Liverpool to a draw - and an agonising penalty shoot-out.

Meanwhile a 20-company trade mission accompanied the mayor and his entourage to try and drum up business.

So far, there is cautious optimism from them about the likely business accomplished.

The old Shanghai seafarers continue to meet every Monday in a shopping centre to drink tea, smoke and speak loudly in their Shanghai dialect.

For both groups, the links are as solid as ever. However, I am still not sure whether, to the ordinary Liverpudlian, the twinning will amount to a hill of beans - soya or baked.