China: Shanghai:The Bund

It's a bit of a mystery, but the famous Shanghai waterfront, called Wai Tan in Chinese, is called in English the Bund, a term that (as band) is used in Hindi, Persian, and Sanskrit to indicate an embankment to control water.   Presumably, the name was applied here by a European with experience in South Asia--not improbable, since the first European to urge the development of a base in China was Frederick Pigou of the East India Company. That was in 1756, almost a century before the actual establishment of a European settlement here.

The buildings along the Bund flaunt their European origin, the Chinese today are--another small mystery--happy to retain these massive symbols of a hated era, perhaps because the same buildings also symbolize an early phase of China's entry onto the world stage.  In that vein, the characters wai and tan literally mean "outside" and "beach."  The polite translation might be "waterfront," but the  perhaps more accurate reading is "Outsider's Beach," or "Foreigner's Beach."