shopping plaza

A line formed out the door, even as the shopping plaza around the small restaurant was desolate.

On Monday night, just 20 minutes before closing time, chaos erupted at the Ludu International Shopping Plaza in southwestern Shanghai’s Songjiang district.

But barely a day later, when the BBC visited the Ludu International Shopping Plaza, it was as if this carnage never happened.

Its pink adobe façade rises unexpectedly over a nondescript shopping plaza, while inside visitors are greeted by a sensory overload: 30-foot waterfalls, neon light-adorned palm trees, wandering mariachis and the faint aroma of fried food and nostalgia.

The shooting occurred in a shopping plaza in the 800 block of North Pacific Avenue.