Upcoming Walks & Events

JULY-AUGUST 2026

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DAY TRIP

Saturday July 18, 9am (depart Shanghai) – 7pm (depart Six Arts)

Day Trip: Ancient Chinese Folk Arts at Six Arts

RMB 1000 members, 1100 nonmembers, includes museum entry & all tickets, curator-led museum tour, Lili town visit, lunch and dinner, private bus (round-trip)

A day trip to the wonder that is the Six Arts Museum, China’s largest folk arts museum, for a deep dive into thousands of years of Chinese culture through its world class collection of ancient hand-crafted works. Sixty galleries, over 40,000 works, spread over four floors in a former factory building in a water town.

Founder Mitch Dudek began collecting pieces in the countryside in 1981, and as China transformed, these objects became the last remaining repositories of now-vanished traditions and lifestyles. He collected the pieces, and the stories that went them—Mitch didn’t know it then, but he was rescuing them from demolition and oblivion. A whole way of life, preserved.

We’ll explore neighboring Lili town, an utterly charming watertown where local residents still live, the kind of place that the museum artifacts came from.

Six Arts best-kept secret is its excellent Chinese restaurant, and we’ll sample its specialties and then, for those who wish, stay the night in Six Arts stunning onsite hotel, surrounded by museum pieces, and head up to the roof for a round of mini-golf surrounded by classic pailous, or gateways.

If you’d like to stay the night at Six Arts, contact us for information and to book at info@historic-shanghai.com

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WALK

Saturday July 25, 4pm

The Summer Beer & Buildings Walk

RMB 350 members, 450 nonmembers, includes 2 beers

Come hear about Shanghai’s beer-drinking history while enjoying a stroll through historic architecture and some refreshing brews!

On this walk, we’ll explore a part of Jing’an that’s just not explored enough, one that is rich with history and also beer. A grand domed neoclassical mansion, home of the scion of a newspaper fortune and a tobacco fortune; a modernist lane and a hidden temple; a Fujian retreat and lane neighborhoods, and full of colorful stories and Shanghai’s usual extraordinary range of architecture, from Art Deco to neoclassical to shikumen.

Along the way, we’ll answer some burning questions: who first brought beer to China? What was the beer lovers drink of choice in Old Shanghai? Where did they drink it? What happened to the beer business after 1949? All this, and suds too!

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WALK

Saturday August 1, 8am

Good Morning, Shanghai: Former French Concession edition

RMB 250 members, 350 nonmembers, includes breakfast tasting

Mornings are when a city reveals itself, so join us for a summer morning stroll through the former French Concession. In the parks, tai chi practitioners and dancers get their energy flowing; old men hang their birdcages in the trees, listening to a symphony of songbirds.

As we stroll the plane tree-shaded streets, we’ll share the stories of the historic architecture all around us, as we make our way to a classic street food breakfast: griddles sizzing with jianbing, steam curling around the first dumplings of the day; flatbread baking and youtiao (crullers) frying—before morning Shanghai vanishes, like a mirage.

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MOVIE

Sunday August 2, 3pm

Movie: New Women 新女性 (1935), starring Ruan Lingyu

Silent film, Chinese intertitles, English subtitles

RMB 150 members, 250 nonmembers, includes a glass of wine/coffee/tea

One of the best, and most sensational films of the 1930s, New Women explores the status of women through the story of three young women navigating life and work in modern Shanghai.

Inspired by the life and death, by suicide, of silent screen star Ai Xia the previous year, New Women considers the reality of the status of women in modern (ie 1930s) society, particularly the perils women must deal with in a public role what with predatory gatekeepers and a greedy news media.

The film resonated strongly with young women grappling with their changing roles in society, but it became a sensation when, barely a month after the film’s release, its star, the luminous Ruan Lingyu, died by suicide–on March 8, 1935, International Women’s Day.

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WALK

Saturday August 8, 3pm

The Summer Gelato Crawl: Heritage Architecture & Gelato

RMB 280 members, 380 nonmembers, includes gelato tasting

Back by popular demand!

The Great Gelato Boom of 2025 in one of the city’s most historic enclaves called for an investigation, and so the Summer Gelato Crawl was born. Join us this summer, for round 2~new gelaterias, new route!

Between a rainbow of gelato flavors, we’ll walk through lanes and plane tree-shaded streets in one of the city’s most architecturally intact neighborhoods and see the surprises that lie beyond the hipster hangouts. Art Deco delights, traces of pre-Concession Shanghai, hidden mansions, lush gardens, treasures tucked away in deep in lanes … and then more gelato!

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WALK

Saturday August 15, 10am

Bloody Saturday: The Battle of Shanghai

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

It was the deadliest aerial bombardment the world had seen.

On Saturday August 14, 1937, misfired bombs shattered a white-hot summer’s day, raining death and destruction upon downtown Shanghai in a bloodbath that took an estimated 2,000 lives. It would change Shanghai forever.

Bombs fell at the intersection of the Bund and Nanjing Road, freezing the clock at the Cathay Hotel at 4.37pm; less than 20 minutes later, more bombs fell in front of the Great World Entertainment Center, where thousands of refugees were taking shelter. For the next three months, the Battle of Shanghai would ravage the city.

We’ll explore this dramatic story on a walk that takes in several of the key battle sites, sharing eyewitness accounts of Shanghai’s darkest days, and why it marked the beginning of the end.

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WALK

Saturday August 22, 10am

Metro Art Deco: Shanghai’s Art Deco Icons ~ A Citywide Tour

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

Join us for a citywide tour of the Art Deco icons that define this city—we’ll visit three Art Deco enclaves for an endless supply of glamour, style, and modernity of Old Shanghai.  We’ll see grand towers of commerce and stylish apartment houses, landmark hotels and streamlined theaters, stately department stores and hidden lanes. We’ll share the stories behind these magnificent buildings, who lived in them, who built them, and how Art Deco became Shanghai’s signature style.

Staying cool(ish) and environmentally friendly on this walk by traveling between enclaves on the metro! So much Art Deco, so little time…

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WALK

Sunday August 23, 10am

Nanjing Road: Country Club to the Race Club

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

Time travel with us, back to the days when Nanjing West was Bubbling Well Road, when a sprawling country club stood where the giant silver ship stands now. The crowds gather round see the ship icon, but oh, what they’re missing in the surrounding neighborhood!

We’ll explore this unsung section of the street, from country clubs and horse races to villages in the city, the ghost of the city’s poshest nightclub, a living legacy of Concession-era Western cuisine, Art Deco architecture, a Moorish memory in stone, and more. Worlds long vanished, but alive on this walk, in these buildings, and on these streets.

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WALK

Saturday August 29, 10am

Schools of Old Shanghai (new route)

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

It’s back to school time, so we’re heading back—way back—to the schools of Old Shanghai. The hallowed halls that once educated the sons and daughters of Old Shanghai still stand—some still educating the youngsters of today, and we’ll see a fascinating mix, from a 19^th century joint venture school to an Art Nouveau French school, missionary-run institutions and schools for every community, from the International Settlement to the former French Concession to Hongkou. Who built them, ran them, and attended them? Come and discover the stories behind the bricks in Shanghai’s legacy of education.

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BOOK CLUB

Sunday August 30, 10.30am

August Book Club: I Love Bill and Other Stories by Wang Anyi

Wang Anyi is one of the finest Chinese novelists writing about the post-1949 era. The book club has read two of her novels previously—Song of Everlasting Sorrow, set between the 1930s and 1980s, and Fuping, set in the 1950s, and each has been a book club favorite. I Love Bill is a collection of two novellas and three short stories, set at the turn of the millennium, with nuanced portrayals of life during a time of vast economic and cultural change. 

In the title novella, a young artist’s life spirals out of control when she drops out of school to pursue a series of unfulfilling relationships with foreign men. A performance troupe struggles to adapt to a changing China in the mid-1970s. The head of an isolated village arranges a youth’s posthumous marriage to an unknown soldier, only to have the soldier’s former lover unexpectedly turn up. A fun trip takes an unexpected turn when two young women are kidnapped and sold off as brides. A boy’s bout with typhoid provides an intimate look at family life in Shanghai’s longtang alleys.

Book Club Rules: Buy (or legally acquire) the book, read the book, contribute to the discussion. For more on book club, including the 2026 books, click here. For the archive, click here.

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