The Classical Gardens of Shanghai
Classical Chinese gardens in the springtime are a beautiful sight, but they’re an even more profound experience when you know what ...
Exploring Shanghai’s Literary Heritage: Murder in the Maloo
//by Susan Blumberg-Kason// April 2025 Book Club selection. Paul Bevan, who translated the novel, will join us for the discussion ...
The Shanghai Foreigners’ Cemetery
Bringing flowers to the Foreigners’ Cemetery at Soong Ching Ling Memorial Park has become something of an Historic Shanghai ...
The Shanghai Paper Hunt
Our April 4 walk takes us to Historic Hongqiao, where Shanghailanders partook in all kinds of outdoor activities, none stranger or more quintessentially Old Shanghai than the Paper Hunt. "In the beginning, as we can well understand, means of recreation were somewhat limited. Indeed, an old ...
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Shanghai Spring: Violet Cress, An Ancient Hero, and a Peace Sign
Tiny violet flowers breaking through the wintry ground: It's one of the first signs of spring in Shanghai. The emergence of the Chinese violet cress (Orychophragmus violaceus) every March is a reassuring sign that no matter what else is going on in the world, spring will come. Violet cress ...
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Tower of Vice: Shanghai’s Great World
There’s no more notorious symbol of Old Shanghai’s underworld than the pleasure palace that was the Great World—after all, this tiered wedding cake of a building was owned by one of the most powerful gangsters in the city: Huang Jinrong, aka Pockmarked Huang. Read on, for the story: But ...
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Shanghai’s Sun Yat-sen Statue
A hundred years ago today, on March 12 1925, Sun Yat-sen drew his last breath. The untimely death of the man who overthrew imperial Qing rule and put China on the road to modernity ushered in a multitude of commemorations around the country and around the world: a mausoleum, memorial halls, statues in ...
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