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 on April 27. To book, click here. Paul Bevan is the one of the most prominent scholars of early 20th-century Shanghai, and it is thanks to his works like A Modern Miscellany and ...
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Stateless in Shanghai: Living History with Liliane Willens
What was it like to grow up, from birth into young adulthood, in Old Shanghai? Glamour, chaos, deprivation, hope? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. The delightful Liliane Willens, our guest in the ‘Living History’ series, was born in Shanghai in 1927 to stateless Russian Jewish parents and lived here – through the glamorous ...
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The Royal Asiatic Society Building: The Museum on Museum Road
I first saw the old building in the summer of 2000, coming out of a lane on Huqiu Lu. It stood there, in all its modernist majesty, still glorious despite half a century of neglect. We asked the residents at the lane entrance just opposite the building about it. One middle-aged man, shirt doffed in the stifling Shanghai ...
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Selling the Ruan Lingyu Drama: Tragedy, Irony, and Exploitation in a 1934 Ad
March 8 - On the anniversary of the death of Old Shanghai’s movie goddess, Ruan Lingyu, MOFBA* delves into the story of an ad that is inextricably linked with the actress, her final movie, and her tragic death. By The Little Museum of Foreign Brand Advertising in the R.O.C (MOFBA) // The 1930s marked the first ...
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The Creation of a 1940s Advertisement
By The Little Museum of Foreign Brand Advertising in the R.O.C (MOFBA) // The companies of Old Shanghai left behind their buildings, but what happened to their products? Following Duncan Hewitt’s post on Brunner Mond/ICI, we’re delighted to publish MOFBA's story on the making of a 1940s ad featuring one of ICI's ...
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