The Soong House on Seymour Road: A Pictorial Tour
There are several Soong houses in Shanghai that you can visit, but the modest house on Shaanxi Bei Lu that was the family home for more than a decade is not open to the public. So, for your viewing pleasure, some photos (from our private 2020 visit)! If you’d like to learn more about the fascinating Soongs and their ...
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The Shanghai Paper Hunt
This Thursday (April 4), we'll explore the stories of Hongqiao, Shanghai's fanciest suburb, on our Historic Hongqiao walk...including the legendary Shanghai Paper Hunt. The paper hunt, you ask? Grown men on horseback chasing bits of paper across the countryside. Read on ... it's weirder and more wonderful than you could ...
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The Kidnapping of Wei Tingrong
By Dan Stein // On July 24, 1929, Wei Tingrong’s chauffeur picked him up at the prestigious Sino-French Bank, where he was the boss. The sophisticated, dapper French-speaking Wei was near the apex of Shanghai Chinese society, with wealth and influence unimaginable for most of his countrymen. Wei Tingrong But just as ...
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McTyeire: The School for China’s Daughters
Young women in smart uniforms run down the wide steps, ponytails flying, laughing and talking. Clusters of girls sit and chat on the green lawn that fronts the grand building with its own turret. At first glance, they seem like adolescent girls anywhere, but look closer, and the girls of the Shanghai No.3 Girls’ Middle ...
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The Chaste Widow of the Shanghai Racetrack
The Chaste Widow’s Monument, an 18th century memorial arch on the old racecourse, was a legacy of Shanghai before the foreigners came, a bow to an ancient Confucian virtue that stood stubbornly on the racecourse infield until the 1950s. Restored in the 1940s by shipping tycoon and Shanghailander Eric Moller, it was one of ...
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Tour Report: Inside Marble Hall, The Kadoorie Mansion
Old Shanghai was a city full of exquisite mansions, yet even so, Elly Kadoorie’s Marble Hall was considered the most beautiful of all. On Saturday, August 5, Historic Shanghai visited this jewel. Here's the story. “It is palatial ….built on a lavish scale, yet not ostentatious.” – North-China Herald, March 22, ...
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The Astoria Confectionary & Tea-Room
When Kyriaco Dimitriades arrived in Shanghai in the 1920s, he was young, ambitious and ready to make his fortune. When he left, in 1949, he had created an icon: the Astoria Confectionary & Tea-Room, which sold bread, pastries and the city's most gorgeous wedding cakes. His daughter, Daphne Skillen, tells his ...
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