Memories of Chinese New Year in Old Shanghai
新年快乐！Xin Nian Kuai Le! As we welcome the Year of the Snake in a world of WeChat hongbaos and electronic firecrackers, we wondered: what was Chinese New Year like in old Shanghai? So we went to the experts: the men and women who grew up here. Here are their memories of Shanghai Chinese New Years past, from the 1930s ...
>
The Shanghai Garden in Winter: Wintersweet
Take a whiff - it's the season for fragrant wintersweet (la mei, 蜡梅*), and somewhere in a Shanghai lane or garden, a tree is flowering. They appear in winter's barren landscape right at that moment when it feels that all hope is lost and spring will never come, its yellow blossoms the promise of spring sunshine. Song ...
>
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 ...
>
Treaty Port Gulangyu
“For situation and natural attractions, Kulangsu (Gulangyu) is unsurpassed along the coast of China.” -- Philip Wilson Pitcher, 1909 A tiny gem nestled in the embrace of big sister Xiamen ("Amoy" in the local Hokkien dialect) in China’s southern Fujian province, Gulangyu Island's size– just 2km2 – ...
>
The Ultimate Historic Shanghai Gift Guide 2019
‘Tis the season – the shopping season, that is – so it’s time for our annual guide of the very best gifts that celebrate Shanghai’s unique heritage. Pro tip: for one-stop Shanghai heritage shopping, Madame Mao's Dowry is the best place in town, hands down. 207 Fumin Lu/Julu Lu, and tell 'em we sent you. ...
>
Old Shanghai Cinemas: Insights from a Logbook
by Tess Johnston// Back in 2010, I found in a local antique market an old ledger covered in brown wrapping paper, with a handsomely-penciled inscription on the front: [caption id="attachment_2406" align="aligncenter" width="642"] [Not the actual log book - our artist's impression!][/caption]A Logbook's Insights ...
>
Historic Shanghai’s Best Books of 2018
Shanghai’s history could never be painted with a single brush, a single perspective, a single tale. Perhaps that’s true of all cities, but it’s especially so in this cosmopolitan metropolis, where east and west, communism and capitalism, tradition and revolution, coexisted. And to complicate things further, Shanghai’s ...
>