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Schools in old Shanghai

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 ...

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 ...

Shanghai Community Church

The Community Church has been on this spot on Hengshan Road since 1925, a gathering place for song and prayer for nearly a century. It’s been closed for most of the last three (Covid) years, but now, in the midst of renovation, a door was open, the workers were looking the other way, so in we went! The Community ...

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 will be our guest on ‘Living History’ on October 22 (details below). She was born in Shanghai in 1927 to stateless Russian Jewish parents and lived ...

School Above the Sea: Shanghai Municipal Council Polytechnic Public School

The Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) Polytechnic, or Gezhi Academy, was founded in 1874, and remarkably, this pioneering institution, with its links to missionaries, reformers, scientists, and revolutionaries, is still going strong. Today, it’s the Shanghai Gezhi High School. In 2005, I was privileged to meet two ...