Shanghai Gangsters: The Big Eight Mob
Before the rise of notorious gangster kingpins like Du Yuesheng and Huang Jinrong, there was the Big Eight Mob 八股党 and a crooked cop named Shen Xingshan. Dan Stein delves into the tale: The Louza Police Station, where Shen likely worked. In February 1909, the International Opium Commission, ...
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Shanghai’s Cathedral School for Girls: A Ballerina, A Sci-Fi Author, and Mao
Well, well. They’re refurbishing the Cathedral School for Girls on Avenue Haig/Huashan Lu, and look who’s popped up over the entrance! The posh Cathedral School for Girls (sister school to the Cathedral School for Boys) was established around 1918 on Yates Road/Shimen Yi Lu and moved to the ...
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The Battle of Shanghai: An Illustrated Guide
On August 14 1937, the day after the Battle of Shanghai began, misfired bombs rained death and destruction on civilians in downtown Shanghai. "Bloody Saturday" claimed 2,000 lives in what was then the deadliest aerial bombardment the world had seen, and for the following three months, the Battle of ...
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Girl Reporters: The Newswomen of Old Shanghai
The ranks of the foreign journalists of Old Shanghai were mostly filled by hard-bitten men, but by the 1920s, some of the city’s best and most interesting correspondents were women, or as they were known then, “girl reporters”. Born at the turn of the 20th century into a changing world, these ...
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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 ...
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Book Review: Witness to History: From Vienna to Shanghai: A Memoir of Escape, Survival and Resilience
by Susan Blumberg-Kason / In his new (but posthumous) memoir, Shanghai Jewish refugee Paul Hoffmann writes about his three most tumultuous experiences. One was enduring six months of Nazi Vienna, the other the terror inflicted by Sargent Kano Ghoya in the Shanghai Jewish Ghetto, and the third life ...
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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. On Saturday March 19, 4pm, we’ll screen that final movie, “New Women" - details and ...
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