Upcoming Walks & Events

APRIL & MAY HOLIDAY 2026

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GARDEN WALK

Saturday April 18, 10.30am

Spring in a Classical Chinese Garden: ZUIBAICHI, with Shelly Bryant, author of Classical Chinese Gardens of Shanghai

RMB 300 members, 400 nonmembers, includes tour with garden expert, entry tickets, and lunch

Springtime, when the earth awakens, is a wonderful time for a stroll through a blooming classical Chinese garden. All the more so when our guide, Shelly Bryant, literally wrote the book on Shanghai’s classical gardens (Shelly is the author of Classical Gardens of Shanghai).

On this walk, Shelly will lead us through the Song dynasty origins and tumultuous history of Zuibaichi, its secrets, the poetry and literature at its heart, and the ways in which Chinese gardens differ from Western ones. It’s an eye-opening journey into a Chinese cultural masterpiece that is, at the same time, a beautiful slice of nature.

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POP UP TOUR

Thursday April 23, 9.15am (meet), 9.30am (tour begins)

Inside Old Shanghai’s Bank Vaults

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

We have an unique opportunity this Thursday to enter the former Continental Bank vault: one of the great bank vaults of Old Shanghai, in one of the great Art Deco banks. The vault has remained in close to its original state—there are even some original, unopened safes!

We’ll visit the Bank of East Asia vault nearby as well, and then take a walk to see the stately historic banks of Shanghai, the cathedrals of commerce that once housed the fortunes of the city—banks from around the world and around China, with their vast columned marble halls and exquisitely decorated details.

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BOOK CLUB

Saturday April 25, 10.30am

APRIL BOOK CLUB: The Master Jeweler by Weina Dai Randel

RMB 100 members, 200 nonmembers

In 1925 Harbin, Anyu finds an exquisite Fabergé egg, half-concealed in the snow. She returns it to the very grateful owner, Isaac Mandelburg, who turns out to be a former master jeweler for the Russian imperial family. He’s on his way to Shanghai to work at his uncle’s jewelry shop.

Fate brings them together again in Shanghai, and Anyu begins apprenticing as a jeweler for Isaac. But this is 1920s Shanghai, after all, and Anyu soon becomes entangled in the dark side of the glamorous city, a world of gangsters, obsessive collectors, and vicious rivals.

The Master Jeweler is the third in Randel’s series of novels set during wartime China–two of them in Shanghai–and all with Chinese and Jewish characters, including historical figures. Randel can spin a good story, but an important caveat for readers is that historical accuracy is not her strong suit—despite the fact that she writes historical fiction peppered with historical characters!

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SHANGHAI HISTORY SERIES

Sunday April 26, 10am

Shanghai History Walk 4: The Roaring ’20s, Gangsters and Warlords

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

In 2026, Historic Shanghai started a new series of walks to help make sense of Shanghai’s history. Each Shanghai History walk covers a period of the city’s history in chronological order. For the full list of walks, see the Shanghai History Walks post.

Shanghai’s roaring ‘20s were the stuff that legends were made of. Women were liberated, nightclubs were hopping, business was booming, buildings were rising, students were protesting. The country was controlled by warlords, the city, by gangsters, some of the most fascinating, colorful characters you’ll ever meet.

Join us for a walk through the legacy of 1920s Shanghai, the stories of an era in the buildings and the sites left behind.

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MAY HOLIDAY WALKS

Sunday May 3, 2pm (public holiday)

Fuxing Island and Yangpu’s Industrial Heritage

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

Join us for a walk through the fascinating, surprising, history of beautiful Fuxing Island and its environs, in Yangpu district: the charming cottage in the lush park where defeated Nationalist leader Chiang kai-shek spent his last night in Shanghai, a 1920s bridge, the relics of an industrial past, an old Japanese mill compound, a Baptist college, a worker’s rebellion—and a look at the future.

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MAY HOLIDAY WALKS

Monday May 4, 10am (public holiday)

The Spirit of May 4th: Lu Xun and the Radical Writers of Hongkou

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

Join us for a walk through the spirit of May Fourth in charming Hongkou, as we share the story of a groundbreaking early 20^th century movement that changed China, and the May Fourth writers who fomented a literary revolution.

The May Fourth Movement was an intellectual turning point for China, an awakening that sought to create a new, modern Chinese culture, spearheaded by Mr Science and Mr Democracy.

Shanghai, with its booming publishing industry, was a major center for this intellectual ferment, and our walk will take us through its literary legacy: from Lu Xun, the literary giant who was the most influential May Fourth writer, with his scathing critiques of traditional society, to the editors of journals, publishers, bookstore owners, the men and women who created a brave new world of literature.

We’ll visit the lanes and houses where they lived, a museum to their work, the bookstores and landscapes that inspired them, and hear their stories, and the story of this movement whose ideas set them on the path to revolution and shaped the following century.

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MAY HOLIDAY WALKS

Tuesday May 5, 2pm (public holiday)

ALONG THE RIVER: Historic Ports, Docks, and Warehouses

RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers

The story of Old Shanghai’s wealth and cosmopolitanism lies along the Huangpu River, in the ports, docks, and warehouses that were her engine of growth, sending her people and goods into the world.

On this picturesque walk along the newly landscaped riverside, we’ll see the port from which a young Deng Xiaoping left for France, the cotton mills and warehouses of major industrial players, an historic granary, a tai-pan’s bungalow, the castle that has contained the city’s waterworks for over a century, the Southern Manchurian Railway port, and much more. We’ll explore both sides of the river, journeying across the waters on a ferry.

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