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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Vintage Shanghai Comedy: “Da Li, Xiao Li & Lao Li 大李，小李和老李“
There are so many reasons to love this 1962 screwball comedy - let us count the ways: Scenes of 1960s Shanghai. You think images of 1930s Shanghai are rare? Try 1962, the year the Great Leap Forward ended. This is a rare film documentation of the period, including what may be the only existing footage of the Art Deco ...
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Sweet Old Shanghai: Heritage Bakeries
February is sweet season (you know - sweethearts, sweet delights...) so just in time for Valentine’s Day, we take a look at Shanghai’s surviving heritage bakeries and legacy of Western pastry classics. A selection of Shanghai heritage pastry classics from Kaisiling - Left, clockwise from top: Napoleon, chestnut ...
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Shanghai’s Hidden Ming Temple
In a narrow lane off the Nanjing Road pedestrian street stands a small, shabby box of a building. It’s no match for the flash and buzz of the famous street, yet its powers are so mighty that it has remained part of Shanghai life since the Ming Dynasty. On the roof, a plain red sign with two bright yellow ...
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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. ...
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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: [Not the actual log book - our artist's impression!] A Logbook's Insights into Shanghai Cinema Management It was a bookkeeper’s daily ...
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Cicadas: Shanghai’s Summer Song
"All the different kinds of cicada are now in full song .... most noticeable is the longdrawn song of the big black cicada, whose strident screech fills the air for periods of half a minute to a minute at a time, ceases for a while, and then starts again." Arthur de Carle Sowerby, Nature Notes, 1938 The Shanghai Summer ...
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