Tours & Talks
APRIL 2024
TO REGISTER FOR AN EVENT: Scan the April Events QR at the bottom of the page or email info@historic-shanghai.com
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APRIL 2024
Thursday April 4, 2pm /QING MING WALK: The Foreigners’ Cemetery and Historic Hongqiao /RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers
In Old Shanghai, if you wanted to hike, go horseback riding, or perhaps build a bucolic mansion, you went to out to the rolling countryside in Hungjao. Hongqiao—as we call it today–is no longer rural, but on this walk, we’ll discover the legacy of its former life as Shanghai’s fanciest suburb: the country homes of the Soongs, Sassoons, war heroes and warlords, a swish golf club, and more!
And since it’s Qing Ming weekend, inspired by the tradition of visiting ancestral graves, we’ll also visit Shanghai’s Foreigners’ Cemetery. When the cemeteries around Shanghai were repurposed in the 1950s, new grave markers were created and moved here, to what was originally the Wanguo International Cemetery. The graves range from Royal Ulster Riflemen to Jewish tycoons, communist heroes, and ordinary men and women, lost and forgotten in a foreign land. We’ll share their stories, and visit the “Celebrities Cemetery”, final resting place of some of Shanghai’s most beloved artists, writers, and performers, and the grave of Soong Ching Ling and her parents.
NEW Saturday April 6, 10am DEEP DIVE: Route Andre Cohen (Gao’an Lu, former French Concession) /RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers
In our Deep Dive series, we pick a street, and go deep, because that’s where all the treasures lie! Route Cohen (Gao’an Lu) in the former French Concession runs quietly past more famous streets, but along this peaceful tree-lined avenue and its meandering lanes are some of the city’s loveliest, best-preserved architecture and most compelling tales. From a textile tycoon’s edgy, modernist home to sprawling Art Deco apartment complexes, charming houses with East-West design, the love nest of a notorious gangster, the site of a tragedy, and much more. Join us on a springtime walk as the plane trees begin to sprout!
Sunday April 7, 10am AN ANCIENT TEMPLE & MODERN TERROR: War & Peace at Longhua /RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers
For nearly two thousand years, Longhua has been the site of a Buddhist temple, an ancient place of peace, where April meant visiting the peach blossom garden. But nearly a century ago, in April, that peace—and that tradition–was violently shattered when hundreds of Communists were massacred on the temple grounds.
Join us as we explore the story of the April 1927 White Terror, in which a secret deal between the city’s gangsters and the Nationalists resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Communists. It would shift the political landscape for years to come. This beautiful, expansive memorial park with its 1920s prison, dramatic sculpture, cemetery, and prettily landscaped gardens with spring flowers blooming, eloquently tells this story.
We’ll then visit beautiful Longhua Temple and its famous landmark pagoda, once visible all over Shanghai. Although it’s been rebuilt many times over the centuries, it preserves the style of a Song monastery, and is Shanghai’s most complete ancient temple complex. Longhua’s powers are legendary, and the courtyards are full of worshippers, incense sticks raised to the gods.
SOLD OUT Saturday April 20, 2pm SHANGHAI’S LOST CITY: The Greater Shanghai Plan ~A World Art Deco Month Event /RMB 200 members, 300 nonmembers Scan the QR code to join the wait list
April is World Art Deco month, with the theme of Sports. Join us and explore the city’s Art Deco sports buildings and much more on this tour.
Hidden in northern Shanghai is a Chinese Art Deco city that never was. This group of 1930s buildings in the ‘Chinese Renaissance” architectural style makes up the Greater Shanghai Plan, conceived by Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists in 1927 as a new, proudly Chinese administrative city center surrounded by the foreign settlements.
U.S-trained Chinese architect Dong Dayou designed the buildings: grand, modern, and Chinese. But history intervened, and most of his buildings were never used for their intended purpose–but they are magnificent, and still stand. They’re now being given a new life: the library has been newly renovated according to the original blueprints and City Hall has been refreshed. There’s an Art Deco stadium, the Natatorium—swimming pool—and gymnasium, a museum, hospital, and a whimsical Civil Aviation building. We will infiltrate as many as possible of these jewels!
Sunday April 21, 4pm /FILM: Queen of Sports 體育皇后 (1934, starring Li Lili, directed by Sun Yu), 89 minutes /A World Art Deco Month Event /RMB 150 members, 250 nonmembers, includes coffee/tea or a glass of wine
April is World Art Deco month, with the theme of sports—a perfect time to show this fun, sporty film with the fabulous Art Deco interiors!
A naturally-gifted runner from the countryside enrolls in a women’s sports academy in Shanghai, inspired by the conviction that China will be stronger if its citizens strengthen their bodies. But success spoils her, and she neglects her studies and starts partying with westernized college boys (the horror!), but eventually, after crises befall her, she learns about what true athletic spirit means.
The film was made in response to a national sports craze and the government’s New Life Movement, which called for physical and moral self-strengthening. A star vehicle for the mischievous Li Lili, the film’s comic sequences and physical comedy are delightful—as are the Art Deco interiors!
Saturday April 27, 10am APRIL BOOK CLUB: Shanghai Faithful: Betrayal and Forgiveness in a Chinese Christian Family by Jennifer Lin /RMB 100 members, 200 nonmembers
The author will join us for the discussion
Shanghai Faithful is the dramatic story of 150 years of Christianity in China through the lens of the Lin family, from the first convert in a remote Fujian fishing village to the present day, centered around the author’s grandfather, St. John’s-educated Reverend Lin Pu-chi.
Jennifer Lin combines a journalist’s eye for detail with a scholar’s research and a novelist’s turn of phrase in this tour-de-force, describing her characters and their Shanghai in fine detail—as she describes how the twists and turns of Shanghai’s modern history impacts these characters, you’ll realize that you’ve come to care for them deeply. Lin is a wonderful storyteller, with a wonderful story.
Saturday April 27, 6.30pm /BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY: Deco After Dark – A World Art Deco Month event /RMB 300 members, 400 nonmembers, includes a cocktail
Everything looks different at night, and Shanghai’s glorious Art Deco is no exception. Join us for a dazzling look at the city’s Art Deco buildings by night, all dramatically lit up. From the Bund to Broadway Mansions and the wild neon of Nanjing Road, we’ll admire Shanghai’s Deco heritage, share stories of the city’s nightlife in the good old, bad old days, and finish up with a cocktail.
Sunday April 28, 10am /BOOK WALK: Shanghai Faithful – 150 Years of a Chinese Christian Family /RMB 300 members, 400 nonmembers, includes private bus
The story of 150 years of a Chinese family comes to life as we walk in the footsteps of the Lin family, as recounted in Jennifer Lin’s tour-de-force of a book, Shanghai Faithful. This is the story of the Lin family, and the impact of the grand sweep of 20th century Shanghai history on individuals, centered around the author’s grandfather, St. John’s-educated Reverend Lin Pu-chi. We’ll tell the story as we visit the buildings where the dramatic twists and turns in the story take place, from the family home to churches, schools, theaters, and much more.
COMING UP IN MAY
