A mixed review of the new history museum, which starts out promising and ends with something left to be desired

Thirty years ago, I opted to stay in Asia and travel extensively in China. Today I look back on thirty years of engagement with China, around half of that living here and building a career and family.

Last year I wrote a long piece excavating the top 25 bands and albums of my high school years. Now I want to go on an archeological expedition even deeper into the past, back to my junior high days (1981-83) to explore my favorite bands and albums from those formative times. To do so I have to dredge deep into my memories to recall which bands I treasured and put on the highest rotation during those years. Which albums, when listening to them 35 years later, can I still remember every song lyric, every lick, and every record scratch. Which albums, when even thinking about them now, conjure forth a cascade of dim and distant memories of “good times, bad times” with friends and family from my formative years. 

Part 2 of an exploratory walk around the People's Park/Square area to look at some of the old landmark hotels, amusement halls, and theaters from the 1920s-30s.

I’m in process of developing a new walking tour of Shanghai. After many years of covering the French Concession and the Bund, I’m moving onto new territory, namely the area around the People’s Square/Park, formerly the Recreation Ground of the International Settlement. 

Yesterday, after taking my daughter Sarah to her supplementary math class in the Hongkou district of Shanghai, we walked over to Duolun Road, a now famous historic street in this part of Shanghai. I was searching for the exact site where a Japanese seaman named Hideo Nakayama had been murdered in 1935, causing an international scandal that likely contributed to Japan’s march to war with China. And I found it.

Over the past three days I have been attending the Asia Pacific Association for International Education or APAIE conference: https://www.apaie2018.org/. This year it was held in Singapore and had over 2200 attendees  from this region as well as elsewhere around the world. This year it was held in Singapore and had over 2200 attendees  from this region as well as elsewhere around the world .

A night one the town including a visit to the new Hoy Hoy, a rockabilly joint on Maoming Road, and to the JZ Club to see the Big Band

Whereupon I go with my students, colleagues and friends upon a long, exhausting, enlightening walking tour of the city, encompassing the wreckage of the old and the glitter of the new

A quick trip up to the Jing to check out the indie music scene and help a student kickstart his research project

A week of urban madness in the snow, and trudging back and forth along the SH-KS corridor

Will everyone around the world be spending many years learning to speak, read and write Chinese soon? Methinks not. But more and more people will be acquiring the basic skills to communicate in Mandarin, and here's why...

Notes from a night on the town to catch up with the jazz and rock scenes, and with some old friends in those scenes

A stroll down a friendly neighborhood Shanghai lilong alleyway on a sunny New Year's Day restores one's faith in the city amidst the dark, cold winter days.

Yep, it's here, folks: The biggest, grandest, most spectacular Starbucks on the planet, right down the road from where we live in Shanghai, on the corner of Nanjing and Shimen Roads. It caps off the recent opening of a grand new shopping mall called Taigu Hui 太古汇 which has been in the making for a few years now. Located above the fairly new subway station on Line 12, the mall and office complex opened up earlier this year. The new Starbucks R opened earlier this month.

The Lao Xi Men 老西门 or Old West Gate area of Shanghai is full of homes, temples, and treasures dating back to the Qing Dynasty if not earlier. Recently, Tina Kanagaratnam and Katya Knyazeva co-wrote an article on the demolition of this area for SupChina. Katya is a real expert in this part of town and its history. I've been on her tour which she runs for Shanghai Flaneur. It was a while ago, but I remember we visited several homes that dated back to the Qing Dynasty.Since I'm on Christmas vacation now in Shanghai, between ferrying my daughters to their various appointments and engagements, I had a window of opportunity today to visit the area and see for myself what is going on there. I spent around two hours today plodding through the cold rain amongst a warren of alleyways and passages. I've been to this area before, many times over the past twenty years or so, but the impending destruction forced me to look at these alleys and homes with new eyes. 

Two years ago I visited the original Disneyland theme park in Anaheim California with my wife Mengxi and our two daughters Hannah and Sarah.  This year on Christmas Day, we visited the new Disneyland theme park in our hometown of Shanghai. These two visits gave us the chance to compare and contrast the oldest and newest Disneylands. Here are some observations.

Last night I led my final night tour of the Bund for the year 2017, and possibly the last tour involving the Astor House. As usual, my tour was organized by the Shanghai Flaneur company, which I highly recommend to people looking for a more substantial tour of the city's historic and contemporary cultures. The Astor House is rumored to be closing down for a major renovation after which it will become a museum for the Stock Exchange.

When I first visited Shanghai as a college student in 1988, I stayed at the Pujiang Hotel (浦江饭店) located just north of the Bund. Back then it was serving as a youth hostel. I remember sleeping in a large room with rows of beds filled with travelers from all over the world. Little did I know that I would be spending much of my adult life in this city researching its history. Perhaps my stay there kindled my desire to learn more about the social life that once romped in the hotel back in the 1920s. Perhaps the ghosts of famous residents from decades past whispered in my ear, begging me to preserve the memory of those glorious, decadent, daring, and dangerous times.