One of the many advantages to using the Squarespace platform for my blog site is that I have access to a range of analytics that tell me how my website is being used around the world. One of those analytics lets me know how many people are reading (or at least accessing) my blog entries. I can also see where people are accessing them from (country and city or town). This lets me know how many readers are out there and what they are interested in reading about.

Here is a list of the top ten entries from 2018. Keep in mind that this is only a record of how many times these entries were directly accessed through my website. Many more readers were reading them indirectly through other sites such as LinkedIn. The results are not surprising. The top two entries proved very popular when I posted them on LinkedIn (in fact the top entry is from 2017 so the number of readers was much greater back then). The entries on Jack Riley and Joe Farren—I owe their popularity to the great success of Paul French’s book City of Devils. In fact I posted these and a few others in order to help readers of that book get access to some of the original documents Paul used (which aren’t footnoted in his book). And they definitely took advantage of this opportunity. As for the entry on Kunshan, I believe it’s popularity is mainly because the title is in Chinese, so a lot of folks looking up Kunshan bars in Chinese will find this entry (not that they will necessarily read it). This makes me wonder how many more hits I’d get if all my entry titles were in Chinese! Nice to see the article on Whitey Smith also hitting the top ten.

What this says about the popularity or usefulness of my blog I can’t say exactly, since I don’t get much feedback from people. It would be nice to get more comments and more messages from folks, but that’s life! Obviously the articles I’ve been posting on old Shanghai nightlife have proven to be a big hit among readers. As for my other blog entries, well, I’ve always said that I write them mostly for myself, but if others want to read them, that’s fine too!

1. Six Important Points About China Worth Remembering * (869)

   2. Why I Remain in China After All These Years: Some Brief Thoughts and Reflections on the 30th Anniversary of My Engagement with the P.R.C. (764)

   3. The Fate of Jack Riley, Shanghai's Notorious Slot Machine King (530)

   4. 昆山的酒吧 The Bars and Clubs of Kunshan (Part One)(441)

   5. The Beijing Indie Scene is Alive and Kicking (Well, Almost)(319)

   6. The Uncertain Future of the Astor House Hotel: A Historical Landmark Hotel in Shanghai(313)

   7. Jazz Bandleader Whitey Smith, “The Man Who Taught China to Dance” in Shanghai, 1920s-1930s(288)

   8. Joe Farren, Shanghai Nightlife Impresario (1939)(281)

   9. Shanghai's Girl Guides (1936)(195)

   10. Night Sounds in Shanghai: From Sing-Song Girls to Coolies on the Bund (1921) (188)