Strolling Through China's Revolutionary History: A Walk in Shanghai's French Concession

The other day I had the pleasure to lead a tour of the Heart of the French Concession for a group of around 40 people who comprised the German-Chinese Graduate School of Global Politics in Shanghai.  I was expecting a group of Germans and was surprised when the great majority of students in the group were PRC Chinese.  I had not given a tour of the Concession to a Chinese audience before.  Would they be as interested in the history of this quarter? 

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Touring the French Concession and Screening Down: Indie Rock in the PRC

What a Saturday!  I awoke around 7 am, still groggy from the Bob Dylan concert of the previous night and a night of tossing and turning to some sort of intestinal infection, and readied myself for my alternate job as tour guide.  I had a 9 am appointment at the new Peninsula Hotel on the Bund for a tour group called the International Collectors Forum organized by a locally based tour guide agency called Shanghai Far East Expeditions.  I caught a taxi to the Bund and had the driver stop at Suzhou Creek where I took this morning shot of the iconic Garden Bridge (外百渡桥) overlooking the Pudong Skyline.

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Six Shanghai Walks: One Down, Five to Go

On Friday May 16, I took 20 NYU in Shanghai students on a walking tour of the heart of the old French Concession. I’d given tours of the area before, which is rich in historical buildings and neighborhoods, including the old French Park (now Fuxing Park) and the home of Sun Yat-sen. This time I decided to use the book The Streets of Changing Fortune: Six Shanghai Walks as the basis for the tour. Written by Barbara Green, Tess Johnston, Ruth Lear, and Carolyn Robertson, this is the first of a (now) two-part series of guided walking tours of the city.
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