I just returned to Kunshan from a busy weekend in Shanghai. On Saturday morning, as a new member of the Board of Trustees for Shanghai American School I had the pleasure to attend an event at the Westin Hotel, where three alumni from the class of 1949--Betty Barr Wang, Carl Scovel and
Teddy
Heinrichsohn--
gave fascinating talks about their memories of Shanghai in the 1940s.
These including Betty's 2.5 year stint in the infamous
and Carl's stay in another camp--and imparted much wisdom to the audience of mostly parents and students of SAS based on their own life experiences.
This wonderful session was then followed by a conversation between deputy head of school Marcel Gauthier and Laura Harder, the daughter of our BOT Chair York-chi Harder, who talked about her experiences at Princeton and her current job in New York city.
Following that, as part of our orientation program for incoming faculty I had the pleasure to lead a tour of Shanghai for faculty coming to Kunshan from Duke and elsewhere who are teaching for our
. Here is a brief recap of our tour:
Saturday (French Concession tour):
We started at the Joffre Terrace (淮海坊) on corner of Maoming (Route Cardinal Mercier) and Nanchang roads where we toured an old
or
neighborhood that was once the residence to several famous people from the 1920s-40s including
(
’s wife), writer
, and artist
. We then walked down Nanchang Road (Route Vallon) to Sinan Road (
) where we visited the former home of
and
(Song Qingling) and toured the museum. We then walked over to the
(formerly the Morriss Estate) and walked through the estate and back to Maoming Road, then headed to Shaoxing Road and had tea at the
where we saw the books by owner
Deke Erh (Er Dongqiang) and Tess Johnston
. We then walked over to the
area off of Taikang Road to have dinner at an Indian restaurant named Lotus Land.
Saturday evening jazz/nightlife tour:
We visited the
, Shanghai’s top jazz club, where we caught a performance by Toby Mak,
(with whom we chatted)
and their band
.
We also sampled the fine cocktails at
, a bar around the corner from JZ on Yongfu Road owned by Spanish restaurant entrepreneur Willy Trullas Moreno. This is the same bar that James Farrer and I took Frank Langfitt, the NPR correspondent, who later made
from a nighttime tour based on our book
Shanghai Nightscapes
.
Sunday (Huangpu River tour):
We started at Old Docks (lao matou) and took the ferry across the river to Pudong, where we walked along the riverside. One of the interesting sites we saw there was a group of Buddhists who were releasing birds from cages, while up the river a bit others were paying to have fish released into the water only to be caught by fishermen with nets to sell once again for the same purpose.
We then visited the
tower and went up to the 88th floor to catch the stunning views of the city on the fine clear-sky day (at least, clear by Shanghai standards).
We then returned to the Bund via another ferry across the Huangpu River.
Back on the Puxi side, we took this shot in front of the Gutzlaff Signal Tower on the Bund. We had lunch at
, a Yunnanese restaurant on Yan'an Road near the Bund. I then rejoined my own family for a viewing of the new film
The Jungle Book
, which was quite a thrill. Well done, John Favreau and cast!