
The former Royal Asiatic Society building
Far from the maddening crowds on the Bund, the Rockbund Art Museum on Huqiu Lu (虎丘路) is a favored destination that singularly embodies the East meets West history, design and architecture of…
Far from the maddening crowds on the Bund, the Rockbund Art Museum on Huqiu Lu (虎丘路) is a favored destination that singularly embodies the East meets West history, design and architecture of…
I’ve always liked the predictability and soothing effect of uncomplicated patterns. This was one reason why I found myself standing in front of a discreet entrance off the…
What makes a shikumen (石库门) header an architectural tapestry so emblematic of Shanghai? The grey stone pediment, shaped in a triangle or semi-circle, contains designs that range from the…
My interview with Maureen Fan about her grandfather, Robert Fan Wenzhao (1893-1979), has been long overdue. What started as an introductory email several years ago grew into a…
I love hearing from passionate artists who reach out to share their works – photo essays, poems, short films – a reflection of their time, consideration and dedication….
In the years of photographing Shanghai, I’ve had a chance to meet a wide array of talented photographers and researchers as enthusiastic about documenting the city as I am. They…
You see them almost immediately as you emerge from the Dalian Road Metro (大连路地铁站) station along Changyang Road (长阳路), a jarring picture against the late afternoon sun. Two…
The room could only be described as unremarkable. Enclosed by bare and washed-out walls, there was a simple bed, a table and a chest of drawers with the…
“Look at my flying dragon!” PING!! Plastic connected loudly with glass. My knees buckled and my heart literally fell to the floor. My camera lens was just attacked…
When I was growing up in Singapore, chickens were also sold live and you would get to pick them out right from their cages. A vivid memory I had…
All through school, the smartest kid in class who scored top marks was never the most well-off or had multiple private tutors on hand. It was the quiet…
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to…
He had a hard look, the kind that resented people on sight which was only sharpened by his menacing tattoo. He appeared as if he had the world…
For a two-way street, Hongkou market is a smorgasbord of traffic. It is impossible to stand still in any part of the street without a car, bicycle or…
She left most affairs to her son whom she lived with. She slept on the first floor which was neat and well kept while he slept in the…
The business of construction involves more than labor and machinery. It often extends to an integrated supply chain of services solely aimed at addressing the daily needs of…
CEOs have their executive breakfasts at the Hyatt or Shangri La in gleaming skyscrapers. The ordinary construction worker has his by the side of the road amidst the…
We don’t pay enough tribute to the backbone of Shanghai’s construction fervor, as unhappy as Shanghai residents seem to be by all the Expo-driven noise and air pollution….
From a small town outside of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, he looked perfectly airbrushed to be the face of the upcoming Shanghai Expo: the proud craftsman behind the…
Dawn was just about breaking when I saw him through the haze of cement dust. In a sea of construction workers milling around for breakfast, this man was…