Old Shanghai

It is still there....

Shanghai Saluting Spring

.

 Outside and Inside

More of the Club Scene in Old Shanghai

You can still find old elegant Shanghai tucked often behind large gates.  This particular building I am still very curious about. I suspect it was part of a country club complex in the French Concession but, I haven't managed to figure out which one. It has the most beautifully aged copper roof. Now part of the Radisson Hotel complex it is still used for functions.

In the late thirties there were no less than 200 active clubs catering to every need of the foreigners in
the city. Reading in Tales from Old Shanghai` by Graham Earnshaw the club scene was just plain decadent. Earnshaw writes 'Alphabetically they ran from the Air Defense Club to the Zero Club' encompassing yachting, horses, shooting, football, golf, swimming, and theatre to name just a few of the offerings.

Shanghai Restored

No. 3 The Bund, perhaps one of the most famous clubs in the world - The Shanghai Club. Recently renovated and added to, creating the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Shanghai.

The main club entry and public rooms have been wonderfully restored by HBA Architects and Associates. Nods to design  elements of new and old, East and West, this newly opened hotel is a visual treat. It is hard to believe during the '90's it housed a KFC!

The Waldorf still houses the infamous long bar. Legend has it that the head of the bar for the movers and shakers of the time was the East end close to the river, while the West end was for the aspiring business and social climbers. With the bar being 110 feet long there must have been a large group in the middle!
Beautifully reconstructed after being either destroyed by the Japanese or completely ripped out for KFC
depending on what you read, Ian Carr the architect demanded a pure recreation of the original long bar from Burmese teak. The colours of the wood stained to match the original and all the detailing painstakingly recreated from old photographs. Mr. Carr however omitted the famous big game head collection of Arthur de Carle Sowerby.

'There are also no longer any membership restrictions. Noel Barber, in his book The Fall of Shanghai, describes how a young man sheltering from gunfire on the steps of the club when the Communists were invading the city had to be proposed by his boss and seconded by another before he could be given "temporary membership" to cross the threshold. When Thomas Lipton, the tea baron, visited Shanghai he was also not permitted to enter. "He might be a millionaire but he was still a greengrocer," remarked Mr Crow.'

Paris of the East

Shanghai old and new.... the city is once again the most cosmopolitan mix of East and West. A place where the sky is the only limit. Breathtakingly beautiful there is no other place like it.

Celebrating with Chinese White

The Forbidden City in Beijing is a favorite for pre - wedding pictures..... this bride  to  be
looked so very happy!

Celebrating with Chinese Red

No one does it better!