Astute readers of my blog (if there are any) may recall an entry I posted a few years ago about a visit to the Muse Nightclub in Shanghai. That was back in 2007. Today there are three Muses operating in the city. In our book Shanghai Nightscapes: Nightlife, Globalization, and Sexuality in the Chinese Metropolis 1920-2010 (currently under review by a major university press) James Farrer and I write about the city's nightlife over the past century and how nightlife has come to play a central and defining role in the cosmopolitan identity of the city. While we don't have time or space to cover all the multifarious twists and turns that nightlife has made over the past few years of explosive growth, nor all the clubs that have ebbed and flowed over the city's nighttime landscape, Muse is definitely central to our story of nightlife's revival since the 1990s. In the book we discuss the Muse epic in some detail--I'll leave it at that for now, not wanting to spoil a good story.
Read MoreXu Jilin on Arts and Culture in Shanghai
Today the MCLC list announced the publication of a special journal issue on Shanghai:
‘China Heritage Quarterly’, Issue 22 (June 2010) Launched
http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org ‘
The Heritage of Shanghai’
Shanghai Journal back online
After a 15 month hiatus, I've decided to revive this site. The main reason is because Squarespace is no longer blocked in China. It was simply too cumbersome to post and edit my site using a vpn, and most of my readership, i.e. folks living in the PRC, couldn't access it, plus I had lost sight of the purpose of this blog. Now I'm coming back with (hopefully) a more coherent vision about what this is about. More to follow soon.
Andrew Field
A Fun-Filled Vacation Week in Shanghai
a rundown of my week in Shanghai
Read MoreSingin' the Digestive Blues in Good Ol' Shanghai
Random musings on music and why I'm not more talented at it : )
Read MoreLife in Shanghai Continues Apace, and my New Job with CIEE Ramps Up
random musings about my life in Shanghai
Read MoreBack on Track in Muggy Shanghai
Summer has hit Shanghai with a vengeance, slamming us bugs into the pavement like a great big fly-swatter. Having lived in Aus for all those years I’d forgotten how jarring four extreme seasons can be. It’s just hot as hell out there today. And humid—like a great big bowl of steaming wonton soup. Thank Buddha for air conditioning, even though it’s a contributor to global warming, which is just making the problem worse in the long run. But we humans, we’re short-term thinkers. Looking out for our own comfort without regard for the generations to come.
Read MoreAnother Sign of Old Shanghai Vanishing
This morning we were surprised to find blue skies instead of the usual rain. My mother and I took advantage of the weather and headed out for a walk. Our mission was to find the former address of an acquaintance of hers in the Boston area. Her friend, a 70-something year old man named Rolf Wetzell, grew up in Shanghai. He left in the late 1940s on the eve of the revolution, and never returned. He wanted my mother to find his old house, which he said was located at lane 189 on Kinnear Road.
Read MoreShanghai Gloaming: A Videographic Portrayal of the City in Flux
A review of a doc film on photographer Greg Girard and his work photographing Shanghai's disappearing neighborhoods
Read MoreSex and Politics in the Orient: An Interview with James Farrer
James Farrer is a sociologist at Sophia University in Tokyo. Author of the book _Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai_ (Chicago, 2002) he specializes in the study of modern and contemporary sexuality in China and Japan. For several years, James and I have been collaborating on various projects surrounding nightlife cultures in Shanghai and Tokyo (see my previous blogs on Dr. Sex Life and on our special nightlife issue). I've been meaning to post an interview with him about his various research projects for a while now. Finally got round to it. Here are my questions to James and his responses:
Read MorePunks on Stage in Shanghai: Re-TROS at Moganshan Lu STD Party
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: The Rogue Transmission, Boys Climbing Ropes, and Joyside at Windows Underground
Somehow I managed to get the boys out of the restaurant and into a taxi without any violence and we headed over to Windows Underground. We got there in time to see Dan Shapiro’s band Rogue Transmission.
Read MoreWindows Underground: A New Bastion for the Rock Scene in Shanghai
Last night Mency and I met my friend Mo Jin, who is back in town for the weekend, and together headed over to the new Windows Underground. We arrived at 11 pm in the middle of the Secondhand Roses (ershou meigui) concert. This Beijing-based band delivers a powerful mix of northern-style folk rock enhanced with traditional Chinese instruments. The male lead singer has a campy singing and operatic performance style, and is known to dress up in women’s costumes. They looked like regular rockers last night though, and like my friend Dan Shapiro (Handlebar Dan, though he shaved his whiskers for the summer) said, these guys don’t need a gimmick—they’re solid.
Read MoreHappy Children’s Day, Shanghai
Yet another week gone by, with me getting older, fatter, and none the wiser. Isn’t that just life? The only consolation I have is to live vicariously through younger folk like my three-year old daughter Sarah. In celebration of Children’s Day, we took her out to brunch at the Paulaner Brauhaus with our friend LK and his wife Ranran and daughter Samantha. The heavy German fare now sits in my intestines like a lead weight. So much for losing a few pounds. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.
Read MoreNightlife in China: A Special Issue of _China An International Journal_
We are pleased to announce that our collective research project on
nightlife in contemporary China, after some trials and tribulations,
has finally been published. Below are the article titles. This issue
of _China: An International Journal (CIJ)_ is now available online and
may be accessed through university library websites. I uploaded my own essay onto this site and it may be downloaded by clicking on the link below.
Read MoreEarthquake Rocks Sichuan, but Shanghai Parties On
A description of news reports on the earthquake in Sichuan, and a visit to a Shanghai nightclub...
Read MoreSix 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.
Read MoreShanghai in May: A Renewed Love Affair with the City
May has arrived in Shanghai, and with it the best weather this city offers. The trees are all in full leafy array. Birds twitter in the parks. The skies are generally sunny, and the air is warm but not yet hot and sultry. A cool breeze blows through the city, keeping the air as clean as a metropolis of 20 million residents could be.
Read MoreA Virtual Tour of the Paramount Ballroom, 1930s Shanghai's Finest Dance Palace
In 2004 I made these short films discussing the history of the Paramount Ballroom, Shanghai’s finest ballroom in the 1930s.
Read MoreHoly Hollywood! Welcoming John Cusack to Shanghai
Lately I’ve been dusting off my old photographs of Shanghai to show a man who plans to play an American in a film about Shanghai in 1941. Last week John Cusack arrived in Shanghai with his mate/producer/handler, Nick Gillie.
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