Yesterday I took my NYU Modern Chinese History students on a tour of the Heart of the Old French Concession. Here are some of the highlights:
Read More上海纽约大学奠基仪式 NYU Shanghai Campus Groundbreaking Ceremony
Today I attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new NYU campus in the Pudong district of Shanghai. The campus will consist of a building erected in the middle of a cluster of other skyscrapers and office towers off of Century Avenue in Pudong. John Sexton, NYU's president, was there to give a speech. The Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng was there as well along with many other dignitaries from the Shanghai government and from East China Normal University, which has partnered with NYU in setting up this new campus.
Read MoreShanghai's Dancing World favorably reviewed in the American Historical Review
I was very pleased to receive a message today from my publisher with a PDF file of a highly favorable and attentive review of Shanghai's Dancing World. The review was published in the most recent issue of the American Historical Review. Please click here to download the PDF file of the review. The reviewer is Xiaoqun Xu of Christopher Newport University.
有朋自遠方來 不亦樂乎： Receiving honored guests from Tokyo and Harvard, resurrecting the ghost of Zhang Ailing, and exploring rooftops on the Shanghai Bund
Confucius says, "Isn't it wonderful to receive old friends from afar?" The past few days have been filled with visits from old friends and colleagues from abroad. First James Farrer, my colleague and dear friend, and my co-conspirator in the writing of our new book Shanghai Nightscapes, who teaches sociology at Sophia University, and his wife Gracia, who also teaches sociology at Waseda University, and their daughter Sage flew over here from Tokyo where they live and work.
Read More穆時英 上海的狐步舞， “Shanghai Fox-trot”
This story first appeared in the journal Xiandai (“Modern”) Vol. 4 no. 2 1934. It has been reprinted many times, for example in Wu Huanzhang, ed. Haipai xiaoshuo jingpin (“The best of Shanghai-stylestories”) (Shanghai: Fudan Daxue chuban she, 1996) 525-535. Translation from Chinese into English by Andrew Field—words in bold appear in English in the original text.
Read MoreShanghai’s Nighttime Phantasmagoria: Haunting Nightlife Spaces Old and New
The other night (Thursday March 17) I took my Global Nightlife students and a few of their friends from the NYU Shanghai program on their second tour of Shanghai’s nightscapes. This time we started at the famed Paramount Ballroom, the finest and most celebrated ballroom of the Golden Age of Shanghai nightlife, the 1930s. The ballroom is the only one from the 1930s that today is still operating as a commercial dance establishment.
Read MoreCanned Fun: An Evening at the Phebe 3D Dance Club in Shanghai
Last night I joined my NYU Global Nightlife students for the first of three field trips into the world of Shanghai nightlife. We met around 9:30 pm at 滴水洞 （Di Shui Dong), a popular Hunanese restaurant on Dongping Road. From there it is an easy walk to dozens of clubs and bars clustered in that neighborhood.
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