A visit to the archive of Mr. Liu Debao, a Shanghainese collector of Mao era films and posters
Read MoreStrolling Through China's Revolutionary History: A Walk in Shanghai's French Concession
The other day I had the pleasure to lead a tour of the Heart of the French Concession for a group of around 40 people who comprised the German-Chinese Graduate School of Global Politics in Shanghai. I was expecting a group of Germans and was surprised when the great majority of students in the group were PRC Chinese. I had not given a tour of the Concession to a Chinese audience before. Would they be as interested in the history of this quarter?
Read MoreChina's Basketball Brawls: Aggression vs. Etiquette on the Courts and on the Road
I'm writing this entry in appreciation of fellow China scholar and Dartmouth alum Victor Mair's analysis posted on the MCLC e-list (see below) of the recent basketball game between the Georgetown Hoyas and Bayi Rockets, which ended in an orgy of violence involving the players and the mostly Chinese audience. It strikes me that the dark reading of this event by some Western media outlets e.g. "Basketball Brawl Symbolized Growing U.S.-China Tensions" goes a bit too far. Mair's analysis, putting the game into context with other similar events, has much greater explanatory value.
Read MoreOne More Night of Blues and Funk with Tony Hall's Blues Mission
Last night I returned to the House of Blues and Jazz to catch the band they've currently booked for a three-month stint. I was hoping to get a chance to talk to some of the musicians about their backgrounds and why they came to Shanghai. With a little help from friends, that's what happened.
Read MoreShanghai Nights of Blues and Jazz
Shanghai has a reputation worldwide--or had one at least--as a Jazz Age metropolis. Back in the 1920s and '30s, the city attracted great jazz musicians from all over China, Asia, Europe and the United States who played in dozens of ballrooms and nightclubs around the city. Back in that age, jazz was an integral component of mainstream nightlife in the city, and it was meant for dancing.
Read MoreThe Many Faces of Shanghai: Life in the Apocatropolis
Since spending the summer in Seoul, I've been back in Shanghai for nearly a week now. While I was deeply impressed with the cleanliness and efficiency of Seoul, the politeness of the people, and the variety of life and nightlife in that city, it sure felt good to return to a city whose daily life and nightlife I know so well, and where everyone speaks my language: Mandarin Chinese with a Shanghai twist. Over the past week, I've been readjusting to life in China's great metropolis.
Read MoreA Fond Farewell to Yonsei University
Yesterday, after a two-day delay caused by Typhoon Muifa, I successfully departed from Incheon Airport and flew back to Shanghai. Before I get into how elated I am to be back in my fair city, I want to pay homage to the beauty of the Yonsei University campus in Seoul, where I taught world history for six weeks over the summer. Although it rained nearly every day I was there, there were a few sunny days that brought out the natural beauty of the Yonsei campus. Nestled at the base of one of the mountains to the north of the city, the campus is built on a hill. It is one of the greenest campuses that I have ever seen. The main road into the campus is lined with majestic ginkos, and the campus is surrounded by forests of pine and diverse other greenery.
Read MoreA Visit to Songdo: Yonsei's Eco-Campus of the Future
Last week my old Dartmouth classmate Michael Kim, now a professor of Korean history at Yonsei University, invited me to join him on a tour of the new Yonsei campus in Songdo. Songdo is an emerging "green city" built from scratch on a muddy stretch of reclaimed land near the Incheon airport. The foundations of the city seem to be constructed by driving concrete piles deep down into the mud and building upon them. Sound familiar? This is how Shanghai's Bund was built since the 19th century.
Read MoreArtful Construction Sites: Seoul's Digital Media City
This summer I've been living at the DMC Ville, a set of serviced apartments in the Sangam District in Seoul. We are right next to the Digital Media City, an area that has been developed recently with the specific purpose of concentrating the media companies in the city. Everywhere around us are construction sites with new buildings rising. In order to make the area look presentable while all that construction goes on, artists have been commissioned to decorate the walls built around the sites. There's some pretty funky art out there if you walk around. Here are some examples. I've posted more photos of the wall art of Sangam DMC here.
Read MoreA Shanghailander in Seoul VI: So Long Seoul (for now)
It has been a grueling six weeks. Four hours of class per day, eight new lectures per week with only minor overlaps to previous subjects I've taught. As for weather, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of sunny days I've seen in Seoul since arriving in late June. We've had drenching downpours and even a deluge that brought the city to a standstill. But compared to what folks have been enduring in other parts of the world--namely shocking heat waves--I can't complain.
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