Category: Shanghai
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Holding My Breath
Just after noon on Saturday—three hours behind schedule—China Eastern Airlines Flight 721 broke through the clouds on its ascent from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport. From my seat in the middle of the plane, I turned my head left and looked out the window. For the first time in five days, I saw blue sky. Shanghai doesn’t…
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Thanksgiving Comfort Food
I have gotten pretty used to non-traditional Thanksgiving dinners. Since 2005, I have made it to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving with my family precisely once, and four of those years away have been in China, where turkey and stuffing can be hard to come by. Like The Atlantic’s Matt Schiavenza, I have turned to a Chinese…
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The Invasion of the GIANT ANTS
I have seen a lot of bugs since moving to Shanghai, but never have I seen ants this big. Or this colorful. The giant ants comprise a small sculpture exhibit located outside a mall on West Nanjing Road (just west of the intersection with Huashan Road, if you’re in Shanghai and want to check them…
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Halloween in the ’Hai
Family and friends often ask me how Western holidays are celebrated in China. Christmas decorations are very popular here now, particularly in luxury malls, and young couples have embraced Valentine’s Day wholeheartedly. But Halloween hasn’t really caught on yet. One of the things that surprised me when I was in Hong Kong was seeing how…
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Hong Kong Has Me a Little Off-Kilter
If you haven’t been to Hong Kong, I can now say with twenty-four hours’ worth of confidence that I highly recommend it. Excellent food (more on that soon, I promise), summery weather well into October, and plenty to see and do, even if you’re not a high-roller. There is much more to Hong Kong than…
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LA Review of Books: “Material Girls”
My monthly column at the LA Review of Books China Blog just went live; this month, I review Tiny Times, the hit movie of the summer here. It is, to put it briefly, a terrible film: Tiny Times (Xiao shidai), a Chinese summer blockbuster based on a book of the same name, ranks as far…
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Shanghai’s Sweltering Summer
Shanghai has always had a reputation for hot and humid summers; after all, that’s why Western missionaries and businessmen used to take their families to mountain retreats like Moganshan during the season. But this summer has been unlike anything the missionaries ever experienced: Shanghai just ended its hottest July on record, with twenty-five days above…
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Shanghai State of Mind
Rivalry between Beijing and Shanghai goes back a long way. It’s often, in my experience, of a friendly sort: upon hearing that I’ve lived in both cities, Chinese will ask me (usually with a smile) which one I like better, and I’ll laugh as I declare that whichever one they come from is my favorite.…
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Rubber Ducky, You’re the One
Shanghai has been rainy, polluted, and humid for the past couple of weeks; everything here (including me) seems gray and beaten down. As in Southern California, the city goes through an intense “June Gloom” before summer arrives in full force. As I was walking home last night, though, I spotted a bright flash of yellow…
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February Recap
Not a whole lot to recap for this short month, which was interrupted by the Chinese New Year break. Though we officially had a vacation of seven days, a lot of people were away from Shanghai for the full fifteen-day Spring Festival, or even longer. The owners of my favorite dumpling shop around the corner…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 