Shanghailander.net

There are not many things that would make me wake up early morning Sunday in winter, walk under the pouring rain for 2 hours and keep a happy smile. Taking a tour of art deco buildings with Tess Johnston is just about the only thing that could create  this miracle. This Sunday was one of [...]

Be interested in old Shanghai books and pictures is nice, but making it happen again just for a few hours was an even greater enjoyment. This year’s big celebration (my 40th birthday and 20 years of living abroad) was the perfect opportunity. I have been passing in front of the house we celebrated at for many [...]

Arrival in Yangon (Rangoon) at night woke back many memories of other cities frozen in time. The first contact reminded me of arriving in Saigon in 1998. Same trees, same roads and mostly 1980′s Japanese 10th hand cars around. The cars falling apart with wheel on the wrong side reminded me of Cambodia in the [...]

“Territoires et populations des confins du Yunnan” is a book I bought in an antique market a couple of years ago. Published in 1931 by French Beijing-based Henri Vetch company, it was actually printed by the Commercial Press in Shanghai. The author Joseph Siguret was also the French Consul from 1926 to 1953 in Beijing [...]

Shanghailander.net blog has raised in popularity over the years and people from various places have been contacting me about it, but one of the recent most interesting encounters was through a friend of a friend. After a 2 hours conversation (originally planned for 1/2 an hour), Claire’s conclusion was “You definitely have to meet my [...]

The start of 2010 is for me the change of generation. My grand-mother Claudine Toffoletti passed away last week, at the age of 96 years. Although I have lived many years far away from her, we kept a very close relationships by letters. Email was something she had little idea about, but we wrote postal [...]

This post about the movie Casablanca is a deviation post still strongly linked to old Shanghai. The 1942 movie takes place during World War II in Europe when Jewish refugees from Central Europe were fleeing persecutions in their home countries, selling all their belongings to try and reach a safe heaven. Casablanca was a transit [...]

I did not write posts recently, going on vacation after weeks of writing slowed down by technical problems. The summer break was a great opportunity to take a step backward from life in Shanghai. My first trip was to Thailand, to relax in a Ko Samui detox resort. Shanghai hectic life comes with a price, [...]