shanghai
december 2025

Talking about the former British Concession, you instantly feel the contrast between eras. Back in the day this place was buzzing with “high society” life. There was a huge racetrack, elite clubs for wealthy businessmen and officials, where millions changed hands in a single night and colonial politics were decided somewhere between cocktails and bets.

Today all those gambling houses and clubs are long gone and in their place you’ll find People’s Park, a big green space where families stroll and locals relax.

The photos from the early 20th century that our guide showed us revealed a completely different, darker Shanghai. Whole avenues of brothels where children as young as eight or ten were forced to work, streets packed with casinos and entertainment for the colonial elite. When you see this, you start to understand why for so many people the arrival of the Communist Party felt like salvation. Local people and their culture had absolutely no respect back then.

Today the British Concession is a mix of old and new. Some colonial mansions are still standing, but most of the area is filled with modern office buildings and apartment complexes.

Still, the Bund keeps the spirit of that colonial era alive. With its grand stone facades and the view of Pudong’s skyscrapers across the river, it feels like time stopped for a moment. The old Customs House is especially impressive, a massive and powerful building that once controlled all trade along the Huangpu.

Walking through the streets, you really feel how history and modern life overlap. Every corner reminds you how complicated and cosmopolitan Shanghai was in the early 1900s.

Nanjing Road is the beating heart of Shanghai’s shopping and street life. Bright storefronts, neon lights, huge crowds, street musicians and the smell of food everywhere you turn. You can find anything here, from luxury brands to tiny souvenir stalls. This street shows the loud, energetic, modern side of the city. At one point someone even tried to sell me belts, bags and “designer” clothes in a back alley.

Apparently these were copies made at the same factories that produce the originals.

As someone who is used to filtering out propaganda, I was curious to learn about real everyday life in China. My guide told me she herself became an accidental part of the “one family, one child” policy. She doesn’t even know her exact birthday. She and her two brothers were all registered as triplets several years after they were born.

The new “one family, three children” policy doesn’t really work in practice and she isn’t in a rush to have kids herself. 

By the way, on Nanjing Road there is a bronze sculpture of a woman with a child, holding shopping bags and a stroller. A small but very real reminder of those old times.