With the British victory in the so-called Opium Wars in 1842 and 1860, Shanghai was opened to a wider world. The early foreign merchants settled on or near the riverfront, known as The Bund. In 1863 they created two separate settlements nominally for, and controlled by, foreigners (although foreigners never numbered even 4% of the total population): these were the International Settlement and the French Concession. Thus Shanghai became three separate and self-governing Shanghais: International, French, and Chinese. This unique situation later lured waves of foreigners to try their luck, or escape from oppressive regimes, in free-wheeling Shanghai.

The International Settlement lay to the north and included some parts of Hongkou, north of Suzhou Creek; the French Concession, about two-thirds its size, lay to its south, curving around the Chinese City. Avenue Edward VII (now Yanan Road ) divided those two; all around the fringes was Chinese territory.

The British-dominated International Settlement was more business-oriented, but many foreigners preferred to live in the greener and more tranquil French Concession. There they built their fine villas, their clubs and, in the 1930s, many stunning Art Deco apartment houses. Paid generously and cosseted by Chinese servants, foreigners lived the Good Life: they reigned supreme, subject to no laws but their own.

In 1937, heavy Chinese-Japanese fighting in the territory surrounding the settlements saw the foreigners retreating into their two concessions; a change in their lives of power and privilege was now clearly in sight. The arrival of the invading Japanese forces on December 8, 1941, spelled the end of Westerners' domination in Shanghai. Even after the allied victory in 1945, Western businesses were never able to regain their pre-war momentum. With the communist forces moving ever closer, businesses began to fail and the foreign community gradually drew down.

Many foreigners returned to their home countries - often ones they hardly knew - but others, especially those with big financial investments in the city, stayed on. After the communists' victory in the spring of 1949, it was all over for foreigners in China. Within a few years their assets were nationalized and they were forced to leave.

Foreigners began to return in numbers only in 1992, after Deng Xiaoping stated "to get rich (is) glorious" and the local business world started to regain its commercial momentum. Shanghai has never looked back, and has again become one of the major commercial centers of the world. In the process, however, much has been lost, including much of its old Western architecture.

In our walks we want to show you what remains, to take you back into an era - perhaps over-romanticized -- that for most foreigners, was the apogee of the "Good Life".