Hengshan Road

Patrick from Historic Shanghai tells a story about the American School, which was located on Hengshan Road from 1923 to 1941. On its 100th anniversary, some years ago, 6 ‘boys’ and 6 ‘girls’ — now aged in their 80s or 90s — visited the location again in which they had grown up. And when they walked through the former Girl’s Dormitory, the ladies giggled like the primary school students they once were: “You boys have never been here before!”, to which one of the boys, now an old man, raised his wrinkled-hand and said: “Yes I have”, grinning ear to ear.

Huaihai Road

Another story from Patrick. In 1999, the USA accidentally dropped a bomb on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists and prompting riots in all big cities in China.

In Beijing they kept US staff trapped in the embassy, and the embassy in Chengdu went up in flames. But not in Shanghai, organised & cosmopolitan as it was and is. The municipality gathered busses and told all the schools which time the students would be picked up to “riot”.

And here, at the former entrance, those busses stopped, handing out tomatoes and other fruits to angry students, who where also told “make sure you’re back in 20 minutes!”. And the busses came and went the whole day, but nothing was damaged, except some paints. However soon afterwards, the embassy did move their gate to further down the road, and reinforced the walls for more security. Yet the old posts of the gate remain, as you can see on the crossing of Wulumuqi South Road & Huaihai Road.