Shanghai's Huxinting Tea House sits in the middle of a lake filled with goldfish on the edge of the Yuyuan Garden by Nanshi, the old Chinese City. (2006) Shanghai began life as a fishing village, and later as a port receiving goods carried down the Yangzi River. From 1842 onwards, in the aftermath of the first Opium War, the British opened a ‘concession’ in Shanghai where drug dealers and other traders could operate undisturbed. French, Italians, Germans, Americans and Japanese all followed. By the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was a boom town and an international byword for dissipation.

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Shanghai's Huxinting Tea House sits in the middle of a lake filled with goldfish on the edge of the Yuyuan Garden by Nanshi, the old Chinese City. (2006) Shanghai began life as a fishing village, and later as a port receiving goods carried down the Yangzi River. From 1842 onwards, in the aftermath of the first Opium War, the British opened a ‘concession’ in Shanghai where drug dealers and other traders could operate undisturbed. French, Italians, Germans, Americans and Japanese all followed. By the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was a boom town and an international byword for dissipation. When the Communists won power in 1949, they transformed Shanghai into a model of the Revolution.

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Size: 3307px × 5173px
Photo credit: © Pictures From History / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 2006, architecture, asia, asian, cha, chashi, china, chinese, culture, david, east, garden, henley, house, huxinting, nanshi, photograph, shanghai, tea, teahouse, town, yuyuan