Explore Shanghai and around
Straddling the eastern end of Nanjing Lu is one of the most famous hotels in China, the Fairmont Peace Hotel (和平饭店, hépíng fàndiàn), formerly the Cathay Hotel. The place to be seen in prewar Shanghai, it offered guests a private plumbing system fed by a spring on the outskirts of town, marble baths with silver taps, and vitreous china lavatories imported from Britain. Noel Coward is supposed to have stayed here while writing Private Lives. The Peace today is worth a visit for a walk around the lobby and upper floors to take in the Art Deco elegance.
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Great British drug dealers
Great British drug dealers
Jardine Matheson, founded by William Jardine – the man who did more than any other individual to precipitate the Opium Wars and open Shanghai up to foreign trade – was the first foreign concern to buy land in Shanghai. Their former base (they lost all of their holdings in China after 1949), just north of the Peace Hotel, is now occupied by the China Textiles Export Corporation.
The wealth of the Sassoon family too, was built on opium, but by the early years of the last century, the family fortune had mostly been sunk into Shanghai real estate, including the Cathay (originally known as Sassoon House). The flamboyant Victor Sassoon lived long enough to see his hotel virtually destroyed by the Japanese, including his rooftop private apartment, with 360-degree views and dark oak panelling (it has recently been restored), but also long enough to get most of his money away to the Bahamas.
