Shanghai keeps growing horizontally and vertically. The first time we were here in 2004 the Jin Mao Tower was the tallest building, having briefly been the tallest building in the world. It was a bit lonely back then. It was still the tallest building in shanghai in 2014 and this year, 2025, our tour included an optional visit to the viewing platform at the top. But now that's a bit of an anticlimax because the giant Shanghai Tower, next door, puts it into the shade, quietly literally.

Top: The Jin Mao Tower and the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower in 2004
Middle: Again in 2006
Bottom: The Jin Mao Tower - now dwarfed by the Shanghai Tower, next door, 2025
(my photos)

Museum Visit

The History Museum in Shanghai is housed in what was once the Shanghai Race Club. It's a large building built by the British in the days of Empire.

A notice board describes the museums scope - 6,000 years ago 'til 1949 with prominence given to early civilisations, ceramics and metallurgy, the opium wars and industrialisation. There's also a gallery documenting (somewhat abridged) events leading to the establishment of the Communist Government in 1949.

I was surprised to find that a roll of honour, recording those (British) club members who were killed during the Great War (1914-18), remains in the building. Also surprising was that while most of the 28 members who gave their lives, listed alphabetically by name, where officers, there were also 2 privates and a lance corporal, presumably staff.

More recently, we learn of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and of this region in 1937 and of the atrocities that they carried out, most infamously: the 'Rape of Nanjing', in Jiangsu Province (see Wuxi above).

So, for the Chinese the Second World War started in 1931 and ended with the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Of course, for part of this period civil war occupied the Chinese, until the Nationalists and Communists briefly united against the common enemy.

The Chinese do not let this go. On television there is a dedicated channel to all things military. The fight against the Japanese is a consistent theme in what appear to be numerous cheaply made military dramas. The channel also runs recruitment commercials for the armed forces.

Shanghai Historical Museum

More photographs of Shanghai

The Bund; China town and night-time river trip