The French Concession

Back in pre-war Shanghai the city was split up in to several "concessions." The British, Americans and French, among others, occupied these concessions. The local Chinese were not allowed in and foreigners rarely went out. For a great read on "old Shanghai" I recommend Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans.

Today, the only concession still called by that name is the French Concession. Every foreigner in Shanghai knows the French Concession. Numerous cafes, bars and boutiques are found near or in the area. Interestingly, few local Shanghai-nese know the area by the name the French Concession. Really, they don't call the area by any special name at all.

Expats, on the other hand, probably go in to the French Concession at least once a week to eat, read, shop, stroll and wander.

Before Chinese New Year, I spent one lovely afternoon doing just that. I will describe it for you and hope that you may someday spend just such an afternoon. Thank you Becky for being my accomplice in all this.

The afternoon began with a lovely late brunch at Citizen Cafe just down the corner from the Shaanxi Nan Lu and Jin Xian Lu corner. Becky introduced me to this place and I fell in love. It is the sort of place where good food and a comfortable environment meet reasonable prices to create a lunch hour well spent. Light wood floors, warm lighting, dark mahoghany chairs and tables provide contrast to the white, wainscotted walls decorated sparingly with an occasional gilt mirror or large canvas painting.

The Citizen Cafe brunch runs both Saturday and Sunday from 10-2. Although I myself have not ordered off the brunch menu, B's Eggs Benedict was quite good and the neighboring table's pancakes smelled like they came straight from heaven with the looks to boot. Soft, fluffy, a dark golden brown with an ample helping of maple syrup on the side. Yum. The salads here are amazing, especially the walnut, apple, blue cheese salad (the name escapes me at the moment). Quality ingredients go in to this old favorite and the chef does well to not drown the greens in dressing, providing a nice acidic contrast to the heavier creaminess of the blue cheese. But, getting carried away, back to the wonderful afternoon.

Next comes a little wandering mixed with a sizable helping of shopping. The nice thing about this particular day was that it came just before Chinese New Year meaning everything in Shanghai was on sale. Go a bit further south on Shaanxi Nan Lu and you have two options. One, go east down Julu Lu. This will provide you with wonderful residential housing mixed with fabulous boutiques that only appear every once in a while, making it easy to choose and shop in a leisurely manner.

Two, continue down Shaanxi Nan Lu and pop down the cross roads for a quick look at the multiple shop windows. If you do this, I recommend hitting up Garden Books, Changle Lu, and the Big DVD shop on Xin Le Lu. The really big one, almost all the way to Fumin Lu. Planning to hit up the taqueria and tequila place there soon. This DVD shop is hands down the best I've been to. They literally have EVERYTHING. There's also a Dragonfly Spa two doors down and with an hour long full body massage costing 138 RMB, its hard to pass up.

I definitely preferred the Julu Lu route, which provided us with great shopping, great drinks when we felt like a pit stop (Velvet!) and helped us work off the day's eating.

It occurs to me that even though the French Concession doesn't officially exist anymore, the feeling still does. Spending an afternoon there oftentimes makes me completely forget that I live in China, or even a different country. Sometimes this is needed. Especially after one of those days where no one understands a word you are saying and everything just seems harder and more challenging than it ought to be. In times like those, its nice to take a little respite from the frustrations and obstacles of living in China and just pretend you're home, if only for an afternoon.