Shanghai Living

Shanghai's churches are a quiet surprise for many newcomers. Between the skyscrapers of Xujiahui and the narrow lanes of the Former French Concession, you will find Gothic spires, red-brick chapels, and active congregations that have been meeting for over a century. Some of these churches are architectural landmarks worth visiting for their history and craftsmanship. Others are places where you can...

Moving to Shanghai as an avid reader can feel like a small heartbreak. Your personal library is thousands of kilometres away, and the thought of navigating a new city in a new language to find a decent novel is daunting. The good news is that Shanghai has a surprisingly rich ecosystem for English readers. From a historic flagship bookstore on Fuzhou Road to a second-hand charity shop hidden inside an...

Setting up your own company in Shanghai is more accessible than most people assume — there's no minimum capital requirement to clear, and you don't even need to be in China to start the paperwork. But there are a handful of rules that changed recently, and a few mistakes that trip up foreign founders every year. Here's the short version of what matters. Pick the right entity — this decision...

If you've just arrived in Shanghai and golf is your game, here's the honest starting point: golf isn't one of the most popular sports in the city's expat community, and it doesn't have anywhere near the visible infrastructure of, say, football, running clubs, basketball, tennis or badminton. You won't find a golf group on every compound noticeboard. But the people who do play here play seriously, the...

One of the first things you notice after moving to Shanghai is that your usual streaming apps don't work the way they used to. BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and many other services are geo-blocked. Local TV is in Chinese. And if you want to watch a live sports event from back home, the options can seem confusing. The good news is there are several ways to watch foreign television in Shanghai — some official,...

You have been in Shanghai for a few months. You have mastered the metro, figured out Didi, and can navigate the city without a map. But every time you see a car pull up with a driver who is not a Didi driver, you start to wonder: Should I buy a car? Then you hear about the license plate. Someone tells you it costs nearly 100,000 RMB. Someone else says you can get one for free. Both are...

One of the first questions we hear from clients before they move to Shanghai is almost always the same: “Is it safe?” It is a fair question. You are moving to a new country, a new city, a new continent. You want to know if you can walk home at night, if your family will be secure, and if there is anything you should be worried about. The short answer is: Shanghai is one of the safest large...

If you are an expat family living in central Shanghai, you have probably heard the name. You may have seen it in rankings, heard it mentioned at a playdate, or noticed it on a school bus route winding through Jing'an. YK Pao School is one of the most sought-after bilingual schools in China. Its Primary Campus sits on the Jing'an-Changning border, minutes from the Former French Concession. For families...

When the idea of learning Mandarin first crosses an expat's mind, Shanghai often appears as the obvious answer. It is modern, connected, and filled with opportunities. Yet, after living here for a while, many foreigners discover that the reality of language learning in a global city is more complex than they expected . Shanghai is not a magic solution. You cannot simply move here and expect...

The first time you land in Shanghai, you will do what everyone does. You open Google Maps. You watch the little blue dot drift across the screen, park itself in the middle of a building across the street, and politely refuse to tell you where you actually are. The GPS is about 150 meters off, and no amount of restarting your phone will fix it. Welcome to Shanghai. Google Maps does not work here....