Sunday, November 28, 2010

Old Shanghai A-Z - Paul French

Lujiazui is the light area on the right of thi...Old Shanghai via Wikipedia
Followers of Paul French's weblog China Rhyming could have seen the preparatory work for his latest book The Old Shanghai A-Z. The book is out now, just in time for Christmas.
Paul French:
As to how it was put together – I broke Shanghai down into three areas – the International Settlement, the French Concession and the External Roads Area. I then plotted out blocks across t€he three areas and retraced every street to compare old and new maps. What this revealed was that there are a lot more roads than commonly listed with old names – several hundred – and that most of the sources you’ll find on the internet are (gasp, shock horror) wrong. Mistakes get made, repeated and repeated again and eventually it’s impossible to tell – I’ve gone back to the original map and tried to start from scratch to avoid those errors. I ventured out far into Yangtzsepoo (Yangpu) to the East, the Badlands of the West, the Trenches of the North and old creeks of the South.
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Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau and covers a wide range of subjects. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.
paulfrenchPaul French  by Fantake via Flickr



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