A Shanghai Sojourn: Staying at the Peace Hotel, Stepping into Old Shanghai’s Storied Past, and Drinking in the Bund’s Splendor and Vicissitudes

Some say: for two thousand years of Chinese history, look to Xi’an; for one thousand years, to Beijing; for one hundred years, to Shanghai. Shanghai’s history is the mirror of modern China. This was once the International Settlement, and along the Bund stand dozens of classical revival buildings in a medley of styles, bringing the city’s 1920s and 1930s charm vividly to life. The Bund is often called a “gallery of world architecture.” Countless film scenes have swept through here, and countless midnight dreams echo with soulful tales, all held in this legendary city that keeps playing out timeless stories, never surpassed.

The Bund stretches 1.5 kilometers, from East Yan’an Road in the south to the Garden Bridge on Suzhou Creek in the north. To its east is the Huangpu River, to its west the old hub of Shanghai’s finance and foreign trade. Taking in the river views and admiring the heritage buildings is a must-do for every visitor. Among dozens of old edifices, one green‑roofed landmark stands out: the “First Building in the Far East.” In 1929, the wealthy British‑Jewish businessman Ellis Victor Sassoon built a hotel on the Bund that seemed to carry all of Europe inside – it was then called the Cathay Hotel.

Over ninety years later, it still stands on the Bund as the Peace Hotel. Its value far exceeds that of an ordinary hotel. Step inside, and you step into the Shanghai of old. Even if you’re not staying overnight, you can tour this most iconic Chinese building and savour the atmosphere of old Shanghai. The classic Peace Hotel tour lets you see the lobby, Jasmine Lounge, Jazz Bar, Peace Museum, East Wing Gallery and Bund East Gate, Cathay Room, Dragon & Phoenix Hall, Lalique Corridor, and the Peace Hall.

Shanghai writer Chen Danyan wrote in her book *Becoming the Peace Hotel*: “No monument fulfils the role of Shanghai’s monument better than the Peace Hotel. In its open, unpretentious, worldly way, it links and bears witness to one sea‑changed old era after another – a richness and truth no mere pedestal monument can rival.” Indeed, the turbulent stories of Shanghai and the elegance of a hundred years of luminaries are all distilled here. On this trip to Shanghai, I had the privilege of staying in this legendary hotel and savouring the flavour of old Shanghai.

**The Lobby: Octagonal Dome and Silver Panel Miniatures of Shanghai**

For a long time, the octagonal dome above the lobby was sealed. During the major renovation in 2007, the glass skylight was revealed again. In the soaring, airy centre of the lobby, the stained glass on the ceiling is so gorgeous you can’t help but pause and look up. Gold and pink‑green panes in the octagonal court let the light pour down limpidly, warm and bright. Above the dome, you can make out the emblem of the Sassoon family – a hound. Victor Sassoon was fond of horse racing and hunting, and originally named the bar “Horse and Hound.”

The central “Peace Dove” was donated by an artist on the Peace Hotel’s 90th anniversary. Made of 1,580 pieces of coloured glass, its form is sculpted with traditional glass‑art techniques while a deconstructive modern artistic language unfolds the dove’s graceful wings – avant‑garde yet poised, restrained yet romantic. The image echoes the hotel’s name perfectly: a dove of peace, also the symbol of the Peace Hotel.

On four sides around the Peace Dove are four silver‑panel miniatures of Shanghai showing the Bund in the 1920s and 1930s, sparking endless reverie.

The East Gate of the Peace Hotel is rarely opened – allegedly due to feng shui principles, since opening it would let wealth drain straight into the Huangpu River. The retro staircase here is a popular photo spot; it’s also where Charlie Chaplin had his wedding ceremony. The lifts to the restaurant rise from this side, too.

Along the corridor leading to the East Gate, there is a photo exhibition where you can see iconic scenes shot here – from *Sleepless Town*, *Tiny Times 3*, *The Silent War*, *Forever Enthralled*, and *The Untouchable*, among others.

**Peace Museum: China’s First Hotel‑Based Museum**

Did you know that Shanghai’s most emblematic hotel hides a museum within? It is probably the first museum established in a hotel in China. Tucked up an unassuming staircase at a corner of the ground floor, it is free for hotel guests. The museum is small but encapsulates 91 years of the Peace Hotel’s history.

On display are antique items engraved with “Cathay Hotel” (the north building’s predecessor): a copper ice‑bucket‑with‑ladle, a copper key tag, a copper thermos flask, a copper ashtray, silver spoons, and more, alongside paintings and calligraphy by masters such as Wu Changshuo, Fu Baoshi, and Liu Haisu.

The patina on all kinds of period utensils records the splendour left by the original owner Sassoon and his circle of celebrity and political friends. Old photographs pass historic scenes before your eyes. From Sun Yat‑sen to Lu Xun, from Charlie Chaplin to Montgomery, the anecdotes of the famous in “old Peace” add a rich store of conversation when you look back through the years. Playwright George Bernard Shaw visited, General Wedemeyer came, General Marshall stayed, and even John Leighton Stuart, president of Yenching University, and the great Indian poet Tagore sojourned here. Charlie Chaplin checked into Room 51 with Paulette Goddard, star of *Modern Times*. After the founding of the People’s Republic, the Peace Hotel also hosted Queen Elizabeth II, former U.S. President Clinton, and other leaders.

This compact museum displays the historical record and cultural legends from the Cathay Hotel through to today’s Peace Hotel. Its deep historical heritage and rich cultural layers have made the hotel the “building as prop” in 33 films and TV dramas.

The Peace Museum is now open to hotel guests, and outside visitors can also pay for entry, to experience Shanghai’s most emblematic architecture and walk into the stirring years of the Bund.

In this tranquil space, the stories of the Cathay Hotel (1929–1952) and the Peace Hotel (1956–2007) are told, along with the hotel’s new face after its painstaking renovation and grand reopening on 28 July 2010. The museum lets you understand this building’s near‑century of vicissitudes. Strolling through, soaking in the passage of time, looking at Sassoon‑era desks and leafing through old Shanghai books – it feels wonderful.

**The Nine‑Nation Suites: Sleep in 1930s Opulence**

A night at the Peace Hotel is many visitors’ first choice in Shanghai. Only here can you feel the most authentic Shanghai flavour and the nostalgia of old Shanghai.

The hotel has 270 luxury rooms and suites of distinctive character, all furnished with Art‑Deco‑inspired pieces and modern amenities. Most notable are the Nine‑Nation Suites on the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors. These suites were born from Sassoon’s vision: to bring the flavour of different countries into the Cathay Hotel. Today, the India, British, China, and USA suites directly carry forward the hotel’s original styles, while the France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Germany suites have been redesigned on the conception of preserving each country’s era and style; each suite covers around 178 square metres. On this trip, I was lucky enough to stay in the France Suite. Come with my camera to see what it’s like inside.

The France Suite is on the sixth floor. Guests staying in suites can check in at the exclusive Golden Floor executive lounge on the ninth floor, with complimentary access to the Golden Lounge’s European breakfast and afternoon tea snacks. Open the door, and the 178‑square‑metre suite unfurls before you: first, a corridor, and at its end a wet bar.

The France Suite’s overall layout is elegant and stylish, with Art‑Deco‑style classical wallpaper, walnut‑carved furniture, and luxurious design fabrics. The living room was the set for the first episode of the TV drama *Negotiator*; Yang Mi sat right here on this sofa. The fireplace design highlights the European feel, thick with vintage charm.

From the dining room, you can see the Bund, directly facing the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. When night lights up, the view is stunning.

A vintage clock in a corner of the dining room carries you back to 1930s Shanghai reverie. Put on a qipao and pose here – extraordinarily elegant.

The bedroom centres around a comfortable large bed. The mattress is soft but doesn’t sag, so even I, who normally suffer from lumbar disc issues, found it very comfortable.

The enchanting marble bathroom has a large bathtub. All bath amenities are Le Labo’s Rose 31 collection; its distinctive scent draws you into a lush olfactory realm.

Many political celebrities, film stars, and notable figures have stayed in these suites, and many films and TV dramas have been shot here. The Nine‑Nation Suites present, right in the bustling metropolis, the mood of another era – a noble, understated glamour rich with character. You can glimpse the elegance of the 1930s in the dignified oak‑panelled walls and wooden window frames. Lean on the windowsill, gaze out at the Huangpu River, listen to the ships’ horns and the chime of the Bund Customs House clock, and you’ll be lost in emotion.

**The Cathay Room: The Bund’s Most Beautiful Viewing Terrace**

The Cathay Room evolved from the Peace Hotel’s original “Grill Room,” then the pinnacle of Western dining where the world’s wealthy flocked. Today, the open‑air private dining area with the best views still needs booking well in advance at 6,000 yuan a night, and a window seat requires a reservation more than a week ahead.

This is the ultimate vantage point for views of the Bund. The food, served as set menus, is likewise exquisite. Lunch is 388 yuan per person plus 15% service charge, with a choice of appetiser, main course, and dessert.

Appetiser: Spanish chorizo baked egg – chorizo paired with a spicy sauce, with mushrooms and roasted potato on the side.

Main course: Lamb rack, done to your preference; I chose medium‑well. Two large Australian lamb racks come with green vegetable purée and rosemary sauce, making every mouthful more flavoursome. The yellow item is a layered potato (I almost didn’t recognise it as potato), crisp and textural. The red is red onion pickled in vinegar, bringing a sweet‑and‑sour lift.

Dessert: Pavlova – a rectangular little cake, not too sweet, refreshing. It came with a scoop of chocolate ice cream, a summer delight!

Afternoon tea is also a set; the sweets platter is fixed while you can choose your tea or drink. Very pleasant.

The rooftop open‑air cocktail lounge is an essential part of the Bund skyline. Standing here, you can feast on both banks of the Huangpu, Shanghai’s most beautiful cityscape.

When night falls and the lights come on, the Bund shimmers gloriously on both sides.

This is also the best spot for portraits: set against the Bund, the sense of time‑travel is overwhelming (two girls here shot at least 100 photos… haha).

**Dragon & Phoenix Hall: Classic Opulence in a Chinese Restaurant**

On the eighth floor, Dragon & Phoenix Hall, with its traditional Chinese red pillars and green walls, Khitan gold motifs, and the famous dragon‑and‑phoenix ceiling, creates an opulent classic atmosphere. Diners are transported through time as if into an imperial gourmet paradise.

Dragon & Phoenix Hall is a celebrated high‑end Chinese restaurant serving classic Shanghai and Cantonese cuisine. The ingredients are choice, the service attentive, and the vintage refinement pulls you back to the bustling years of old.

Old Shanghai smoked fish – a classic cold appetiser. The texture should suit southern palates; it’s not too sweet, and the fish is crispy just right.

Zao bo dou – a traditional Shanghai casserole: a medley of ingredients in fermented‑rice‑wine brine, a dish known only to true old‑Shanghai connoisseurs. This bowl contains duck tongue, shrimp, broad beans, and Arctic surf clam, an excellent blend of meat and vegetable. Roll each piece in the brine at the bottom before eating; a faint hint of wine fragrance rises, simply delicious.

Double‑flavour xiaolongbao – arriving at the table wreathed in steam, with four dumplings per steamer layer, filled respectively with shrimp and pork. Gently pick one up, open a small window, sip the broth, then eat the filling.

Charcoal‑grilled silver cod – my favourite. The cod is exceptionally tender, and the sauce is unique.

Beside Dragon & Phoenix Hall lies the Lalique Corridor. Lalique art glass may now be unfamiliar to China’s young people, but for “old clappers” and the “last young masters” who lived in Shanghai more than half a century ago, it is a beautiful, distant dream.

Lalique art glass was a precious specialty glass that swept the globe, especially enchanting Europe in the last century. Its most famous products were opalescent glass, created by adding antimony, arsenic, and cobalt during firing. Pieces made this way show special chromatic effects, available in transparent or frosted. From afar they appear milky white; up close, dark blue; held up to the light, they glow a vivid red like a flame – truly wondrous. The Lalique glass works in the Peace Hotel include flower‑and‑bird screens, doves spreading wings, and fish gliding in clear water. Standing amidst them feels like entering a crystal world, of immeasurable value.

**The Old Jazz Band: Vintage Echoes by the Bund**

When night descends, familiar melodies float out from the Peace Hotel at the heart of the Bund. The retro flavour of 1920s and 1930s Shanghai slowly pours forth in those well‑known old tunes. As you step into the Jazz Bar and see the performers on stage, that moment overwhelms you almost beyond words. They are white‑haired but spruce in blue suits, utterly immersed, their thin fingers gliding over instruments. They are the Old Jazz Band of the Peace Hotel.

Founded in 1980, the Peace Hotel Old Jazz Band is one of Shanghai’s most celebrated jazz ensembles, and the only old‑age jazz band in China. Their average age has reached 80. For forty years, wind or rain, they have played classic jazz every night in the Jazz Bar on the ground floor. You see none of the frailty expected of octogenarians; instead, their love of music and zest for life radiate from them – a state that shames us young people who so easily cry “tired.”

Why did *Newsweek* in 1996 name the Peace Hotel Jazz Bar one of the best bars in the world? Why, for the past four decades, has it been written into guidebooks as a must‑visit, a Shanghai scene cherished by heads of state and ordinary folk alike? These seasoned musicians, hailed as “evergreen trees in the arts world,” are especially skilled at performing jazz standards from the 1930s and 1940s and famous tunes from around the world. Their “ageless legend” has become a radiant feature of the Shanghai Peace Hotel.

Today’s north building of the Peace Hotel, known in history as the Cathay Hotel or Sassoon House, is celebrated as the “First Building in the Far East.” It was the first high‑rise built in Shanghai by the Jewish merchant Victor Sassoon, and also the first modernist building in Shanghai’s modern architectural history – arguably the most worthwhile edifice on the Bund to explore. Now, even non‑guests can visit it for a fee to see old Shanghai’s glamour up close. In 1980, jazz, silenced for nearly forty years, echoed again in Shanghai. Foreign visitors sensed not just a band that could play foreign tunes, but a signal of China’s Reform and Opening‑up. Soon the Old Jazz Band became the Peace Hotel’s calling card. The band in front of you – old musicians, worn instruments, yellowing sheet music – this “three‑old” combination holds a peculiar, moving charm.

As the music rises, many can’t help but dance. A middle‑three step or a rumba fills the small Jazz Bar with a special atmosphere, as if you’ve been transported to a dance in a 1930s old mansion. As you listen, you can also sit at the bar nearby and watch handsome bartenders mix cocktails.

There’s a minimum charge of one drink per person in the Jazz Bar, roughly 100 yuan per head, which is actually very good value. Sipping a romantic cocktail amid the old‑Shanghai jazz mood is an experience all its own.

Compared with young heartthrobs, these “veterans” are even more captivating. Learning we were from Xiamen, the current band leader came over to chat. Their warmth and conversation revealed their passion – they love new things and are happy to share their joy.

“People say that seeing us is like glimpsing old Shanghai’s glamour. Actually, what we’ve witnessed is a brand‑new Shanghai.”

If you come to Shanghai, if you pass by the Bund in the evening, even if you’re not staying at the Peace Hotel, I strongly recommend you go to the Jazz Bar and hear the Old Jazz Band play live. Sip a Sassoon cocktail to the sound of classic jazz, and you’ll be carried back to the “Golden Age” of the last century. Candlelight flickers, notes drift, and the dream of old Shanghai is played out to perfection.

**In Closing**

If any building best represents Shanghai, the Peace Hotel must be mentioned. Its significance goes far beyond being just a hotel – it distils nearly a century of the city’s history and flavour. Every brick and tile, right down to every piece of tableware and instrument, has its unique resonance. To call it Shanghai’s monument is perfectly apt.

A revolving wood door separates the Peace Hotel from the bustling Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street outside. That single wall seems to transport you back to Shanghai’s past, from the present day to bygone times. Only those who truly appreciate her can savour the legend behind the door and the stories within the legend. A Shanghai Sojourn: Staying at the Peace Hotel, Stepping into Old Shanghai’s Storied Past, and Drinking in the Bund’s Splendor and Vicissitudes