People's Park
Landscaped urban park with a pond and cafe, built on a former colonial-era racecourse, home to a weekend matchmaking market.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to People's Park in Shanghai starts with a scene that looks nothing like a park outing: every weekend, hundreds of parents arrive without their children and pin biographies to string and umbrellas, trading age, salary and apartment ownership like listings on an exchange. It traces how this ground went from a British colonial racecourse to a split civic park, and how the matchmaking corner has grown since 2004 into an unlikely ritual of grief and hope. You'll also hear about the English Corner nearby, where strangers have gathered to practice a second language since 1978.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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