Zhangyuan

This guide to Zhangyuan in Shanghai opens with the city's first bicycle wobbling through these gates, into a private pleasure ground a Wuxi merchant named Zhang Shuhe carved from farmland in 1882 and opened to anyone who could pay a few coppers. You'll hear how the grounds became a stage no one could shut down, where Sun Yat-sen and Cai Yuanpei said things that could get a man arrested elsewhere in the empire, and how Shanghai's first outdoor photo studio and first electric lamps both appeared under these same trees. Listen for how quickly a place built for spectacle can turn into something else entirely.