Shanghai. Paradise for Adventurers-Legendary Sin Cities

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Description

During the economic depression that struck Europe and North America in the years before World War II, Shanghai-a place whose name "evoked a sense of the exotic, of danger and depravity"-experienced a boom. This program charts the history of "The Paris of Asia," where every vice was available and eagerly consumed by residents of Shanghai's International Settlement, French Concession, and Chinese districts alike. Larger-than-life figures-Emily Hahn, Sir Victor Sassoon, Huang Jinrong, Morris "Two Guns" Cohen, and "Big Ears" Du, to name only five-are discussed by people in the know, including authors Harriet Sergeant (Shanghai: Collision Point of Cultures) and Stella Dong (Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City), Shanghailanders Rena Krasno and N. T. Wang, and others.