Carl Crow landed in Shanghai in 1911 as the Qing Dynasty disintegrated and the Chinese Republic was established. He was hired as the editor of the only English-language newspaper in the city, the North China Daily News. He took quickly to life in China and became a member of the knowledgeable establishment in Shanghai and an Old China Hand in his own right. He wrote a book later to be called “the best book about China”, titled 400 Million Customers. He also predicted rightly that Japan would become a problem for China and had to flee his fortune and home in 1937 on an evacuee ship leaving Shanghai as Japanese bombs fell on the city.
Mr. French made Carl Crow locally famous to current Shanghai expatriates through the sale of a reproduction of a tourist map that Crow helped produce for cruise ship passengers docking in Shanghai. The map shows Shanghai’s Bund and International Concession as it was in 1935, with its English street names and local sites noted on the map. Both the book, Carl Crow – A Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times and Adventures of an American in Shanghai and copies of the map are available at Mr. French’s lectures. Books can also be ordered through Hong Kong University Press and Paddyfield.com.
