While the Shanghai Peace Hotel (上海和平饭店) looks down right quaint now compared to the other buildings on the Bund, one of Shanghai's main drags, the Shanghai Peace Hotel still has an interesting history all its own. The Peace Hotel was built in what was then the Shanghai International Settlement, now the Bund, during the 1920s by Sir Victor Sassoon, a British supported Baghdadi Jew, as Sassoon House. With bases in Bombay, Hong Kong, and Shanghai the Sassoons were dubbed the "Rothschilds of the East" making a large part of their fortune in the then legal Opium Trade following the Opium Wars. While it may seem funny now looking a the modern skyline of Shanghai, the Peace Hotel was the largest building in the city. The Peace Hotel became a symbol of Shanghai, even though this symbolic status has been chipped away in recent years as the Peace Hotel was outclassed by larger and large buildings. Today, the Peace Hotel continues to operate as a hotel serving guests forma around China and the World, although now it is operating under the name the Fairmont Peace Hotel.
1 Comment
Dad
9/27/2016 04:31:24 am
Is Victor Sassoon of the same family as gave rise to the once popular tight high end blue jeans of that name?
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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