Source: Global Times Published: 2015-9-9

By Sun Shuangjie

Many foreigners come to Shanghai to build lives and businesses, buoyed by the city's heady feel of fruitful opportunity and promise.

According to statistics released by the Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration Bureau, by the end of last year, about 175,000 foreign nationals were registered as long-term inhabitants, having lived more than six months in the city, which is home to the largest foreign community in China.

A large number of these are Americans, who have become significant players in innovation, commerce and facilitating business and cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world.

Some have helped make daily life more convenient and enjoyable - both food delivery service Sherpa's and restaurant chain Element Fresh were established by Americans - while others entertain, such as TV stars Nancy Merrill and Steven Weathers, and online video comedian Mark Powers of Crazy Foreigners fame.

A book series called Americans in Shanghai published by the Shanghai Institute of American Studies profiles these and other successful Americans. Two years after the first volume in Chinese, the English translation plus a new, second bilingual volume recently came out. Together they contain the stories of 38 subjects.

Many of the subjects arrived in Shanghai with little to their names, but managed to immerse themselves in the city and, through their determination, hard work and acumen, build a life for themselves here.

Mark Secchia, founder of the popular food delivery service Sherpa's, arrived in Shanghai as an English teacher in 1997, and then worked for English-language magazines in town. 

He then went on to study at a business school in Shanghai, where he came up with the idea for Sherpa's, which now also operates in Beijing, Suzhou and Hangzhou.

While Secchia hadn't planned on settling long-term in Shanghai when he first got here, Justin O'Jack had long yearned to visit China before he finally arrived.

O'Jack started dreaming of coming to China when he was a high school student. He paid his first visit to Shanghai as a backpacker in 1993. From 1996 onwards, he visited the city each year to research his thesis for his master's degree.

In 2003, he settled here permanently to establish a China office for Long Island University.

O'Jack is now the chief representative of the University of Virginia's China office.

Some of the subjects profiled in Americans in Shanghai gather for a photo shoot. Photos: Courtesy of Shanghai Institute of American Studies.

In the book, O'Jack recalls that things were tough when he started out in Shanghai.

"I had tens of thousands of dollars in school loan to repay and no steady income. I lived off meager savings and some days could barely afford a bowl of dumplings," he says.

But he pulled through, and is now married to a Shanghainese woman with whom he has a daughter.

In O'Jack's eyes, modern China is very different from how it appeared to him back when he was studying about the country in the US, and it still maintains its charm for him.

"The society has undergone a tremendous transformation in just a couple of decades," said O'Jack in the book.

"The experiences, world views and opportunities youth in Shanghai have today are phenomenally different from their parents. This is a dynamic place and these are exciting times to be in Shanghai."