Tess Johnston, a former U.S. foreign service officer with a truly fascinating career, recently passed away in Washington, D.C., at the age of 93. She not only served in South Vietnam during the war, chronicling her unique experiences as a woman in that turbulent time, but also dedicated decades of her life to a passionate cause in Shanghai: preserving its rapidly disappearing colonial architecture.
Her passing, due to complications from Covid-19, was confirmed by Tina Kanagaratnam, a co-founder of Historic Shanghai. Together with Ms. Kanagaratnam and her husband, Patrick Cranley, Ms. Johnston established this organization in 1998. Their mission was clear: to protect the invaluable pre-Communist revolution architecture and cultural heritage of Shanghai. This effort became increasingly vital as modern skyscrapers began to overshadow and replace much of the city’s historic landscape.
Through her numerous books and insightful lectures, Ms. Johnston passionately advocated for the preservation of Shanghai’s historic urban fabric before it was lost forever. Historic Shanghai lauded her for generously sharing her extensive knowledge with countless writers, scholars, and ‘Shanghailanders’ – a term for foreign residents of the city.
Despite lacking formal training in historic preservation, Ms. Johnston became a leading authority on Shanghai’s diverse colonial architecture. She championed its early 20th-century Spanish villas, distinctive onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches, and elegant Art Deco buildings. These unique structures were erected by expatriates between 1842, when the British gained control of the urban core after the First Opium War, and the Communist takeover in 1949, following World War II.
These architectural gems were most prominent in the French Concession and scattered throughout the American, Russian, and Japanese areas of Shanghai. Ms. Johnston meticulously documented these buildings street by street. Collaborating with Shanghai photographer Er Dong Qiang (also known as Deke Erh), she co-authored ‘A Last Look: Western Architecture in Old Shanghai’ (1993). This groundbreaking work was the first of her two dozen books exploring the city’s architectural history and offering detailed walking tours.
Beyond buildings, she diligently gathered oral histories and amassed a fascinating collection of ephemera, from delicate cricket cages to old phone books and tables with hidden drawers. Her invaluable archives were later generously donated to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Fluent in Mandarin yet retaining her distinct Southern accent from North Carolina, Ms. Johnston served at the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai from 1981 until her retirement in 1996. Her deep affection for the city led her to stay on, and by her return to Washington in 2016, she was among the longest-residing foreign residents in Shanghai.
Recalling her initial impressions of Shanghai, Ms. Johnston once remarked: “I had never been to a foreign country that looked so utterly and completely Western. It was perfectly preserved, a cross between Warsaw in 1938 and Calcutta, a totally Western city with an Asian population.”
She attributed Shanghai’s unlikely preservation to the Communist Party’s focus on doctrine over urban development, telling The Guardian in 1997, “We have the Cultural Revolution to thank for Shanghai’s preservation. Otherwise, we would be 25 years further down the road. There would be nothing left.”
Despite the earlier preservation, Shanghai rapidly modernized during her residency. She noted that upon her arrival in 1981, the tallest building stood at 22 stories; by the time she departed, the city boasted three skyscrapers exceeding the height of the Empire State Building.
Born Lestine Rebecca Johnston on September 17, 1931, in Charlotte, N.C., she was the only child of Lester G. Johnston, a petroleum products salesman, and Alma (Yoder) Johnston, a homemaker. She spent her formative years in Charlottesville, Virginia.
After high school, Lestine, known to all as Tess, briefly worked for an advertising agency in Richmond, Virginia. In 1953, with a relative’s help in perfecting her typing and shorthand, she embarked on her foreign service career as a secretary.
Her initial foreign service posting was to the American consulate in Düsseldorf, Germany, where her passion for vintage buildings first ignited. Upon returning home, she enrolled at the University of Virginia, hoping to major in architectural history. However, she discovered this field was not open to undergraduate women at the time. Undeterred, she pursued studies in English, history, and German literature, earning her bachelor’s degree in 1958 and a master’s in 1967.
In 1967, she joined the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in South Vietnam, serving as an aide to military advisors Wilbur Wilson and John Paul Vann. Her experiences during this tumultuous period, including witnessing the Tet Offensive in 1968, were vividly captured in her 2018 memoir, ‘A War Away: An American Woman in Vietnam, 1967-1974.’
Ms. Johnston was known for her fearlessness, readily visiting dangerous combat zones. She noted that John Paul Vann admired ‘gutsy females.’ She recounted an instance where, when visiting dignitaries hesitated to join him on helicopter tours of battlefields, he’d quip, ‘My secretaries go out with me all the time.’
(John Paul Vann, who grew increasingly disillusioned with the war, tragically died in a helicopter crash in South Vietnam in 1972. His life was famously chronicled by former New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan in the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1989 book ‘A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.’)
After the Vietnam War, Ms. Johnston rejoined the State Department, with postings in New Delhi and Tehran. In 1981, she was transferred to Shanghai as executive secretary to the consul general. Except for a brief period in Paris in the late 1980s, she made Shanghai her home for an impressive 35 years.
Her exceptional service was recognized in 1986 when she was named Foreign Service Secretary of the Year, largely for her instrumental role in coordinating President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Shanghai.
She is survived by no immediate family.
Although Shanghai, partly due to her efforts, had designated hundreds of buildings as historic landmarks, Ms. Johnston observed in a 1998 interview with The New York Times that other Chinese cities were sadly neglecting their own unique heritage.
Her poignant reflection on humanity’s tendency to repeat mistakes was encapsulated in her quote: ‘What we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.’
Despite the challenges, she held onto the hope that her writings would forever immortalize Shanghai’s dual identity: both ‘the Paris of the East’ and, as she called it, ‘the wickedest city in the East,’ a place historically associated with the drugging and kidnapping of American sailors in the 19th century.
She envisioned a future where her books would serve as a vital historical record, stating, ‘Maybe people will look at our books one day and say, ‘So that’s what China looked like.’’
Thanks to her unwavering dedication, Shanghai’s rich past continues to thrive, not just within the pages of her books, but also in the nearly century-old buildings she tirelessly helped to preserve.
In a 2010 interview with the Shanghai Daily, she reflected on her initial awe: ‘I found on arrival this perfectly preserved Western-looking city sitting here on the improbable shores of China.’
She concluded with a sentiment shared by many who fall for the city’s charm: ‘Shanghai seems to have something, some mystique that grabs foreigners and makes it hard to leave. So I didn’t.’