The creative heritage of the writer N. I. Ilyina (1914–1994) includes parodies and satirical miniatures, literary critical articles and widely known memoirs and works of fiction about the life of Russian emigrants in China.N. I. Ilyina lived in China for 27 years, and before returning to the USSR, she became famous for her feuilletons - apt and caustic, imbued with subtle humor, bitter and accurate in detail pictures of the life and customs of “Russian” Harbin and Shanghai. In the 1940s. a new note appeared in Ilyina’s feuilletons: pro-Soviet sentiments and illusions regarding Soviet life, shared by many “Russian Chinese”. And yet they preserved the living spirit of the place and era - especially since, according to the author, “these stories are not fiction. Each of them is taken from life, each character is sketched from life, and almost every story reflects our life.” “Essays on Shanghai Life” were collected in the book “Through Other Eyes”; Printed in Shanghai in 1946 by the Epoch publishing house, the book has not been reprinted since then and has long become a bibliographic rarity. This publication fills this gap by fully reproducing this culturally and historically valuable collection, accompanied by illustrations taken from the 1946 edition.