Chinese War Junks

This picture is sort of interesting. It was taken some time in the late 1920s or early 1930s and shows two nineteenth century Chinese war junks moored up near Hong Kong in southern China. They appear to be in fairly good condition, still afloat and with images of gods etc still clearly painted on the sterns. They also appear to be partially still rigged. Not sure what happened to these junks or their histories but they were still around in the 1930s.

Through the Looking Glass – Video Talk

Back in June I spoke at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club on my book on foreign journalists in China – Through the Looking Glass – as part of their 60th anniversary celebrations. Matt Driskoll in Hong Kong has been filming speakers at the FCC there and putting the videos on the internet and has uploaded me too now. Click here. (as this is a video of me I’d advise eating your breakfast first as I’m no Brad Pitt if you known what I mean).

Monkey Jockeys at the Canidrome

In 1940-1941 business at the Shanghai Canidrome in Frenchtown was down. Of course it was the war and navigating the streets with unfriendly Japanese around wasn’t much fun while plenty of foreigners and high rolling Chinese had gotten out of town. There were also a rash of new casinos in Frenchtown and the adjacent Badlands in the Western Roads Area to attract gamblers. Simply dogs chasing round a track after a hare wasn’t going to do it.

And so…monkey jockeys. Which genius actually came up with the idea I have no idea but once word got round town that the Canidrome was having  monkey jockeys the crowds flocked back, at least for a while till the novelty wore of. I don’t know where the monkeys came from or whether they were good jockeys but they certainly looked pretty snazzy and wicked little jockey caps. I was so happy to find this old photo of a group of well groomed monkey jockeys on their dogs I had to stick it up here. And so here are the monkey jockeys of 1940 in all their glory…

Tsingtao Beer – Getting the Facts Straight

It’s beer festival time in Qingdao again (personally we think Dalian’s festival is better now) and the usual incorrect histories of Tsingtao Beer are floating around. To save repeating the story I’ll just link to a succinct history of the brewery from Robert Bickers – here

Will the Great World Amusement Centre Survive an EXPO Refurbishment?

As part of the manic tarting up of Shanghai in advance of not that many visitors coming for the EXPO in 2010 the former Great World Amusement Centre, facing onto the wide intersection of Yanan Lu and Xizang Lu, is being refurbished. For years now it’s been a rather poor theatre for acrobatics but was the biggest and most famous entertainment complex of old Shanghai, with simultaneous all-day performances of music, films, opera, magic, with a host of ancillary attractions available, including brothels and fortune-tellers. The streets around the back of the centre (where my office is incidentally) were home to numerous brothels and dens of intrigue both social and political. The best description of the place comes from Josef von Sternberg (the film directors) memoir Fun in a Chinese Laundry:

“THE ESTABLISHMENT had six floors to provide distraction for the milling crowd, six floors that seethed with life and all the commotion and noise that go with it studded with every variety of entertainment Chinese ingenuity had contrived. On the first floor were gambling tables, sing-song girls, magicians, pick-pockets, slot machines, fireworks, bird cages, fans, stick incense, acrobats and ginger. One flight up were the restaurants, a dozen different groups of actors, crickets in cages, pimps, mid-wives, barbers and earwax extractors. The third floor had jugglers, herb medicines, ice cream parlours, photographers, a new bevy of girls their high-collared gowns slit to reveal their hips, in case one had passed up the more modest ones below who merely flashed their thighs.

“The fourth floor was crowded with shooting galleries, fantan tables, massage benches…the fifth floor featured girls whose dresses were slit to the armpits, a stuffed whale, story tellers, balloons, peep shows, a mirror maze, two love-letter booths with scribes who guaranteed results, ‘rubber goods’ and a temple filled with ferocious gods and joss sticks. On the top floor and roof of that house of multiple joys a jumble of tight-rope walkers slithered back and forth, and there were seesaws, lottery tickets, and marriage brokers. “And as I tried to find my way down again an open space was pointed out to me where hundreds of Chinese, so I was told, after spending their last coppers, had speeded the return to the street below by jumping from the roof…”

Of course it hasn’t been much fun or entertainment since the revolution, still it was an imposing structure. Now the builders are in and ripping plenty out. The shots here (I know, I know they;re terrible – new camera phone I haven’t quite mastered yet and taken at dusk) are from the back of the building along Ninghai East Road.

Bad as they are the pictures show that the edges of the structure are being seemingly gutted though the main part of the structure including the signature tower appear intact. However, the complete interior appears to have been gutted now. Just how all this will end I have no idea but the ‘refurbishment’ so far has appeared none too subtle – ironically the building is swathed in EXPO ‘Better City, Better Life’ posters while the vandalism continues.

Classic Shanghailander Memoirs

As regular readers of this blog know I often highlight reprints or anecdotes about books and memoirs written by pre-revolutionary Shanghailanders and other China Hands who penned their reminiscences. By chance yesterday I stumbled across a rather nice concise round up of many good books in this genre by Hugo Restall, the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, worth a look in case there are any not on your own list.

1856 Map of Formosa

The Island of Formosa mapped in 1856

Deviation Posting – Jean-Claude Izzo

A slight deviation as I notice that some people read this blog for the occasional posts on matters sea-related – pirates, junks, ports etc. I should thank my mate Sam Chambers for recommending Jean-Claude Izzo’s novel The Lost Sailors. If you like stories around the sea and seamen as well as anything set in a port, The Lost Sailors is a great novel.

I was unaware of Izzo though he has a strong reputation in France apparently. He died in 2000. The novel is set aboard a stranded cargo ship unable to leave Marseilles. The intertwined stories of the crew, their past lives, loves and voyages is a evocative one of the sea, sea life and the culture of port towns. Marseilles is rendered so well you can almost smell that great city.

I’m glad to have discovered Izzo and will certainly look out some his other work – his Marseilles Trilogy – Total Chaos, Chourmo and Solea – also come highly recommended. And a quick nod of respect due to America’s Europa Editions for translating and publishing Izzo – Europa is a great and prolific translator of European literature into English. Their list is well worth perusing for some gems.