Shanghai High Tea in Melbourne

Sitting in Melbourne at the moment I thought I was largely free of Shanghai style. But a small piece in today’s Age newspaper (no link online I could find, sorry) is all about the launch of a new concept here by a chain called Oriental Teahouse – the Shanghai High Tea. Apparently two fans of old Shanghai – the wonderfully named Candice DeVille and Alison Waters are organising the event (Sunday 4th – 2-4 – Oriental Teahouse, Melbourne Central – call 9804 7963 to book). Candice is apparently an artist specialising in all things vintage…and rather superb she look too on her website; I’m an instant fan. The theme is 1920s-1930s Shanghai and they’ve done a bit of homework – Mr Mills, Emily Hahn’s pet gibbon (below) gets a mention, as does old Sir Victor Sassoon and Noel Coward. The idea of reinvention in Shanghai is floated – this could all be quite fun. Sadly I can’t attend as I’m talking about old Peking (that Shanghai vs Peking thing yet again…this time in Melbourne!!).

Midnight in Peking Hits Melbourne

A few Midnight in Peking related events at the Melbourne Writers Festival this coming weekend should you happen to be in or around the city:

Next up for me is a seminar I’ve been asked to give on The Art of Non-Fiction. It’s on Sunday 4th September starting at 2pm at The Wheeler Centre. Theidea is to explore the craft of nonfiction and long-form journalism, including research methods, presenting for a general audience, and more. The Seminars feature two writers (Wade Davis is my colleague for the event), on stage consecutively, presenting contrasting perspectives on the topic. I’ll present for one hour, followed by 20 minutes of Q&A with the audience. After a 15 minute break, Wade will present for one hour, followed by 20 minutes of Q&A with the audience. Sessions are designed to be constructive and informative, and will be presented for an audience interested in the ‘craft’ of the particular genre being discussed.

And then, last but not least, a whole session devoted entirely to Midnight in Peking!! In Conversation: Paul French is a nice long chat between me and Jo Lusby of Penguin China on the book – it’s a free event and should be interesting as Jo, who originally commissioned the book, knows it inside out. It’s on Sunday 4th September at 4pm at the ACMI Studio 1 and it’s FREE!!

If you’re around and can make it along to anything it’d be great to see you!

Graham Greene’s China Play That Never Happened

Without doubt Graham Greene is a God and his imagined world of Greeneland always a place to happily visit – he made ‘seedy’ popular and the turned the thriller into an art form – think Brighton Rock, The Ministry of Fear, The Comedians, The Quiet American, Our Man in Havana, The Third Man. And then there’s the great searing novels – The Power and the Glory, The End of the Affair, The Heart of the Matter. He was a traveller (and just with his aunt!); The Lawless Roads, Journey Without Maps. He also dabbled in plays, a lesser known fact I think – The Living Room probably remains the best known.

But, Greene aficionado as I am, I was unaware of his almost China play. Recently I read (and I’m not sure why it’s taken me nearly 45 years to get round to reading it in Greene’s memoir Ways of Escape. So here’s what the man himself says it would have been, had he finished it…

“…a comedy based on one of the frequent kidnapping incidents which took place in Japanese-occupied Manchuria before the last war, never reached the second act. I was pleased enough with the first: the scene of a draughty railway station on the Manchurian border: the characters a Japanese officer always busy at his typewriter, a correspondent of the Daily Mail, a paper which had embarrassed the authorities by offering a large reward for the return of the kidnapped (there were no currency problems in those happy old-world days), the British Consul, a Chinese go-between, the anxious husband, and last the kidnapped couple – the wife and a young employee who had been taken by the bandits while riding at a local race-club. the husband’s anxiety was less for his wife’s safety than for his own marital security, since the victims, according to the Press, had been bound together by the wrists for the last fortnight, night and day. I liked my first act. There seemed to me a freshness and authenticity in the setting, the action marched, but alas! when I came to time it, the first act only lasted for eighteen minutes and a half. It was to be a play in two acts, and the second act was to be shorter than the first…I abandoned my play with reluctance.

And so we never got Greene on China…shame

The 2011 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award Nominations

Five  books noted for their outstanding contributions to the understanding of contemporary Asia have been chosen as finalists for the 2011 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award.

The finalists were selected from more than 110 nominations submitted by U.S. and Asia-based publishers for books published in 2010. The books are:

• Mao’s Great Famine: A History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 by Frank Dikötter (Walker & Company)
• No Man’s Land: Globalization, Territory, and Clandestine Groups in Southeast Asia by Justin V. Hastings (Cornell University Press)
• The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor (HarperCollins Publishers)
• Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia by Dan Slater (Cambridge University Press)
• Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia by Tuong Vu (Cambridge University Press

I have to say that I’ve not read all of them. For my money (and reading so far) McGregor’s book on the Party is an important tome, especially as it shows how so many Chinese companies broke the listing regulations of foreign stock exchanges by never declaring the Party’s interest in them. Richard did a great job in digging around on the machinations of the CCP. I think Dikotter’s reputation is also excellent and the famines in China an important subject. I’d highly recommend Dikotter’s The Age of Openness: China Before Mao, one of the best short summations of modern Chinese history I think.

As to who will win, well who knows? The judging panel are a bit dreary, all formal types and no mavericks – see there photos on the web site and they look like the board of a mid-western grocery chain. Shame they couldn’t have sexed up the jury to make things more exciting. Still, it’s the Asia Society, hardly the funkiest organisation in town!

Melbourne Writers Festival – The Morning Read

I’m doing The Morning Read Friday morning in Melbourne. Take a morning constitutional as festival writers read and discuss their work, hosted by the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Chris Flynn. This morning, kickstart your day with a strong hit of Malcolm Knox, Paul French, June Loves and Rosalie Ham.

Free, no booking required.

ACMI The Cube – 10:00am – 11:00am

Old Shanghai: Gangsters in Paradise Reissued

One of the great, great reads on old Shanghai is Lynn Pan’s Gangsters in Paradise about the notorious villains of the interwar years. It was first published in 1984 to great acclaim and has remained in print but not always easy to find. So well done in the extreme to Marshall Cavendish for issuing a new edition complete with a great and atmospheric cover. It’s not out in Europe and the US till the autumn but it’s around in Asia now. See below the blurb on the book and here’s a link to an article Time Out Beijing did with Lynn where she talks about Du Yuesheng, Huang Jinrong and Dai Li, aka Big Eared Du, Pockmarked Huang and China’s very own Himmler!!

The history of old Shanghai is brought vividly to life in this classic work by Lynn Pan. The tumultuous events of the first half of the 20th century in China have been told in numerous books: the collapse of the Qing, the first Chinese republic, the war with Japan, the rise and ultimate triumph of the Chinese Communist Party. What is exceptional about Lynn Pan s account, however, is that she tells the story through a number of interlocking portraits Du Yuesheng, China s most notorious secret society chief; Wang Jingwei, the Chinese Pétain ; General Dai Li, the head of wartime Asia s most powerful secret police. Through their eyes, their thoughts, their actions, we gain an unsurpassed look into the unfolding of history. Among the arenas in which these people operated, it was the great city of Shanghai where the gathering maelstrom of war and revolution was marked by the greatest paradox. And it is Shanghai that forms the dramatic backdrop to the extraordinary events that take place in this book. With historical insight and an intuition for Chinese character and behaviour, Lynn Pan illuminates both the unique city and its unique personalities. This compelling re-creation of a fascinating era is both an unusual slice of history and a narrative bordering on fiction. No reader interested in China will be indifferent to this book, for few writers have told its story with so sure a grasp of the Chinese psyche.

Melanie Dornier – en Immersion Chinoise

China Rhyming likes to plug a photographer every now and then and I’m gratified to see that Suzhou-based French photographer Melanie Dornier has a 14 page spread in France’s Declic Photo Magazine this month and she is also a finalist in the Zoom 2011 of le Salon de la Photo. You can see her work here (and that of the other finalists) and see that Melanie is still taking pictures around Suzhou and eastern China. Go to the bottom of the page and you can vote for your favourite young French photographer from the list.

Read an Extract from the Start of Midnight in Peking

Penguin Australia have uploaded a snappy little extract from Midnight in Peking to their website (they’re pushing it quite big for Aussie Father’s Day!). Click here to have a read. And for those who haven’t seen her – here’s the poor murder victim that led to my obsession of the last few years – Pamela Werner, 19, 1919-1937.