Midnight in Peking Being Publicly Pitched at the Melbourne International Film Festival

I know nothing about the world of film financing but I do know that my forthcoming book Midnight in Peking is being publicly pitched at an event at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Books at MIFF (BaM) aims to foster development between the publishing and production industries. 105 producers and 24 publishing companies/literary agents are registered to take part. Part of BaM is a public pitching session by BaM’s reading panellists of new books with the potential for screen adaptation followed by pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings between both publishers and producers. Interestingly the selected titles are: The Life by Malcolm Knox (Allen & Unwin); What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty (Curtis Brown);What Makes Us Tick by Hugh Mackay (Hachette);  The Amateur Science of Love by Craig Sherborne (Text); The Vanishing Act by Mette Jakobsen (Text);  Amore & Amaretti by Victoria Cosford (Wakefield) and Midnight in Peking by Paul French (Penguin).

Quite exciting really…and more details here

19 July 2011 – Bookshop Barnies at Foyles

Foyles Bookshop, the legendary old bookshop on the Charing Cross Road run a series of events called Bookshop Barnies – a slight variation on the traditional boom event:

Bookshop Barnies are nothing less than a reinvention of the book launch format. These salon type discussions challenge the author to justify their work in front of an invited audience of specialists and critics. Unlike most book launches where the most challenging task for the author is to sign so many autographs, Bookshop Barnies force them to take a stand for their ideas.

And so on the 19th it’s the turn of the first book in the series I’m editing for Zed Book – Asian Arguments.

So if you’re in London it might well be worth popping along

Kerry Brown on “Ballot Box China: Grassroots Democracy in the Final Major One Party State”

Since 1988, China has undergone one of the largest, but least understood experiments in grassroots democracy. Across 650,000 villages in China, with over one million elections, 300,000 officials have been elected. The Chinese government believes that this is a step towards ‘Democracy with Chinese characteristics’.

So is this the same thing as ‘democracy’? Is it the best form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried? Come and have your say.

Venue: The Gallery, Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London
Time: 19 July, 6:30 for drinks and a 6:45 pm start
Close: 8:15pm
FREE

http://www.futurecities.org.uk/barnies.html#futurebarnies

Shanghai Jewish Gravestones – Update (Nothing New Sadly)

An article in the Los Angeles Times that updates the saga of the Jewish gravestones that Dvir Bar-Gal has been collecting for years. I’ve mentioned all this before but as this is a new article it updates the saga a wee bit. Not much seems to have changed with this business for some time now and the gravestones remain in a warehouse – according to Bar-Gal Communist officialdom will not allow them to become part of the collection at Ohel Moshe Synagogue in Hongkou due to a belief that they would bring bad luck!! Marxism-Leninism meets superstition north of Suzhou Creek.

Here’s a link to the article

By way of a visual – it’s a hot and humid summer weekend in Shanghai this weekend and back in the days of the Jewish Ghetto the community of refugees liked nothing better than to go drinking and dancing on the roof of The Mascot on Wayside Road (now Huoshan Road) -  the building remains with a couple of restaurants at ground level and a billiard parlour upstairs though sadly the roof is now closed these days and nobody dances up there anymore. Believe me, I’ve tried to get up on it several times!

Yuyuan Road’s Early Incarnation

Thanks to China Rhyming regular and dedicated Shanghailander Bill Savadove, a man with a passion for the former Western Roads Area. He’s dug out this old postcard Yuyuan Road (formerly Yu Yuen Road) that ran from the western edge of the Settlement by the Jing An Temple all the way to Zhongshan Park (Jessfield Park). This area was outside the Settlement, technically in Chinese territory but did lead to a lot of interesting architecture. Yuyuan still remains a good street to stroll. It’s not quite as country as it used to be though.

This card below is of Yu Yuen Road. It’s not dated and though perhaps posted in the 1930s the picture appears far earlier to me. Still, we can’t quite identify it so if anyone has anymore information then please do let us know.

RAS Shanghai Launches Chinese Film Club – Sunday 17th July

A development by the RAS in Shanghai that may interest some:

RAS FILM CLUB

Sunday 17^th July, 2011 18.30hrs at

Embankment Building, Ground Floor 410C North Suzhou Road

河滨大楼，苏州北路410C底楼

NEW RAS FILM CLUB – 3^RD SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH STARTING JULY 17^TH

We are very pleased to announce the launch for the RAS Film Club.

With a view to learning more about China and the developing film industry in the country, we shall be viewing a wide range of critically acclaimed Chinese films, which demonstrate the vast range of different ‘walks of life’ in China from yester-year to up to the minute contemporary times.

We shall be starting our summer schedule at Bites at Chai Living who have kindly provided the venue and equipment, a discounted menu for drinks and snacks as well as a specially prepared set menu for RAS members.

We shall be starting the journey into Chinese Cinema with the ‘Postmen in the Mountains’ (Chinese: 那山那人那狗) a 2002 Chinese film directed by Huo Jianqi.

‘Postmen in the Mountains’ tells the story of an old man (Ten Rujun) who for years served as the postman for rural mountain communities. Retiring, he hands over his job to his son (Liu Ye), but accompanies him on the first tour. Together, they deliver mail on a 230 li (about 115 km) long walking route, into the rural heart of China and in the process the son learns from the mails’ recipients more about the father he hardly knew.

It was filmed on location in Suining County and Dao County, in southwestern and southern Hunan. A portion of the film takes place in a village of the Dong people, including an evening festival featuring a lusheng dance.

Entrance: RMB 20.00 (RAS members) and RMB 50.00 (non-members) those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption, prior to the RAS Film Club viewing. Membership applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.

RSVP: filmclub@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn RSVP essential as space is limited

FULL ADDRESS AND DIRECTIONS:

Bites at Chai Living

Embankment Building, Ground Floor 410C North Suzhou Road Hongkou

(between Sichuan Road and Henan Road) Tel: (021)36033511

In Chinese:  河滨大楼，苏州北路410C底楼 （在四川路河南路之间）

Line 10 to Tiantong Road – exit 5 brings you out at the corner of the two roads and you will see the back of the building on the diagonal corner.

OR

Line 2 to Nanjing East Road and walk across Henan Road bridge to North Suzhou Road – the large building on the right is Embankment Building.

Riding the Chinese Emperor’s Train in Suffolk? Is WG Sebald Pulling my Leg?

I keep coming across references in literary pieces and among literary types to WG Sebald’s great classic The Rings of Saturn. It seems Sebald is back in fashion (something than happens with him occasionally), which is good news as he has long been a favourite eclectic writer of mine. For those who don’t know it, The Rings of Saturn is meandering tale of Sebald’s walk from Lowestoft across the flatlands of eastern England and the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Along the way he muses in a rambling, but engrossing, fashion on everything from Dutch land reclamation, the decline of medieval sea ports on the eastern English coast, the misadventures of sericulture (silk cultivation) in Europe and, while in the lovely town of Southwold in Suffolk (an early home of George Orwell as a boy by the way), notes the bridge crossing the river Blyth between Walberswick and Southwold (pictured in all its summer seaside glory below),  which once supported a narrow‐gauge railway line bearing a train originally built for the Emperor of China. From this Sebald muses entertainingly on dragons and, at some length and depth, on the Taiping Rebellion.

This is a most intriguing story – a train, specifically built for the Guangxu Emperor that for various reasons never got to China and so was left to plough along this neglected narrow gauge railway line in Suffolk…apparently. Now I like Southwold. My parents took me there when I was a child, I’ve been back several times, it’s the home of the Adnams Brewery (one of the best pints in England) and, as noted, Orwell lived there. But is this story of the Chinese emperor’s train true? Sebald was there in the late 80s/early 90s but I can’t find a reference to this tale of the Chinese emperor’s train anywhere except in reviews of The Rings of Saturn. But, like those demented people who see UFOs everywhere, I want to believe a Chinese emperor’s train lived, and perhaps still lives, on a little narrow gauge railway in an English backwater.

But I’m going to have to conclude that it’s not true and was just a local legend Sebald heard, or that he had his leg pulled in a local Southwold pub (Sebald was German and so might not have been that good with ze English humour) or that he was good at English humour and was pulling his readers collective leg. But if anyone knows any different do tell? The Rings of Saturn, by the way, remains a great summer read if you’re looking for something to take on holiday.

The Last Surviving Boone Road Houses – Dens of Collaboration?

Back in January I posted on some once lovely houses that were now the last survivors on Hongkou’s Tanggu Road (formerly Boone Road). The houses had fallen into a severe state of disrepair though were still occupied. They were surrounded by partial clearance and some hasty jerry built structures from the nearby clothing market and some decidedly unlovely and shoddy tower blocks. This area, sometimes known as the Japanese Colony, is almost now totally obliterated.

Anyway, it seems perhaps my rather useless photography inspired some rather better photographers to go and nose around this buildings (which was the idea, so good!). The excellent Shanghai photographer who has recorded enormous amounts of lost building Gropius has some great pictures of the houses and reports that residents there claimed that the house once belong to Liang Hongzi, who served in various warlord administrations in northern China before joining Wang Jingwei’s collaborationist puppet government during the Second World War. Certainly Liang died in Shanghai in 1946 – executed by firing squad. It also makes sense that a collaborator with the Japanese would retain his base in the former Japanese area of the city. And, finally, having had a predecessor who was a collaborator is not something many residents would invent!!

As I’ve said before (and will doubtless say again!) – if only houses could talk…

I’ll repost my camera phone picture here so as not to invade anyone’s copyright but do go to Gropius’s site to see his superb and professional photos of the structure (here), its interior and details. Additionally, the great Shanghai street photogapher (and good friend of this blog) Sue Anne Tay went down to Tanggu Road and shot both the house I’d mentioned and the nearby remaining longtang Long Spring Lane (here). As ever superb pictures from Sue Anne and some more details on the area and its residents.

The usual warning to the interested – if you want to see Liang Hongzi’s old house and Long Spring Lane don’t take your time about it – neither look long for this world.

Tientsin on a Cigarette Card

After posting a shot of British soldiers in Tientsin a while back I dug out this small cigarette card, courtesy of Ogden’s Guinea Gold cigarettes. Once again I don’t have a date though this looks early – Ogden’s (a Liverpool tobacconist) started issuing photographic cigarette cards in 1894. After 1906 Ogden’s mostly concentrated on cards featuring famous footballers of the day so this card may be pre-1906. Ogden’s stopped issuing cigarette cards in 1939 due to the paper shortages brought on by World War Two. Any estimates from any old Tientsiners out there?