Ise Machi Street, Dairen

Here is Ise Machi Street, Dairen (Dalian) – sorry no date on this and not sure what road this is  now in Dalian – but worth a quick post anyway as it’s a good photo.

The Wartime Burma Road Map

I recently had a clear out of old research materials related to the biography I wrote of Carl Crow (A Tough Old China Hand – now in a cheaper Kindle edition too!) – don’t worry, anyone can now see the collection of Crow’s writings, correspondence and various ephemera (adverts, photos etc) as part of the new and soon to be unveiled Royal Asiatic Society Shanghai’s library at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel (No.2 The Bund – the old British Club).

I came across this great map of the Burma Road during the war – Crow traversed the road from Rangoon to Chungking in 1939, a tale he wrote up in his archives and I edited up into a book a couple of years ago – The Long Road Back to China: Carl Crow’s War Diaries (still available here).

Anyway, here’s the great map…which speaks for itself of the history of the time….

The Old Taipei Bus Station

Taipei’s modern bus station is adjacent to the city’s main railway station. The railway station has passed through a number of incarnations:

Here’s Taipei station as it looked between 1907 and the 1940s, a classic railway station as found in most Japanese occupied territories and Japan itself, when it was replaced with this structure…

This eventually gave way to the current station which has no architectural merit whatsoever, except that it is slightly more interesting than the modern bus terminus.

Anyway, close by the new bus station and train station is a parking garage that I believe is the old Taipei bus station – can’t confirm as sadly bus stations are never catalogued or photographed as thoroughly as railway stations. Anyway, here the building now being used as a parking lot:

Arnold Brothers – Where Lattimore Once Toiled

I posted a while back on a relative of the great Sinologist and Mongolist Owen Lattimore visiting Shanghai. Lattimore worked for a time in the 1920s for materials and engineering firm Arnhold Brothers, a well known  Shanghai Hong at the time (and still in business down in Hong Kong). Though they set out to find Lattimore’s old offices they failed – probably due to some quickly supplied duff info from yours truly! Sorry. The old Arnhold Brothers building (built 1907), and a fine building it is too, is on the corner (no.320 to be precise) of Sichuan Middle Road (Szechuan Road) and Jiujiang Road (Kiukiang Road). And so here is the building Owen Lattimore arrived at everyday to toil away, before he realised that grubby commerce wasn’t for him and took the academic high road – crap money but still…it did eventually get him to the bright lights of Leeds and West Yorkshire!!

Ballot Box China at Probsthain and Online Excerpt

There another event in London for the first in my series of books (Asian Arguments) for Zed Books – Kerry Brown’s Ballot Box China. It’s at the Arthur Probsthain Bookshop opposite the British Library and, if you’re remotely interested in Asia, you’ve never visited this fine little emporium of all things bookish about Asia then you really should and this would be a good opportunity.

PS: if you’d like to read a section from the book then you can here at Zed’s blog or here at The China Beat

You are cordially invited to the new publication by Kerry Brown: Ballot Box China, which examines grassroots democracy in contemporary China.

Drinks and light refreshments will be served.

Special book launch reduced price for Ballot Box China

Time: Tuesday, 10 May, 6.30-8.30 pm

Place: Arthur Probsthain Bookshop, 41 Great Russell Street, (Bloomsbury, opposite the British Museum), London WC1B 3PE

RSVP: email: Michael at arthurprobsthain@hotmail.com; tel.: 0207 636 1096

The Shanghailander 1937 Unearthed

I draw your attention to an excellent post of Hughes Martin’s Shanghailander blog about a 1937 copy of The Shanghailander that he unearthed (God only knows where – its print run was tiny). The Shanghailander was yet another of my main man Carl Crow’s media exploits and self-promotion tools, actually probably his own hard copy blog in the days before the internet and blogs. Typeface and cover image alone it’s a thing of beauty. I’m not Tudou or Baidu so I won’t just steal the image from Hughes’s site – but do click here right now to see it.

Hong Kong’s Craven Politicians Want to Turn Government Hill into yet another Shopping Mall

The Hong Kong government makes the move to its new glass palace by Victoria Harbour soon (no jokes about glass houses and stones please). This means that the relatively peaceful and shady lanes of Government Hill, from where Hong Kong has been administered since the 1840s (see Government House below), will be available for redevelopment. And, guess what, the only thing Hong Kong politicians ans their property developer cronies seem ever to be able to envision – a shopping mall and 32 storey office block! Just what Hong Kong Island needs!!!

But the forces of good are massing against the forces of evil – step forward that thing rarer than a Beijing official with environmental awareness, heritage campaigner Katty Law. More details on the scheme, its opponents and the bonehead property developers of the SAR on CNNGo Hong Kong here. Let’s hope the heritage lobby in Hong Kong can mobilise once again. There’s been some encouraging signs of late as regards some developments in mid-levels and the voice of, particularly young, people being heard on heritage defying property developer belief that all anyone wants is skyscrapers and shops and the politicians belief that all anyone in Hong Kong is fit for is dumb consumption and mall-walking.

The Government Hill area is that bounded by the upper section of Upper Albert Road to the south, Queen’s Road Central to the North, Garden Road to the east and Glenealy to the west. As well as Government House the area is also home to the marvellous St John’s Cathedral (shimmering white and opened for its first Sunday service in 1849), the Court of Final Appeal which is itself part of the former French Mission Building (originally built in the 1840s though the current structure is really a 1917 building). As if that wasn’t enough there’s Garden Road and Battery Path, the zoo and a large number of very old and beautiful trees….and not one skyscraper! The whole area has always, in my experience, been busy at lunchtimes and after work with local white collars seeking something more interesting than a mall while St John’s has an active congregation and the zoo and park always busy on weekends. Let’s hope all those regular users rally to the cause.

Government House…Does this really have to be yet another Louis Vuitton store for investment bankers mistresses??

St John’s Cathedral…while it would make a decent sized McDonald’s it is a rather nice church as it is thanks

Former French Mission Building…yes, it would make a large foodcourt with a big Cafe de Coral and Fairwoods but could be something distinctly more interesting too

The Court of Final Appeal…which could be a shoe shop or side entrance to the mall’s toilets…should the rapacious property developers of Hong Kong get their invariably philistine way

Coming Down Alert – Taipei’s 1950s Aifu Road Bungalows Falling into Disrepair

I posted in February 2010 on the lovely former US military bungalows up on top of Yangmingshan near the Chinese Culture University in Taipei. They are lovely structures, many with great views of the city and surrounding hills and redolent of the 1950s. Some are lived in and in a good state of repair – they look cosy with fireplaces and chimneys. However, a growing number of them seem to be falling empty and into disrepair, the glass in their windows gone, gardens overgrown, interiors gutted and often open to the elements. This indicates that someone wants them to eventually be cleared for new development. I am not sure, but I think the land the bungalows are on is controlled by the Chinese Cultural University. I asked a couple of local real estate places (these bungalows are easy to repair and would make great writers retreats!) but nobody seemed to know who the owners were or the likely fate of the properties. Anyway, here’s a bunch of pictures of the bungalows slowly falling apart.