Now available – Scott Seligman’s Murder in Manchuria….
“Scott D. Seligman recovers an incredible cast of characters involved in this true crime—Jewish entrepreneurs, émigré Russian fascists, besieged Chinese detectives, Bolsheviks, spies of a half-dozen nationalities, adventurers, and a lone doomed musician. Ultimately, however, it is the once gloriously international city of Harbin itself that is most masterfully recreated.”—Paul French, author of the bestselling Midnight in Peking
When concert pianists Semyon Kaspé and Lydia Shapiro parted on a street in the city of Harbin near midnight on August 24, 1933, neither could anticipate the dark sequence of events the coming months would hold in store. The kidnapping of Semyon that night would set the Manchurian Jewish community on edge, arouse worldwide opprobrium and leave behind an unsolved mystery. And it would pull in an improbable cast of Jewish merchants, Japanese military men, White Russian thugs, French diplomats, Chinese judges, an Italian spy-for-hire and even Pu Yi, the deposed former boy emperor of China. It turned out to be a watershed event in the history of the so-called Empire of Manchukuo, a piece of northeast China forcibly carved off by the Japanese Army in 1931 and declared independent.
Part cold-case thriller and part social history, the book is an effort to merge my interests in Chinese and Jewish history. The tragic tale of Semyon Kaspé heralded the exodus of thousands of Russian Jews who had called this northeastern Chinese city home for decades, despite a grand Japanese plan to keep them there and use them for their later conquest of Asia. It helped unmask Manchukuo as the Japanese puppet state it was. And the book posits a solution to the mystery of exactly who ordered the abduction, a question that has puzzled historians for decades.
The publisher is offering a discount of 40% off the list price to those who order directly. To do that click here and use the code 6AS23.
An amazing archive coming up for auction on October 12 – Victor Segalen (1878-1919)’s photo album. Segalen was a French marine doctor, explorer, archaeologist and writer, who traveled and lived in Polynesia and China. This album pf photographs covers his introduction to the Chinese language and civilization (courses with Arnold Vissiere in Oriental Languages and edouard Chavannes at the College de France in 1908); his1909 departure for China; his time in Chongqing where he joined the gunboat Doudart de Lagree; his 1910 move to Peking, where he was joined by his wife and son in 1911; his experiences on a humanitarian and medical mission to Shanhaiguan to combat the plague raging in the region; his appointment as second-class medical major at Tianjin Imperial Medical College in 1912; the publication of his work Steles in 1912; his treatment of Yuan Shikai in 1914; and a second archaeological expedition, known as the Segalen-Voisins-Lartigue mission. Quite an amazing collection – auction details here
The Script Road – Macau Literary Festival once again welcomes guests from abroad
Writers from the Greater Bay Area and the Lusophone world will be in Macau from October 6 to 15 for the 12th Macau Literary Festival. Chinese authors Deng Yiguang and Fu Zhen, and Portuguese authors Francisco José Viegas and Valério Romão are among the guests. Alongside contemporary literature, tributes will be paid to great names of the past including: Camões, Shakespeare, W.H. Auden, J.R.R. Tolkien. The Festival opens with a session celebrating the centenary of Henrique de Senna Fernandes.
After three editions, between 2020 and 2022, in which the pandemic forced The Script Road – Macau Literary Festival to feature only local authors, this year’s event marks the return of guests from abroad. Francisco José Viegas is the only foreign participant who has been to The Script Road before, in 2015. He returns to talk about his most recent crime novels, Melancholia and Light in Beijing, and also to present two works from the Quetzal publishing house he runs: The Game of Hide and Seek, a posthumous novel by Fernando Sobral previously published in fascicles by Hoje Macau newspaper; and Journeys Around the World, by the Count of Arnoso, which portrays Macau and China at the end of the 19th century.
Also coming from Portugal are Valério Romão and Patrícia Portela, two young writers who have in common the originality of their works and a substantial knowledge of Macau. António Caeiro, another guest, is a veteran of journalism with many years of work in China. At the Festival he will present his latest work, The Refugees of Shanghai.
The Greater Bay Area will be represented by important names in Chinese literature. Deng Yiguang, an ethnic Mongolian writer born in Chongqing and now based in Shenzhen, is an author who has already been awarded the Lu Xun Literary Prize, one of the most important in China. His novels have been translated into several foreign languages and have often been adapted into films. Fu Zhen, a native of Nanchang, Jiangxi, now based in Hong Kong, is one of the most influential writers of the new generation. She comes to Macau to talk about her first novel, Zebra, as well as the various travel books she has published. Wang Weilian is another of China’s most talented young authors. He was awarded the Mao Dun Literary Prize for Newcomers and the gold medal in China’s most important literary competition for science fiction. He comes from Guangzhou, as does Zhu Shanbo, author of several historical novels and short story collections.
Xiao Hai, now living in Beijing, is a representative of so-called Chinese workers’ poetry, a literary genre that is making a resurgence in China. At The Script Road, he will be sharing a session with Valério Romão, who has recently been working on this theme in a performative way. Sara Ferreira Costa, a Portuguese poet, writer, and translator, has been involved in the organization of the Festival previously, and is now back as a guest. She will present her poetry and lead a workshop on translating Chinese poems. She will also coordinate a free poetry session at Vasco’s bar at the Artyzen-Grand Lapa hotel.
This year, The Script Road – Macau Literary Festival will be based, initially, at the Portuguese Bookshop, from October 6 to 8, and then at Casa Garden, the headquarters of the Orient Foundation, over the weekend of October 13 to 15. Both venues will also host several authors from or based in Macau including: Joe Tang, Erica Lei, Yang Sio Mann, Isaac Pereira, Rui Rasquinho, Rui Farinha Simões, Paulo Cardinal, José Basto da Silva, Marisa C. Gaspar, Andrew Pearson, Tim Simpson and Joshua Ehrlich. The latter, a historian, will present his recently published work on the British East India Company, in the very same location that once served as its headquarters, Casa Garden.
With the fifth centennial of the birth of the great Portuguese poet Luís Vaz de Camões fast approaching – some time in 2024 – writer and journalist Carlos Morais José, director of Hoje Macau, will be interviewing Edward Wilson-Lee, professor at Cambridge University and author of A History of Water – a biography of Camões that narrates in parallel the life of another Portuguese adventurer, Damião de Góis.
The British author is a specialist in Renaissance literature and will join fellow University of Macau professors Glenn Timmermans and Nick Groom in celebrating another important milestone in the history of literature: the publication, 400 years ago, of the first book entirely dedicated to the dramaturgy of William Shakespeare – First Folio. In other sessions of the event, Timmermans will evoke the figure of the British poet W.H. Auden, and Groom will present the most recent edition of his book on the work of J.R.R. Tolkien.
The centenary of the birth of Henrique de Senna Fernandes marks the Festival’s opening session through the launch of the first book of essays on the writings of the celebrated Macanese storyteller. The session will be directed and coordinated by Lola Xavier and Pedro d’Alte, both professors at the Polytechnic University of Macau. Miguel de Senna Fernandes, the honouree’s son and also a Macau author, will participate in the first panel session.
Before this session, and immediately after the opening ceremony of the 12th Macau Literary Festival, the first solo exhibition of paintings by American artist Benjamin Hodges, an academic who has lived in Macau for several years, will be inaugurated at the Portuguese Bookshop Gallery. Photography, another art form that has had a place in every edition of the Macau Literary Festival, will once again be present through the launch of books by Rusty Fox and Francisco Ricarte, and the release of the sixth issue of Halftone magazine.
In the field of music, The Script Road is bringing the show Guerrilla Samba, conceived by Brazilian musician and poet Luca Argel, to the Broadway Theater in Macau. The concert explores some of the most dramatic episodes in Brazilian history, also in the voice of Angolan actress Nádia Yracema and in the strokes of Portuguese illustrator António Jorge Gonçalves.
Organized since its first edition by Ponto Final newspaper and Sociedade de Artes e Letras, The Script Road – Macau Literary Festival is supported by the Macau Government’s Culture Development Fund, as well as several other institutions and companies in the Macau SAR.
Shanghai’s French Concession had a Rue Palikao but I did not know until the other day that Paris has a Rue de Pali-Kao (why Paris went for a ‘de’ and a hypen I don’t know)….
Shanghai’s was alternatively spelt Palicao sometimes and constructed around 1865, hence it is quite narrow. The road was a continuation into the French Concession of Yunnan Road, close to the Great World Amusement Palace and known for its numerous night time streetwalkers.
The Paris version is in Belleville and was known as the Rue Napoleon till 1864 – how fortunes change. It is not Paris’s most beautiful street though there is a small garden and an artists commune once flourished on the street in the 1980s.
The Battle of Palikao by Emile Bayard
Both roads are of course named after a decisive battle in the Second Opium War that took place in Palikao (now Baliqiao), otherwise known as Eight Mile Bridge near Peking. On 21 September, a combined Anglo-French force that had recently occupied Tientsin (Tianjin) engaged the Chinese army numbering some 30,000-strong at Palikao. The Anglo-French forces inflicted massive losses (perhaps as many as 25,000) on the Chinese army and then proceeded to invade Peking. By contrast, the French lost only 1,000 soldiers. The French troops were led by Charles Guillaume Cousin-Montauban (1796-1878), who was later awarded the title of Count of Palikao by Napoléon III and also got a road named after him in the Concession. The Chinese detested Cousin-Montauban for obvious reasons and it was alleged he had made a fortune during the subsequent looting of Peking though these allegations were not conclusively proved.
WHAT: “Women in Chinese Silent Cinema: Gender roles and modernity” by Prof. Paul Pickowicz
WHEN: Oct. 6, 2023, Friday, from 7:00-8:00 PM Beijing Time
WHERE: The Courtyard Institute, 28 Zhonglao Hutong, Dongcheng district, Beijing
MORE ABOUT THE EVENT: This presentation uses clips from rare silent films produced in China in the 1920s and early 1930s to explore the complicated and diverse roles played by women in the Shanghai global metropolis and other urban settings. You will learn more about how gender roles were shifting at a time when modernity was having a significant impact on Chinese cities. Paul G. Pickowicz is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History and Chinese Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and associate producer of the documentary films China in Revolution, 1911-1949 (1989) and The Mao Years, 1949-1976 (1994).
NOTE: After the talk concludes, a few RASBJ Council members plan to have dinner with Prof. Pickowicz at Black Sesame Kitchen (BSK), adjacent to Courtyard Institute, starting after 8:15 PM. BSK is a private dining establishment with communal dining. If anyone independently wishes to book a seat at BSK’s communal dining table that evening, please contact BSK separately at 136 9147 4408 and pay directly to BSK.
From war in London, and being the only active Chinese foreign correspondent in Europe in World War Two, to persecution in Communist China, Xiao Qian (Hsiao Ch’ien) experienced it all — and wrote about it in his classic memoir, Traveller Without a Map. Click here….
Join award-winning food writer and cook Fuchsia Dunlop in this exploration of Chinese culinary culture, from its mythical and historical origins, through the 19th century and up to today.
Following the publication of her book, Invitation to a Banquet: the Story of Chinese Food this year, Dunlop explores why, though China has one of the world’s most popular cuisines, it is also one of the most poorly understood and appreciated. Through a mouthwatering ‘menu’ of 30 dishes she explores the origins, ingredients, techniques and concepts of Chinese food, from field to table. What makes Chinese food Chinese and how can we appreciate it more deeply?
An official Hong Komg evacuation order from 1940. From The Commodore, Hong Kong, aboard Indrapoera, built 1926 for Rotterdam Lloyd hired to the British Government. The ship sailed in July 1940 to transport refugees from Hong Kong to Australia. Here is the original ticket No. 564 to allow a Mrs. Medewells to board the vessel…
