A Visit to SSAP in Beijing – My Chinese Publishers

In March I spent a day with Social Sciences Academic Press (SSAP), my Chinese publishers, in Beijing…

Alexander Vertinsky’s Gardenia Club, Yuyuan Lu, Shanghai – the latest iteration…

Many thanks to Tina Kanagaratnam of Historic Shanghai for a picture of the latest iteration of Alexander Vertinsky’s Gardenia Club at 1389 Yuyuan Lu – some sort of French cafe? The great Vertinsky was a Russian (though born in Kyiv) cabaret artist, singer, composer, poet and all-round Bohemian-libertine who moved around the world after the Bolshevik Revolution and lived in Shanghai in the late 1930s until c.1943 when he was allowed to return the USSR (apparently spared the fate of so many as Stalin was a fan!). He appears as a character in my book City of Devils.

Anyway 1389 Yuyuan Lu has been through some incarnations of late. It was originally built as a private residence before being Vertinsky’s Gardenia Club. In recent years it’s been Superman Hot Pot, a Japanese restaurant, a pizza place and now “Artist la Pie” (??) changing ownership every few years.

So many different iterations since the Gardenia. Is it possible the ghost of Vertinsky visits occasionally?

Lai Kei Sorvettes, Macao, 1930s Packaging

Lai Kei Sorvetes ice cream is an institution in Macao, established in 1933. Their outlet on Avenida de Conselheiro de Almeida is a time travel capsule.  Their signature ice cream sandwich, which consists of a combination of melon, coconut, and pineapple ice cream sandwiched between thin wafers, and is packaged in a cardboard box still with the original 1933 design.

Greg Girard’s HKG—TYO 1974—2023 at WKM Gallery, Hong Kong till 23/5/26

Greg Girard is everywhere in Hong Kong but specifically at the WKM Gallery…..

“HKG-TYO 1974-2023” pairs together, for the first time, Girard’s photographs of Hong Kong and Tokyo from the 70s to the present day.”

Book Giveaways…Carl Crow in Chinese and Minuit a Pekin

My biography of the great American advertising man in Shanghai, Carl Crow, is available in Chinese!! Pubished by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press (SASSP) and a massive thanks to my translator – Nie Zuguo 聂祖国. And I’ve got a few copies to give away…. just send me your address (paul@chinarhyming.com) – sorry, but can’t mail them to the PRC or USA (they just disappear at the border in the first and the duties/tariffs now make it unaffordable to the second).

And also a few copies of the French edition of Midnight in Peking (Minuit a Pekin) for anyone in France, Belgium, or indeed anywhere but the PRC or USA who’d like one?- Sorry, but, as above, they rarely ever arrive in China and Trump’s duties/tariffs make it unaffordable to the States now. Just email me your address to paul@chinarhyming

– premier arrivé, premier servi!!

In Conversation with Adam Sisman at Macau International Literary Festival 2026

I had a great conversation in the Casa Garden with Adam Sisman, John le Carre’s biographer, about the great man, writing biographies of people still alive (as le Carre was at the time Adam interviewed him), the secrets people try to keep and a deep dive on his Asian magnum opus The Honourable Schoolboy (1977). Click here to watch.

The 2nd Battalion, 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot in Hong Kong, 1865

The 2nd Battalion, 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot in Hong Kong (others members of the regiment were stationed in Yokohama at the time). Absent from this photo is Private James Dickinson who died on April 16 1865 and was buried in Hong Kong (one of at least two regiment members that died in Hong Kong in 1865). The mount date given is 1864 but on the border of the photo ink description it says 1865 (which concurs with the missing men)…

A Video Interview….

A video interview with me up on Youtube, filmed in London recently by photo-journalist and old Shanghailander Nicky Almasy. In it we discuss research, writing, how my books are received in the West and in China, Wallis Simpson, Carl Crow, filming Midnight in Peking and what I’m up to next…. click here to watch…