Home to 25 million people, Shanghai is the most populous and wealthiest city in China. A meeting point between China and the wider world, the city has become the beating heart of Chinese capitalism, a place of initiative, confidence, and forward thinking. It is a city of stark contradictions, suffused with both extreme wealth and poverty, luxury living, and a highly organised criminal underworld.
Michael Dillon explores the full history of Shanghai, from its origins as a small fishing village to the bustling financial hub of today. The city has been central to some of the most turbulent events in China’s modern history, from the British and French colonial concessions of the nineteenth century, to the birth of the Chinese Communist Party and its vital role in Chinese economics and politics today. Shanghai is a fascinating portrait of China’s most dynamic city—and explores its future role in the country’s development
Found time, on a boiling hot day, to visit the replica of the Santa Maria which tours Europe stopping off at ports and harbours to let visitors aboard. It happened to be at Eastbourne (East Sussex) and has now moved on to Shoreham (near Brighton) and who knows where after that.
The Santa María was the largest of the three Spanish ships (alongside the Niña and Pinta) used by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage across the Atlantic. The ship ran aground off Haiti on Christmas Day in 1492.
What interested me was that the Santa Maria was a nao (or carrack), making it highly similar to Portuguese vessels of the era that made it to Macao by the 1500s. Portugal and Spain shared nearly identical Iberian shipbuilding traditions, and naos were the standard, ocean-going, round-hulled ships used throughout the “Age of Discovery”. Portuguese naos sailed to Macao during the 16th and 17th centuries. They navigated the treacherous Cape of Good Hope, connecting Lisbon to Goa, Malacca, and eventually Macao and the Pearl River Delta. By the mid-1550s naos hag gotten significantly larger, but not that much that the Santa Maria is not perhaps an interesting visit to gauge the sort of vessels the Portuguese used to get as far as China and on the initial “black ships” trade with Japan.
Anyone who ever wandered the old flea markets of outer Shanghai or the more organised tourist markets such as the old Dongtai Lu (now destroyed) may have bought beautiful old Swan brand electric fan. Swan desktop fans were popular in Shanghai, imported from Britain and made by Bulpitt & Sons Ltd of Birmingham under the Swan brand (registered 1868). Bulpitt and the Swan brand have gone through multiple owners since, so many I’ve lost track, but the brand is still around and still making desktop fans. Competing with Swan was GE, from America, also popular and also regularly to be found in old Shanghai markets. Most I found could be rewired and worked perfectly well.
But there was a local competitor, Wahson, founded by Shanghai businessman Yang Jichuan and which produced the first domestically-made electric fans in China and who claimed to export to over 90 countries by 1924.
Wahson Electronic appeared around 1916 with a factory in Hongkou. They were a Chinese-owned business and manufactured small electrical items, most popularly desk top fans, similar in design (if not actually identical and reverse engineered) to the Swan brand. The company is still in existence and still makes ceiling fans though no longer desktops. Still, their desktop fans were things of beauty too and probably essential in any Shanghai office or home in the summers…..
The Chinese characters on the building read “华生” (Huáshēng), which translates to Wahson.
A series of sadly anonymous photos with Japan officially signing the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2,1945. However, they appear to have been taken by a crew member (one assumes an officer given the level of access) on the the Royal Navy Dido-class light cruiser HMS Black Prince. On 16 January 1945, Black Prince sailed East as part of the British Pacific Fleet. She saw action off Okinawa and in the final bombardments of the Japanese mainland before withdrawing to Sydney and then to Hong Kong in October 1945. She remained in Hong Kong for five weeks. About 300 of the ship’s company went ashore to serve as guards in a POW camp for the Japanese.
On the 22nd November Black Prince arrived in Shanghai. Black Prince then spent nine-weeks on the Huangpu (one of only a couple of Royal Navy ships greatly outnumbers by the Americans – the other being the the mine laying cruiser HMS Apollo) over the Christmas period in 1945/1946.
After the Japanese surrender, Black Prince remained in the Far East, back to Hong Kong, back to Australia, and was finally transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy on 25 May 1946. She became rather dated and unpopular with crews, was placed in reserve, and eventually towed to Japan to be scrapped in 1962.
Barnes & Noble in the USA is offering a 25% pre-order promotion for just four days only–6/23-6/26! From 6/23-6/26, Barnes & Noble will be offering 25% off all online pre-orders for rewards & premium members only, including print, audio, and ebooks. Premium members get a bonus 10% off all preorders, too. There is a free membership option as well. Code required: Preorder25. Just click here…
Very pleased to blurb an early copy of David Guerrero’s You Won’t See Me: When the Beatles Ghosted Imelda(Penguin Southeast Asia). An amazing story:
The Beatles, on what would be their final world tour, arrived in a place unlike any other. The Philippines was home to America’s biggest military bases in the region at a time when Vietnam was ramping up to its height. The Marcoses were photogenic, and on the surface at least, poster children for democracy: Ferdinand and Imelda were dubbed the ‘Jackie and JFK’ of Asia, by Life Magazine. The Beatles management saw the tour as a lucrative opportunity to open up new markets.
At some point before their arrival invitations were sent directly and via the local promoter, to lunch at the Presidential Palace. Whether those invitations were responded to or not is disputed. But when escorts arrived to get the band on the morning of July 4, 1966, their manager, Brian Epstein, refused to go. This did not go down well. Over 300 people, including Imelda and her family, were left standing on live TV.
Despite two large and successful concerts, official displeasure left the Beatles fearful for their security and desperate to leave. A torrid time at the airport at the hands of Palace guards left them swearing never to return – and determined to end their touring career. Initially, the band distinguished between the fans and the officials but later they all got lumped together into one ‘bad’ experience. The Beatles went on to greater creative heights as a studio-based band. The country, so little known in the West, became defined by the story.
And, if you happen to be in Liverpool (where else!) David Guerrero is speaking at Waterstones on College Lane on June 29th – click here for details…
