Cantonese Love-Songs (1904, Oxford: Clarendon Press) is a 2-volume translated by British colonial official and former Governor of Hong Kong (and best friend of Sir Reginald Johnston), Sir Cecil Clementi. Based on the vernacular ballads (Yue’ou, 粵謳) written by Zhao Ziyong (招子庸), a 19th-century Chinese scholar from Guangdong. Volume I contains the original Chinese text and a glossary while Volume II features the English translation, a detailed introduction, and explanatory notes representing one of the earliest systematic English-language academic renditions of Cantonese vernacular literature. Clementi’s translation framed the ballads as romantic elegies, softening some of the raw social and political realities of the original courtesan laments. If you’d like to read Clementi’s translations they’re on Internet Archive here and there’s a couple below…
One aspect of the ongoing hutong revival (finally!) in Beijing that amazes me is the return of rooftop micro-gardens and trellises. They were ubiquitous pre-1949 but then were nearly eradicated but are now back with a vengeance….
In the 1930s Sir Reginald Johnston, former British diplomat and tutor to the last emperor Puyi, bought himself a Scottish Island… Now you can buy it too…it was the ultimate expat return home!!
What You Get…
What expat returning from a few decades in China doesn’t buy themselves a private Scottish island….? Edinburgh-born Reginald Johnston was a diplomat, a private tutor, a professor of Chinese at SOAS, and best selling memoirist (Twilight in the Forbidden City, 1935). So the least you’d expect is Eilean Righ for a little later life r&r.
And, if you’ve got over £6,500,000 to spare you too could buy the beautiful Scottish island of Eilean Righ (‘The King’s Island’), Ardfern, Argyll and Bute. It’s a private island situated on Scotland’s beautiful and dramatic west coast set within Loch Craignish.
The details: it’s 261.39 acres, 6,953 sqft and freehold. It’s all mod-cons with an electricity connection serving all the properties, the hangar, boat shed and pontoon via an undersea cable, though the island is historic (and may have been visited by the Vikings) containing not one but two Iron Age forts or “duns”. For convenient access fort he newly returned from China there’s a helicopter hangar and for fun a purpose-built shooting cabin, boathouse and a floating pontoon and deep-water mooring that can accommodate sea-planes. The island can be reached by boat from Ardfern Marina. The house has 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 4 reception rooms
You may think it would be boring on Eilean Righ but there’s stalking for deer. Wildlife is abundant, with deer, otters, common and grey seals, dolphins and porpoises are frequent visitors along with Golden and White-tailed Eagles. There are magnificent panoramic views towards the Scottish mainland and across the Sound of Jura to the islands of Scarba and Jura.
After leaving China Johnston served as Professor of Chinese at SOAS University of London between 1931 and 1937. Today his extensive library remains at SOAS as well as a few objects linked to the last emperor (see my substack on that here). He didn’t get on well at SOAS – he disliked teaching, argued with the university authorities and spent most of his time working on his memoir, Twilight in the Forbidden City, which came out in 1935 was a bestseller and rapidly ran through half a dozen reprints. He had been paid reasonably well as a diplomat, had a civil service pension, was paid very well (with little need to actually spend his wages – no rent!) as imperial tutor, a London Uni prof’s salary for a few years, and some decent royalties (yes, royalties were vastly better in those days) from Twilight in the Forbidden City. He was a bachelor and had no children.
Remember he also maintained a decent London house in the well-heeled suburb of Kew. Clearly, although prices may have been a bit more reasonable in 1934 when he purchased Eilean Righ, a private Scottish island was within his means as well as a London house. More recent China ex-pats – read and weep!!!
When Johnston bought Eilean Righ (unlike whoever buys it next) it was a “fixer upper”. Johnston had to renovate the buildings and planted a Chinese style garden complete with poppies and Chinese red paper lanterns that were lit nightly (by his two Chinese servants) while creating a huge library for his enormous collection of Chinese and Buddhist texts (that mostly later went to SOAS). It seems the outbuilding seen below became effectively his private museum to house his collections.
His collection of Chinese art and artifacts was said by the Birmingham News to be worth over £1mn – that’s an astonishing £92mn today and afforded the opportunity to raise a little cash if necessary. Again China ex-pats returning with a couple of scrolls, an abacus and a fake Qing camphor chest, read and weep!!
Buddhist statues were apparently housed in a pagoda-like outbuilding – but from what I can see on these pictures that appears to have gone. There were also little imperial yellow-painted punts moored on the foreshore. Anyway, this refurbishment was a costly exercise given the need to ship over materials and builders. The Daily Telegraph reported that he had spent a ‘considerable amount of money’ on the properties and that this was the first time it had been suitable for year round occupation (i.e. through a Sottish winter, which are of course universally atrocious).
That Flag….
There is some discrepancy among the sources from the time but it seems Puyi – as Emperor of Manchukuo – famously granted Johnston permission to fly the Imperial flag of the puppet Japanese controlled state of Manchukuo on the island, making it quite possibly the only location outside of China and Japan to do so, and derfinitely the only Manchukuo flag in Scotland! However, some other sources say it was the Imperial Flag of China, but this appears to just be confusion by desk editors with all the various “Chinese” flags – Manchukuo, various republican, Beiyang etc.
The British government were certainly told it was the Manchukuo flag and asked Johnston repeatedly to take it down as Britain did not officially recognise the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. It seems he didn’t and the government, realising that only a handful of people would ever see the flag anyway, eventually gave up…. an aerial shot of the main residence clearly shows Johnston’s flagpole…
His Last Days…
Sadly Johnston never got to spend much time at Eilean Righ. He had his duties at SOAS and was busy promoting his book on lecture tours. He visited only for short holidays until he finally retired and moved there permanently in June 1937. He clearly spent some time continuing his lifelong hobby of photography (from Johnston we have superb photos of Beijing, Weihai, Tibet and Yunnan) taking pictures of Eilean Righ for his old friend and diplomatic mentor James Stewart Lockhart (who died shortly before Johnston in 1937) and are now in the National Galleries of Scotland collection.
Johnston photograph of Eilean Righ – The Stewart Lockhart Photographic Archive, on loan from George Watson’s College to the Scottish National Photography Collection
However, it was to be a short sojourn on the island. After a short illness, he died in Edinburgh at just 63. In his will, he requested that no religious ceremony be conducted. In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated. His ashes were scattered on his island and the surrounding loch.
It seems, though I can find no details of them, that two Chinese servants lived on the island to care for the properties. But who they were and what happened to them after Johnston died in 1938 and the property went back on the market I have no idea.
Though he never married Johnston was towards the end of his life in a relationship with a 45-year old divorced London woman called Elizabeth Sparshott (who had a 20-year old daughter). Sparshott is a controversial character – none of Johnston’s oldest and close friends seem to have liked her much.
She had got to know Johnston after his Forbidden City memoir was published and she appears to have become fascinated with him and determined to meet him. Eilean Righ was left to her in Johnston’s will. She put it on the market and around the same time disposed of his effects. This was especially controversial – the library went to SOAS, even though Johnston had wanted it go to the National Trust for Scotland (still, at least it was saved). However, the vast bulk of his papers, letters and many other items – including gifts from Puyi, the Buddhist statues and a large porcelain collection appear to have been destroyed by Sparshott.
Aside from Eilean Righ, Johnston left remarkably little in cash given his potential wealth (about £173,000 in 2026 money)…
When appointed Puyi’s tutor in 1919 one of the perks for Reginald Johnston (apart from a salary 4X his previous British government one) was a courtyard residence at #15 Zhangwang Hutong, east of Jiugulou Street in the Andingmen Subdistrict of Beijing. Sadly it remains officially unmarked, though local residents all know its history and “teacher Zhang Shidun”.
Johnston hosted many guests on the narrow Zhangwang Hutong including, Empress Wanrong’s tutor Isabel Ingram, May 4th intellectual Hu Shih, the visiting Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and the last Marquis of Extended Grace (Zhu Yuxun, a relic title of the Ming Dynasty)…
The Last Emperor of China: Twilight of the Forbidden City (Elliot & Thompson) is out now in the UK; US in November.
Lovely to see a hard copy of the RAS China Journal Vol.85, No.1. with articles on Shanghai urban patchwork quily by John Villar, fake Ming ceramics by Alan Babbington-Smith, the female fighter pilots of China in WW2 by Zou Dehuai, the life of dealer Susan Chen Hardy by Edith Terry, Ernest Ludwig in Late Qing China by Lukas Gajdos and an obituary of Shanghailander historian, guide and author Tess Johnston (1931-2025) from Julie Chun.
And my article junk traffic statistics through Shanghai between 1902 and 1941 and what they tell us about the maritime life of Shanghai, the Huangpu and the lower Yangtze. Metrics are an important part of history. Particularly in the case of a city as economically and politically turbulent in the twentieth century as Shanghai: population statistics-births, deaths, marriages, occupations, crimes and a whole lot of other data are instructive. For a riverine city, river traffic statistics are also a key indicator of economic vicissitudes, political crises and war, both within Shanghai and far beyond the estuary that linked the city to the East China Sea and the world.
Come for a love story, a royal scandal and the birth of the selfie. Leave with a burning desire to explore Uzbekistan, where the Tsar’s banished nephew, Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich, left an enduring mark on the Hunger Steppe and Tashkent, his home in exile from 1881-1918. Using historical and contemporary images, this talk will bring to life Russia’s brutal conquest of Central Asia and bring the story up to date, as Uzbekistan and Russia share record trade, but the currents of mistrust run deep. The Romanov palace in Tashkent is set to reopen, featuring the art collection the prince bequeathed the city, including a life-size nude statue of the forbidden love of his life, Fanny Lear, on which he lay fresh flowers every day.
Calum MacLeod, an Oxford graduate, journalist and experienced traveller in the region, is co-author of Uzbekistan: The Golden Road to Samarkand, a richly illustrated guide to the country’s history, culture and extraordinary places. The latest edition was published this summer. The talk will be followed by a wine reception.
Liu Heung Shing spent nearly three years travelling more than 267,000 kilometres across 21 countries for his project, Old Road, New Connections. From an ancient caravanserai in Iran to a copper mine in Africa, Liu’s photographs show the scale and the down-to-earth realities of the Belt and Road.
Join Liu, in conversation with Melinda Liu, to hear about the project, in a presentation that includes a short film directed by Jia Zhangke. With a career spanning Time, the Associated Press, China, Russia, India and beyond, this is a chance to hear from one of China’s great photographers.
WHAT: Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Liu Heung Shing introduces “Old Road, New Connections”, his new book of photographs documenting his journey along the Belt and Road
WHEN: Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026 from 7-8 PM (Beijing Time). Refreshments from 6:30 PM
MORE ABOUT THE EVENT: Throughout his career Liu Heung Shing has specialized in capturing the essence of big, historic eras by capturing iconic gestures, startling juxtapositions, and fleeting emotional moments frozen in time. The scope and diversity of Liu’s images in “Old Road, New Connections”, documenting scenes from China’s vast Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), are as stunning as ever. With patience and tenacity, Liu cross-crossed the globe – travelling to 21 countries and over 267,000 kilometers, from 2023 to late 2025. He photographed an ancient caravanserai in Qom, the sprawling mega-port in Chancay, Peru, an enormous copper mine in Africa, and many other sites. While much of the BRI narrative features advanced technology, Liu also focused in on real people — eating, posing with loved ones, attending a fashion show, dancing among desert sand dunes. He wanted to see the people and the projects firsthand, to properly evoke the vastness of the BRI enterprise. Liu has said, “You can hear many stories about the BRI, but to do it properly, you’ve got to be there.” Liu will be moderated by Melinda Liu and his presentation will include a 12-minute introductory film about the project, directed by Jia Zhangke.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: In 1978, Liu Heung Shing became the first Time magazine photojournalist posted in Beijing. He later worked as chief photographer for the Associated Press in Beijing, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Seoul and Moscow. Liu is the author of China After Mao (1983 Penguin); China, Portrait of a Country (2008 Taschen); 1911: The Road to Revolution, (Hong Kong University Press); and co-author of Shanghai, Portrait of a City (Penguin Viking) and A Life in a Sea of Red (2018 Steidl, Germany). In 1992, together with his colleagues at Associated Press, Liu won the Pulitzer Prize for Live News Photography award for photographing President Gorbachev and his announcement of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR: Melinda Liu is a veteran foreign correspondent and commentator based in Beijing.
HOW MUCH: RMB 180 for RASBJ members, RMB 280 for non-members. RMB 100 for the NEW student category! You may find payment by Alipay easier than by Wechat; you can also pay by credit card. Kindly note, RASBJ does not issue fapiao. Interested in becoming an RASBJ member? Please sign up at https://rasbj.glueup.cn/org/rasbeijing/memberships
HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT: Please click “Register” or “I Will Attend” at least 48 hours before the event and follow the instructions. After successful registration you will receive a confirmation email. If you appear not to have received it, please check your spam folder. If payment is not received 48 hours before an event, the correlating registration will be suspended.
REFUND POLICY: Tickets are non-transferable and non-refundable. However, if RASBJ cancels the event, all registrants will be refunded in full.
