A summer sale on old travellers’ tales of southern China, Hong Kong and Macao – Blacksmith Book’s China Revisited Series Book Bundle – now HK$320 for all 5 titles… save 20% Travel classics annotated and introduced by me:
A 1920s walk on the Queen’s Road with Harry Hervey before a trip to a Macao casino and then an encounter with Sun Yatsen;
the 1878 Mid-Levels fire, the mysterious lanes of Canton and Derby Day 1879 at Happy Valley with Constance Gordon-Cumming;
A tour of 1880s Hainan with missionary-botanist traveller BC Crouch;
“vagabond” Harry Franck’s detailed explorations of 1930s Canton, a rapidly modernising city;
and Charles Halcombe’s 1890s Shanghai and Hong Kong experiences as a customs man in the Great Plague….
Lovely to see a new edition of Michelle de Kretser’s The Hamilton Case (Text Classics), the award-winning 2003 literary novel set in 1930s colonial Ceylon. The story follows Sam Obeysekere, an Oxford-educated lawyer whose life becomes entwined with a sensational murder investigation when Angus Hamilton, an English tea planter, is shot dead on an isolated jungle path, and his estate wages are stolen. Sam Obeysekere, a staunch believer in British justice, takes a personal interest in the crime and secures fame by developing a theory that Hamilton’s wife engineered the murder. While the sensational case makes Sam’s name, his life ultimately spirals into professional and personal disappointment as his pro-colonial ideals clash with a changing world.
So, if you loved M Fests in Shanghai (M on the Bund), Beijing (Capital M) and the literary events in Hong Kong (M on the Fringe) then the M Festival this late July (25/26) in Nanteuil-en-Vallée, Charente, France is for you.
The weekend is all happening in the historic Abbaye Notre-Dame de Nanteuil and the enormous grounds of the Abbaye including the ruins of the Romanesque 12th century church and the “Trésor.” The old Granary is now a museum and its very spacious rooms are delightfully cool in the summer.
The list of writers includes me, and Alan Hollinghurst, Amy Tan, Fuchsia Dunlop, Marie NDaiye, Victor Mallet, Anne Sebba, Simone Gelin, Tash Aw, Aube Rey Lescure, Yin Myo Su, Helen Scales, Harriet Welty Rochefort, Aaliyah Bilal, Philip Eisenbeiss, Philip Marcovici, Ross Garnaut, Nick Bonner, Bénédicte Charpiat, Jonathan Kerr, Frédéric Lemaître, Edward Denison, Ren Guang Yu.
Lots of events to attend including myself talking with Anne Sebba on the life of Wallis Simpson and I’ll be talking about the history and legends of Shanghai’s old French Concession too.
My latest column for Macau Closer magazine is on the 1967 B-movie Kill A Dragon – “When a valuable shipment of nitroglycerin washes ashore on an island near Hong Kong, the natives think it’s theirs, owing to the law of salvage. However, local mob boss Nico Patrai thinks otherwise and gives the islanders three days to return it before he starts killing them. Jack Palance arrives to save them.” It’s a cheapo Macao-set (but filmed mostly in Hong Kong version of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (or the Western The Magnificent Seven if you prefer). But there are a few interesting things to note…..
Macau Closer is largely online or available in Macau from Livraria Portuguesa bookstore.
RAS Summer School 2026: Currents of the Ming: Commercial and Intellectual Exchanges in a Globalizing WorldLong before the modern era of globalization, the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) was actively reshaping the world economy, intellectual landscapes, and the natural environment. This four-part series explores the massive “inflows and outflows” of silver, exotic spices, revolutionary ideas, and botanical imports that transformed the Ming dynasty and laid the foundations of our modern, interconnected world.Part 2: The Floating Markets of Zheng He.
Far from the European voyages of discovery, but at a similar time, Admiral Zheng He’s legendary treasure fleets were massive, floating platforms for commercial intelligence and diplomatic exchange. We chart the fleet’s journey across the Indian Ocean and learn how these vast expeditions facilitated the transfer of vital navigational technologies, exotic fauna, and rare botanical goods between China, the Middle East, and the Swahili Coast.Reading materials will be distributed 48 hours in advance to registered attendees.
Speaker: James MillerAssociate Dean for Interdisciplinary initiatives at Duke Kunshan University
A first edition of Ellen Catleen’s Peking Studies (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1934, 87 pages). Originally from Berlin Catleen, later better known as Ellen Thorbecke, nee Kolban (1902-1973) was the wife of the Dutch ambassador to China, W.J.R. (Willem) Thorbecke. Catleen was her first married name,. This publication is a lovely collaboration between the Dutch photographer and the Austrian illustrator FH Schiff (including on the cover) showing various aspects of everyday life in Peking in the 1930s. Thorbecke took the photos with her Rolleiflex camera. Schiff (1908-1968) was born in Austria and came to China in 1930 where he worked as caricaturist for several newspapers and illustrated book.
The next book in my Asian Arguments series for Bloomsbury Publishing is Jerome Sauvage’s first-hand account of life in North Korea based on his time as a UN Special Resident coordinator in Pyongyang. A unique deep dive into Pyongyang and often invisible rural DPRK. Out August – pre-order here….
The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea has become one of the most secretive and isolated societies in the world, with NGOs, UN agencies and even embassies being expelled from the country in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Witness to North Korea, Jerome Sauvage presents a unique first-hand account of life in North Korea based on his time as a UN Special Resident coordinator in Pyongyang. Recounting his work organising and delivering humanitarian aid, Sauvage reflects on his experience working with North Korean citizens, the successes, the setbacks and the missed opportunities. The book books asks the question: how can the world rebuild its relationship with this secretive regime.
This is a potentially fascinating letter dated November 29, 1834 from a destitute American seeking help to return home) from Macao. The letter is addressed to William Shepard Wetmore in Canton (Guangzhou). Wetmore had traveled to Canton and took over a partnership in Dunn & Company. With Joseph Archer he established a new merchant house, Wetmore & Company. Wetmore traded tea, silks and spices as well as wines, ports, opium, hemp, pearl buttons, copper and coffee. They also transported a variety of foreign currencies, and delivered newspapers and letters via “Fast boats” between Canton and Macao.
According to the Derby auctioneers Cavendish:
“The letter is rare as it is stamped with the ‘Boat Office’ Post service. The Canton Boat Office did not employ a handstamp for this 10c charge, although Macao Boat Office did from 1832 to 1838. Only two examples of this Canton Manuscript “10. Cents” marking have been recorded the other example was in the Richard Chan collection (here) and was from the same correspondence but dated 27 Sept. 1834. This first local Boat Office mail service linking Canton and Macao started in 1832. The Macao “Boat OFFICE/10 Cents” marks (1832-38) are well known, but this is one of only two recorded covers with this matching Canton “10 Cents” manuscript mark.”
