TH Lewy – Commercial Artists of Frenchtown

I know a fair whack about Shanghai’s inter-war foreign ad agencies courtesy of my work on Carl Crow, by far the most famous of the old school Shanghai ad men. However, I don’t know anything about the comercial artists TH Lewy Co. I believe they were Jewish refugees from Europe and they had a very cool logo but I’m afraid I can tell you nothing else about them…so if anyone does know anything I’d love to hear from you. Of course Rue Cardinal Mercier in the former French Concession is now Maoming Road South.

Me and Barabara Demick on North Korea in Shanghai – March 12

I’ll be moderating at the Shanghai International Literary Festival this coming weekend with Barabara Demick of the LA Times and chatting about her excellent book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Barbara is always great and it was excellent news that the book won the 2010 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. We’ll be talking all things DPRK and it should be an interesting session.

Saturday March 12, 1pm, The Glamour Bar, M on the Bund, Shanghai

More Details and how to get tickets Here

Sue Anne Tay’s Shanghai Street Stories in Suzhou this Weekend

Excellent that street photographer Sue Anne Tay is appearing at the Suzhou Lit Fest at the Suzhou Bookworm this coming weekend. As well as a session she’s also exhibiting in a rather unique way – via table mats. This concept (the Suzhou Bookworm is a library so no free wall space – it’s all bookshelves) was the brainchild of another excellent photographer, Suzhou based Melanie Dornier (more on Mlle Dornier soon but here is her website), who first created the idea which she dubbed ‘L’Art de la table’ (don’t panic, Melanie is not hopelessly pompous but is actually French…so it’s excusable). It’s a great idea and you know it’s a success when the place mats start getting stolen by the customers!! I’m told 4 of Sue Anne’s have already been purloined by customers who just couldn’t resist them – time for IKEA or GoD to get in on the act here I think and start selling them (with some royalties kicked back to the photographers of course)!!

Anyway – a very bad shot by me of Sue Anne’s table art below (Melanie and Sue Anne have little to fear from this blogger’s eye!) – they’ll be exhibited at the Bookworm for a few more weeks – and details of Sue Anne’s session at the Lit Fest this coming weekend below too.

2011 Suzhou Literary Festival
“Recording Street Stories Through Photography” by Sue Anne Tay. Mar 12 (Sat), 2 pm
Tickets can be acquired at The Suzhou Bookworm or you can call them directly.

“Photographer and author of the popular blog ShanghaiStreetStories.com, Sue Anne Tay combines street photography and photojournalism to document life in Shanghai’s streets – the razing of old neighbourhoods, the vibrancy of street markets and the colourful individuals that make up the sprawling city. This afternoon, she shares her approach to shooting in Shanghai’s streets, her style and subjects of choice and discusses the versatility of mediums to best showcase one’s work. She will also share with us her latest project, The Roving Exhibit, where she set up her work on photo boards around Shanghai’s old neighbourhoods. Not to be missed by aspiring photographers eager to tell their own tales of the city. Discussion and Q&A to follow.”

For Shanghai readers, Suzhou is now only a half hour train ride away and a fun day trip. The Bookworm is also a fantastic place to while the afternoon away.

The Carlton Returns

I notice a property development – the normal sort of dreary jerry built nouveau riche tower block – going up behind Nanjing Road (Bubbling Well Road) on Huanghe Road (the old Park Road). It’s going to be called the ‘Carlton Apartments’. Now this area used to have a lot of things called Carlton. The original Carlton Apartments were on Park Road and built in 1937. Meanwhile the Carlton Theatre was at No.2 featuring regular performances by the Fourth US Marines regimental band, which unsurprisingly attracted many single Shanghailander women, were held at the Carlton Theatre. Not that far away on Ningbo Road (Ningpo Road) was the Carlton Café at 33 run by Louis Ladlow with reputedly excellent dinner always taken in black tie. The Carlton had opened for business in the 1920s and by the 1930s was known simply as “the old Carlton”.

And so now we will get a new Carlton Apartment building

RAS Suzhou Launched

As promised last week the launch of the Royal Asiatic Society in Suzhou happened on Sunday with a great turn out. Even better I don’t have to write it up as Josephine McDermott did it already on her Torygraph blog here.

If you’re in or around Suzhou and you want to know more about the Royal Asiatic Society, any events being held and all that the RAS’s man in Suzhou is Bill Dodson and he’s on this email.

Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White…In Beijing this Wednesday

Just a quick reminder that I will be at the Beijing International Literary Festival at the Beijing Bookworm on Wednesday night with the fascinating Michel Faber – among other things we’ll talk about his sprawling novel of Victorian London’s underworld in The Crimson Petal and the White (now a BBC series with Romola Garai and Mark Gatiss) and his sci-fi novel Under the Skin (rumoured to be made into a film with Scarlett Johansson).

Michel Faber – Under the Skin

Beijing Bookworm Wednesday, 9 March 6pm – RMB50 (tickets on sale now at The Bookworm from 9am until 9pm)

Michel Faber is a best-selling literary master of the unsettling and unexpected. His stylistic virtuosity sets him apart, no two of his books are the same: each an unclassifiable blend of science fiction, horror, thriller, historical fiction, ghostliness and satire on modern life. From the Victorian back-alleys and prostitution of The Crimson Petal and the White to the spine-tingling hitchhiking horror of Under the Skin. Possessing a dark humour, graceful touch and vivid imagination, Faber speaks on his diverse body of work and his compulsion to write. Moderated by Paul French, author of Fat China and Through the Looking Glass.

Coming Down Alert – Nanking’s Gulou

While pointing out a few nice strolls around Nanking in recent posts it’s also necessary to note some destruction. While the former John Rabe house – see yesterday’s post – preserved as a museum, it is now effectively an island surrounded by new buildings while most of the similar ‘Republican era’ buildings in the area are just about all gone. This is rather a shame as you can’t really get a sense of how the old city sat with itself, if you know what I mean. This is the Gulou/Zhongshan Road area, one of the axis roads constructed in the 1920s for Sun Yat-sen’s funeral and also one of the thoroughfares that gives Nanking’s layout the same sort of feel as the American capital at times. For sure if Peking is New York and Shanghai Chicago then Nanking is Washington DC. These buildings being torn down are late 1920s/early 1930s. The tower blocks and high rises for Nanking’s new rich have the strangest names – I swear these are not made up but culled from developers boards by the building sites: California City, RomanVision, Chic Hills and Riviera Royale!!

Nanking’s John Rabe House

In Nanking the other week I took some free time to revisit the old John Rabe house. Hopefully for readers of this blog I don’t need to spell out who Rabe was (and anyway here’s his Wikipedia page). So I’ll just stick a few photos up here. The house itself is in good condition as is the former early Siemens office adjacent to it. It’s nice that Rabe’s old air raid shelter is still there. However, unless I’m mistaken the small German school that Rabe founded and that lies behind the Rabe House has been converted into the toilets block for the museum!! The exhibits are OK though the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall is better I think. The Rabe house has far too many pictures of obscure and now long forgotten 1970s and 1980s German politicians traipsing through the place with wide lapels, tinted Foster Grants and Cuban heels – these were not kind decades to West German fashion and even less so for the poor old GDR! Still, at least it hasn’t been bulldozed.

The Rabe House – about the best preserved Nanking Decade property in the city

Down the side and behind the Rabe House is the small German school building – now the bogs!

Rabe’s old air raid shelter – i suspect the crazy paving is new – it’s blocked of so you can get down into it unfortunately

The early and very small Siemens Nanking office – they had others that were a bit grander

Rabe and his Chinese manager outside the Siemens office sometime in the 1930s