Royal Asiatic Society Shanghai – Tavern at the Radisson Xingguo Hotel Book Launch: Ruth’s Record – The Diary of an American in Japanese-Occupied Shanghai 1941-1945

Book Launch: Ruth’s Record – The Diary of an American in Japanese-Occupied Shanghai 1941-1945

Speaker: Betty Barr

The year 1941 was a turning point for the world, but long-time Shanghai resident Ruth Hill Barr had no way of knowing that when she started her five-year diary on January 1st. Before the year was over, the Japanese Army had occupied Shanghai’s International Settlement, and she and her family were stranded as enemy aliens, soon to be placed in a Japanese internment camp. The Barrs were confined in the Lunghwa internment camp, in the same block as J.G. Ballard, author of the book Empire of the Sun. Ruth’s daughter Dr. Elizabeth Barr, M.B.E. (aka Betty Barr) has included explanations and memories to her mother’s diary, which is recently published as Ruth’s Record: The Diary of an American in Japanese-Occupied Shanghai 1941-1945. A longtime RAS member, Betty Barr will discuss the book, which her mother had written in secret during the camp years, revealing the fascinating details of anguish and the incredible perseverance of life inside and outside the Shanghai camps during the war.

About the speaker:

Dr. Elizabeth Barr, M.B.E. (aka Betty Barr) was born in Shanghai in 1933 and was interned in Lunghwa Camp in 1943-1945. She graduated from Shanghai American School in 1949 and then attended Wellesley College. After teacher training in Glasgow, she taught at Ying Wa Girls’ School in Hong Kong. In 1973-1975 she was a teacher at the then Shanghai Foreign Language University. Following that, she was a teacher of English as a Second Language in Fife, Scotland, from 1975 to 1984. In 1984 she returned to Shanghai to marry George Wang and taught at Shanghai International Studies Institute until her retirement in 2002. Since her retirement she has co-authored six books with her husband.