The Literary Windows of Livraria Portuguesa, Macao

The literary greats of China, Macao and Portugal feature on the windows of Macao’s best bookshop Livraria Portuguesa…..

The Scandal Mongers Podcast – The End of Empire in Shanghai & the Reestablishment of Empire in Hong Kong

Talking to Phil Craig on the Scandal Mongers podcast about 1945 in China/Hong Kong & the fate of empire – the quiet dissolution of International Shanghai & the Treaty Ports vs the reestablishment of British rule in Hong Kong – Churchill waved the former through but freaked out about the chances of the latter not happening – click here

Heads Up: Felixstowe Book Festival 2025

Heads Up: i’ll be at the Felixstowe Book Festival talking about Her Lotus Year – 28/06/2025 – the amazing thing about UK lit fests is undoubtedly the incredible venues – here Felixstowe’s Harvest House – click here for tickets and more details

Hong Kong Club Her Lotus Year Dinner – March 2025

Many thanks to the Hong Kong Club for organising a dinner last month around Her Lotus Year and inviting me to speak…. it was a lot of fun…

Walter Fane’s Mountains Near Shanghai

A painting titled Mountains Near Shanghai by Major-General Walter Fane C.B. (British, 1828–1885) – though I have no exact date or which mountains these are I’m afraid – and I’m not entirely sure it isn’t mis-labelled. I assume ‘near’ means at least a few hours away.

Anyway, Fane was a British Indian Army officer on the North West frontier. In 1860 he raised the irregular cavalry force of Fane’s Horse to fight in China during the Second Opium War. He took part in the looting of Peking in October 1860 and the burning on the Yangmingyuan (Old Summer Palace)…. for which he was awarded the Companion of the Order of Bath (hopefully those people involved with China who accept British “honours” and gee-gaws think upon that!). And apparently he still found time to do a bit of painting…

Her Lotus Year – Deep Diving Shijia Hutong….& an RAS Event there on 19/3/25

From late December 1924 to the summer of 1925 Wallis lived at #4 Shih-Chia (Shijia) Hutong, the home of Herman and Katherine Rogers. The only pictures we have of Wallis there are outside or sitting on some internal steps so revealing little of the scope and grandeur of the siheyuan (a courtyard surrounded by buildings on all four sides).

However, further along the street lived the Ling family and (then a student at Yenching University), a 24-year-old Ling Shuhua (aka Ling Ruitang, Su Hua Ling), the daughter of a former mayor of Peking and later to become a noted writer, artist and art collector. In her memoir – Ancient Melodies (under the name Su Hua), 1953 and written when she was living in London, Su Hua included this sketch of the Ling family home, which must have been approximate to the Rogers’s courtyard close by. The Ling family courtyard is now the Shijia Hutong Museum.

BTW: for anyone in Beijing I will be hosting a dinner on March 19th for the Royal Asiatic Society China with “Matthew” Hu Xinyu, the director of the museum, to talk about Wallis, Ling Shuhua and other famous residents, as well as the architecture, of Shijia Hutong.

Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson is available everywhere in hardback, e-book and audiobook now…

Fenn’s Character Cards, c.early 20th Century

Fenn’s Character Cards, as used by the College of Chinese Studies, Peking in the early twentieth century. Printed by the Presbyterian Missionaries in China…

Essex Book Festival, June 29 2025

Heads Up: I’ll be at the Essex Book Festival History Day in the amazing Layer Marney Tower, England’s tallest Tudor Gatehouse (ticket holders get access to house & gardens too), near Colchester – June 29 – click here for more details and tickets….