I found myself browsing through GRG Worcester’s memoir of his years as a Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Officer, The Junkman Smiles. Published in 1959 it is about the first half of the twentieth century, or just before WW1, concluding with the author and his wife being interned by the Japanese in China. If you have a particularl interest in junks, traditional Chinese sailing craft of the intricasies of the customs then this might be the book for you, otherwise it is, I fear, a little dull.
But it does have a great frontpiece map…and among a few other little idiosyncracies it also identifies Botel Tobago, which you don’t see on many maps.
Botel Tobago is an island off the southern coast of Taiwan more often referred to in English as Orchid Island (Tao as Ma’ataw, Irala and Tabako are other alternative names). The Chinese knew it as “Redhead Island” (Hung-t’ou Yü). Botel Tobago is the original name used for the island by the Philippines and was formerly the mostly common attributed name by English language sources. There is also a smaller island off the southern coast of Botel Tobago known as Little Botel Tobago.
Not much goes on on Botel Tobago – mostly fishing and a Taipower nuclear waste facility. When a 7-Eleven opened on the island in 2014 it was big news. There’s a small airport and a ferry from Houbihu port in Kenting.
A pair of Chinese silver smokers stands, circa 1900, stamped ‘C.J. Co, Sterling’. Each with a dragon decorated matchbox holder on a circular ashtray with three cigarette holders, height 10.5cm, diameter 11.5cm, weight 144 and 162 grams. (2) ‘C.J.Co’ were the China Jewellery Company who were active in Shanghai between 1875 and 1920.
An illustration of houseboats, singsong girls and foreign sailors in Canton, set in the 1860s. Drawn by artist, folk singer and “Last Working Shantyman” Stan Hugill for his book Sailortown (1967). Hugill apparently visited Canton, Hong Kong and Macao during his career in the pre-WW2 era as a merchant seaman.
The old Shanghai Rowing Club (which ran the annual Hen-lee regatta on Suzhou Creek – geddit!) was at the junction of the Huangpu and Suzhou Creek and the old boathouse did survive till quite late – until the bollixing up of the area with the fire at the old Union Church, the bourgeoisification of the old British Consulate and the imposed mass of faux American-style art-deco that is the Peninsula Hotel on the Bund. Anyway, some memorabilia recently popped up for auction….
two silver trophies made by Tuck Chang, silversmiths of Shanghai
Thomas “TG” Purvis (1861-1933) was a ship’s captain turned maritime artist. He sailed around the world to just about everywhere, ran a photographic studio for a time, took some time off and studied art in London at the Camberwell School of Art in 1904. In 1915 he left his family in London, moved to Hong Kong, and worked on ships again until about 1925. Though he loved and had long worked on sail ships he lamented their decline while having to work on steamships. He never went home. The picture below – Junks off Hong Kong – was painted while in Hong Kong in 1926. He died in Hong Kong in 1933. Several of his five children became noted artists too.
The latest in my occasional series of old Shanghai signage (use the search box if you want to see other examples). This sign was captured in a photograph of the general area up around Jessfield Park (Zhongshan Park) in the 1930s. It’s a dirt lot car park (and note the rickshaw puller having a little rest behind the sign) with an “IN” sign but also stipulates for “OWNER DRIVEN CARS ONLY”. I assume this was to stop chauffeurs loitering and taking up spaces?
When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, new clothing protocols for state employees resulted in far-reaching changes in what people wore. In a pioneering history of dress in the Mao years (1949–1976), Antonia Finnane traces the transformation, using industry archives and personal stories to reveal a clothing regime pivoted on the so-called ‘Mao suit’. The time of the Mao suit was the time of sewing schools and sewing machines, pattern books and homemade clothes. It was also a time of close economic planning, when rationing meant a limited range of clothes made, usually by women, from limited amounts of cloth. In an area of scholarship dominated by attention to consumption, Finnane presents a revisionist account focused instead on production. How to Make a Mao Suit provides a richly illustrated account of clothing that links the material culture of the Mao years to broader cultural and technological changes of the twentieth century.
