All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
A medal awarded to James Haines of the Royal Marines for service in the First Opium War (1839-1842)… A full on imperialist bit of Latin round the top – Armis Exposcere Pacem (They Demanded Peace by Force of Arms)…
Storm Over Lisbon (1944) is not a great film, but it is perhaps worth an hour and a half of a wet Wednesday afternoon – it’s here on Youtube). It’s one of a number of films that worked the same turf as Casablanca a couple of years previously but with the script, the stars or the magic. Storm Over Lisbon is a rather lacklustre tale of spying in the capital, a rather elaborate casino in Estoril and Americans mixed up in espionage. It does have Erich Von Stroheim, who was always keen to make anti-Nazi movies (though this is technically about Japanese spies in Portugal), but not much else. The director, George Sherman, was more about quantity than quality, Richard Arlen’s glory days were fifteen years behind him, Robert Livingtston does a sort of sub-par Cary Grant jolity and Vera Ralston (a Czech figure skater that moved to Hollywood) never quite managed the glamour of a Garbo or a Dietrich.
Still, there is an interesting sub plot that involves Shanghai. Everyone is chasing the Richard Arlen character who has been in China and then a Japanese POW camp in Burma. He’s escaped with some film that’s very important (a Hitchcockian MacGuffin). Throughout his time in pre-war Shanghai is referenced, indicating he is an exciting man of adventure. His friend, played by Livingston, is a clipper pilot, the Pan Am long-range flying boat. Now he’s piloting the lifeline from Lisbon to New York, via Bermuda. But previously he flew the New York-Shanghai route (which was advertised and trialed but never really got going). A nice nod to a now lost charmign form of travel and the notion of Shanghai prefiguring Lisbon as a nest of spies….
An interesting rare copy of Worte Des Vorsitzenden Mao Tse-Tung (the German language edition of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung – also known as The Little Red Book) Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967. This is a first edition of the German language edition.
But whayt about the squiggles you may say? Well…
This copy is signed by Andries Oele and dated 1974 on the title page. Oele was a Dutch radical Maoist in 1970s Rotterdam. Following his murder by the husband of a woman he was having an affair with, his extensive library, almost exclusively of Socialist, Maoist and Maxist-Leninist subject matter, was sold.
The flysheet also has a handwritten note – ‘Pe 6.2.69. Gen. Hertsfeldt. Yu Zhen’, referring to the fact that the volume is believed to have been presented to General Gustav Hertzfeldt, the East German Ambassador to Beijing at that time, when he met with the Head of the Main Department in the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Yu Zhan, on this date.
But most importantly there appears to be Mao’s signature – only a handful of Little Red Books were actually signed by Mao.
By the way, it’s up for auction November 30th 2023 from a Glasgow auctioneer and valued at between £4,000-£6,000. Click here
These are all quite rare to see…(up for auction 22/23 November if you’re interested – here)
The Illustrated Catalogue of Chinese Government Exhibits for the International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London edited by the Chinese Organising Committee, Nanking, 1936, Vols I, II and III, with dust jackets; also Nanking published by The Commercial Press Ltd, Shanghai, China; S Howard Hansford Chinese Jade Carving published 1950; and The Hong Kong Countryside by J A C Herklots, published 1951 (6 Vols)…
Russell Whelan’s The Flying Tigers: The Story Of The American Volunteer Group (The Viking Press, New York, 1942). A selection of covers…
Ian Gill’s Searching for Billie: A journalist’s quest to understand his mother’s past leads him to discover a vanished China (Blacksmith Books)….
Ian Gill’s first visit to Hong Kong takes an unexpected turn when he meets his Chinese mother Billie’s friends, colleagues and fellow ex-prisoners of war, lifting the veil on a tumultuous past in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
He moves to Asia and unravels her intriguing journey: from controversial adoption by an English postmaster in Changsha to popular radio broadcaster in wartime Shanghai, from tragedy and a doomed romance in a Japanese internment camp to being decorated by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the United Nations. He discovers a great-grandmother in a determined English farm girl who ends up owning a well-known hotel on the China coast in the 1870s – and he finally meets his father for the first time on a Canadian island in 1985.
The backdrop for this fascinating family story is China’s turbulent century from the Anglo-Chinese wars of the 1840s to the advent of communism.
Hahn Eura Eunkyung, Dr HaYoung Joo‘s Chinese Fans: The Untold Story (Scala)….
In China, a fan has traditionally been both a practical object and an artistic work that expresses the owner’s learning or personality. The high-end craftsmanship of Chinese fans, encompassing poetry, calligraphy and painting, has long captivated the West.
This sumptuous book, newly translated from the original Korean, showcases 71 examples dating from between the late 18th and 20th centuries. It follows on from the popular volume on European Fans, and the fine objects featured in Chinese Fans are again drawn from the renowned Eurus Collection in South Korea.
Two picture albums (sorry no shots of the inside) that show what the publishers (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Yokohama) were publishing out of their Yokohama operation in the 1890s. These albums were prepared by the prolific local photographer Kazumasa Ogawa (1860-1929), best known perhaps for his 1892 book for Kelly & Walsh, Japanese Life. More on Ogawa here.
These albums form the later 1890s were prepared and sold by Kelly & Walsh, – Souvenir of a Garden Party at Waseda and The Hanami (Flower Picnic) – were mostly sold to visitors, sojourners and the foreign colony at Yokohama in its treaty port period.
