Crime and the City Kyoto

Posting one of my fortnightly Crimereads Crime and the City columns – this one on Kyoto – as it’s perhaps of interest to ChinaRhyming readers…. Click here to read

Two George Chinnery Pencil Sketches

Two pencil sketches on paper, unsigned, Verso George Chinnery RA’s Macao Sketchbook, sketched sometime between 1825 and 1852….

RAS China Zoom – “China Revisited: Recovering Lost Travel Writing” featuring Paul French – 15/3/23

Please note the RAS Beijign wrote the first line of the leaflet below, not me!!

Don’t miss author Paul French, back by popular demand, introducing his latest project which launches this month!

WHAT: China Revisited: Recovering Lost Travel Writing, featuring Paul French, an online event jointly organised by RASBJ and the History Club of RAS Shanghai

WHEN: Mar 15, 2023, Wednesday, 7:00-8:00 PM Beijing time

MORE ABOUT THE EVENT:China Revisited is a new series of rediscovered travel writing on China from the Victorian, Edwardian, and Interwar periods from independent publisher Blacksmith Books. Each book is abridged, introduced and annotated by historian and author Paul French. The series aims to “recover” largely forgotten and invariably dismissed works that often perpetuate the cliches and stereotypes of their authors and times. Yet often the writing reveals moments in China’s history, providing snapshots of a country now forever changed. And problematic as these texts can be they do show us the terms of engagement and preoccupations of both westerners and Chinese in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. This presentation looks at the first three books in the series and asks how we can best appreciate and understand these historic works through the lens of the second decade of the twenty-first century.

The three books discussed in this talk are available from Blacksmith Books at https://www.blacksmithbooks.com/books/china-revisited-a-bundle-of-three-books/# Enter the promotional code “BB23” on checkout to get a 20% discount and free postage to anywhere in Asia!

HOW MUCH: This online event is free for RASBJ members and members/friends of RAS Shanghai; RMB 50 for members of partner RAS branches in London, Hong Kong and Seoul; RMB 100 for non-members. If you wish to become an RASBJ member, please go to https://rasbj.org/membership/

HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT: Please click “Register” or “I Will Attend” and follow the instructions. After successful registration you’ll receive a confirmation email with a link to join the event. If you seem not to have received it, please check your spam folder. Members of partner RAS branches: Please register at least 48 hours before the event, allowing time for membership verification. You’ll receive several emails from RASBJ, one confirming receipt of your registration request, another requesting payment (this step is skipped for members/friends of RAS Shanghai), and one more confirming your registration with a link to join the event. Please check your spam folder to ensure you see all RASBJ emails; those who think they are missing their confirmation email often find it there! Hope to “see” you at the event!

Peking Noir repeated 12 March on Radio 3

BBCRadio3 is repeating Peking Noir, the extraordinary true story of Shura Giraldi, the Russian emigre Queen & Gangster King of interwar Peking – at 7.30pm GMT (& then on BBCSounds where it’s broken up into 6 podcast episodes)….

China Revisited on RTHK3’s Hong Kong Heritage

I recorded an episode of RTHK’s Hong Kong Heritage radio show with Annemarie Evans talking about my new China Revisited series (with Blacksmith Books) – it includes discussion of and some readings from the first three books in the series by Harry Hervey, Florence Gordon Cumming and BC Henry…. Click here to listen…

And you may still just have time to come and here myself, Annemarie and Julia Kuhen of Hong Kong University discuss the books in the series and the wider issues around historic travel writing on southern China at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival this Sunday at the HK Fringe – click here

Le Petit Journal Hong Kong – “I live off crime in Asia and I don’t hide it”

Down there on Lantau Island former Shanghailander Didier Pujol is editing Le Petit Journal for Hong Kong’s French residents. This week they get French in French, which might be quite momentarily confusing! And a witty headline too! “Je vis du crime en Asie et je ne m’en cache pas” (“I live off crime in Asia and I don’t hide it”) – click here to read…

Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the ROC, 1941, by Post

A letter sent from Hankow to Shanghai in 1941 (to Mr Thompson who was fortunate enough to reside at the time in the Embankment Building on Soochow Creek) which is intersting as it shows the cancellation stamps in Chinese and English commemorating the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China in 1911. This sort of thing would of course not have been allowed after December 1941.

Hong Kong Around and About – Wattis Fine Art Gallery, Hong Kong, till May 6 2023

Hong Kong Around and About

a collection of pictures, ephemera and memorabilia 1842 – 1983

on Thursday 2nd March 2023, 6.30 – 8.30 pm

On view until 6th May 2023 at

WATTIS FINE ART GALLERY

20 Hollywood Road, 2/F,
Central, Hong Kong

Tel. 852 25245302 E-mail. info@wattis.com.hk  www.wattis.com.hk