A reder popped into the Foreign Languages Bookstore on Wanfujing in Beijing the other and bought a copy of my book Midnight in Peking, in English….They were surprised to find the censor elfs had been at work with the sticky tape and scissors… This appears to be new as the book has been on sale in China for nearly a decade (and is in Chinese translation), but obviously someone has issued an order!
the taped over lines….the only two references to Mao and Maoism in the book
“….finally as a people’s republic with a dictator.” “…the drawing tight of the bamboo curtain under Mao.”
As noted yesterday I recently wrote a piece on the Fette-Li Rug Company of Peking and Tientsin that mixed traditional desgins with art-deco styles in the 1920s and 1930s. The article, in the South China Morning Post weekend magazine is here.
And here are some more Fette-Li rugs to wish you owned…
China Revisited is a new series of rediscovered travel writing on Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong Province. Originating from the Victorian, Edwardian and Interwar periods, the writing has been largely forgotten, invariably dismissed for perpetuating cliches and stereotypes, yet the historic accounts are revelatory.
Join RTHK producer and presenter, Annemarie Evans as she converses with curator/author Paul French and Professor Julia Kuehn of Hong Kong University about the works, the history of travel writing on Hong Kong and Guangdong, and how best to appreciate and understand these historic works.
Historian Paul French was born in London and lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. He has contributed to many publications around the world, including the China Economic Quarterly and The Guardian and has written various books about China. His novel Midnight in Peking was a New York Times bestseller, and this and his most recent book, City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir are currently being developed as movies.
He is a regular contributor of long-reads to the South China Morning Post weekend magazine and broadcasts often on RTHK3. He is currently working on a biography of the year that Wallis Warfield Spencer, later the Duchess of Windsor, spent in China (1924/1925) for publication in 2024
Julia Kuehn is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Hong Kong. She publishes on nineteenth-century women’s, popular and Empire novels as well as travel writing, focusing especially on Hong Kong and China. Her edited collections include: A Century of Travels in China (2007), Travel Writing, Form, and Empire (2008), China Abroad: Travels, Subjects, Spaces (2009), Diasporic Chineseness after the Rise of China (2013) and New Directions in Travel Writing Studies (2015). Julia was on the Board of the Man Asian Literary Prize (2007-2012) and is was the Co-Chair of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival.
Annemarie Evans is a British print journalist and broadcaster who has made Hong Kong her home for the past 27 years. She currently co-hosts the evening news programme “Newswrap” on Radio 3, RTHK, and has produced and presented the weekend culture and history programme “Hong Kong Heritage” on Radio 3 since 1998. Annemarie regularly writes features for the South China Morning Post and other publications and previously has been a stringer for the BBC World Service and has written for a number of international newspapers.
A new series of reprints of old travel writing on China i’m selecting, abridging, annotating and inthroducing with Blacksmith Books. I’ll be in Hong Kong at their International Literary Festival in March to officially launch them, but they’re available now in Bookazine and other Hong Kong bookstores as well as via Blacksmith, will be on amazon and in UK/US bookstores later this year…
Introducing the first three books in the ‘China Revisited’ series: extracted reprints of mid-19th to early 20th century Western impressions of Hong Kong, Macao and China. The series comprises excerpts from travelogues or memoirs written by missionaries, diplomats, military personnel, journalists, tourists and temporary sojourners. Each book is introduced and annotated by bestselling author Paul French (Midnight in Peking) to provide relevant explications of Hong Kong, Macao and China at the time. Buy them individually at HK$90 or get all three for HK$240: All available via Blacksmith’s website
Today it’s book #6 on The China Project’s Ultimate China Bookshelf – Chen Guidi & Wu Chuntao’s Will the Boat Sink the Water (2004), a deep dive into corruption in China’s villages. Banned, but then sold over 7mn unlicensed copies in a year! – click here
Just happened to see this item listed as up for auction by Hannam’s of Hampshire in England this month with an £80-£120 reserve:
“A 19TH CENTURY CHINESE YELLOW EMBROIDERED SILK COVER Qing. 105 cm square. Note: Sold with paper note, Liberated material from Grand Father Harry Beasley, whilst in the army, from the Winter Palace Peking, during the boxer rebellion.”
Interesting that items like this, obviously looted from the Summer Palace (not “Winter” as the listing says – that’s a whole other story!) still come up so openly… & described as “Liberated” (this appears to be a comment, perhaps ironic – alongwith the Winter Palace error – from a former owner – see below))…see the item and description on the auctioneers site here
BTW: Lieutenant Colonel Harry “Pops” Beasley (1876-1949) served in India, Burma & China (8-Power Allied Army) & on the ANZAC Corps in WW1. He later went on to become a champion contract bridge player.
