All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
A believed original WWII Second World War Chinese / Shanghai War advertising poster (yuefenpai) featuring a pilot in a plane with a welcoming young lady holding flowers. Measures approx 52x80cm.
I’m not a great one for missionaries bit their role in the formation of the early foreign press in Southern China is undeniable...This new book is a useful source and there’s an article on it here….
The Cantonese people have a tradition of incorporating spoken Cantonese into their literature, but what is less well known is that in the 19th century, Western missionaries compiled Cantonese dictionaries and textbooks in order to help missionaries to master the Cantonese language, and also translated Bibles, hymns, gospel novels, and wrote catechisms and Sunday school textbooks in Cantonese to help Cantonese people to understand Christianity. This book contains a selection of Cantonese works by missionaries during the period from 1828 to 1927, introducing the authors and their works as well as the linguistic features of Cantonese of the time. In the appendices, the total of 278 Cantonese works by missionaries were listed, which will give the reader an insight into their unique writings.
A map from Carl Crow’s Travelers’ Handbook for China, a 1920s edition, of the Peking-Mukden (Beijing-Shenyang) rail line…
The 2022 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society China is now available. Articles include me on Hsiao Ch’ien, Hsiung Shih-I & George Orwell at the BBC Eastern Service in WW2, Duncan Hewitt on JG Ballard’s Shanghai origins, James Carter on the Doolittle Raids & China, Jeremiah Jenne on the 19th century Mission of Claude-Marie Chevrier, Graham Earnshaw on QEII’s China visit in 1986, Sven Serrano on Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov & the Russian Mission to Japan, Julie Chun on Shanghai girl cigarette advertising, George Godula on the history of the Kiessling Cafés, John Van Fleet on the crucial reforms of 1978, Yufeng Lucas Wu on a Peking opera family troupe from the 1600s plus book reviews from Frances Wood, Edith Terry & others. All edited by Melinda Liu. Email communications@rasbj.org for this, or any recent past, issues.
A Japanese forces mail with framed orange-red censor mark on front and circular pictorial cachet on front commemorating the Fall of Nanking and Dec. 1937 unfranked censored military ‘star’ PC to Miyago Prefecture with an unframed mark to indicate Mail charged to Water Supply Car of Kodai (Shanghai Kanebo) apparently a large civilian company assisting the troops in providing a water supply.
Some photographic images from Tientsin (Tianjin) in 1900 from an album recently auctioned in the UK. I’m afraid no details of the photographer emerged, though it is perhaps safe to assume it was a British citizen in Tianjin, perhaps assigned to the military arriving to form the British contingent to the Eight-Power Allied Army marching on Peking in the wake of the Boxer Uprising and the Siege of the Legations…
Erika Fatland’s (trans: Kari Dickson) High….
The Himalayas meander for more than two thousand kilometres through many different countries, from Pakistan to Myanmar via Nepal, India, Tibet and Bhutan, where the world religions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are interspersed with ancient shamanic beliefs. Countless languages and vastly different cultures exist in these isolated mountain valleys. Modernity and tradition collide, while the great powers fight for influence.
We have read about climbers and adventurers on their way up Mount Everest, and about travellers on a spiritual quest to remote Buddhist monasteries. Here, however, the focus is on the communities of these Himalayan valleys, those who live and work in this extraordinary region. As Erika Fatland introduces us to the people she meets along her journey, and in particular the women, she takes us on a vivid and dizzying expedition at altitude through incredible landscapes and dramatic, unknown histories. Skilfully weaving together the politics, geography, astrology, theology and ecology of this vast region, she also explores some of the most volatile human conflicts of our times.
Up for auction 18/1/23 – GEORGE CHINNERY (1774-1852). Attributed to. A CHINESE SAMPAN GIRL OF MACAO. Oil on canvas 28 x 23cm. ** Lined; some scattered retouching; some craquelure. More details here…
