All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
My monthly author Q&A for the China-Britain Business Council’s Focus magazine this April is with Philip Snow, author of China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord (Yale University Press) – big book, big subject – click here
An interesting bit of trench art (any decorative item made by military personnel, prisoners of war, or civilians where the manufacture is directly linked to armed conflict or its consequences) from the sailors of HMS Durban apparently done while in Hong Kong. HMS Durban was a stalwart of the Royal Navy China Station serving as part of the fleet throughout the 1920s and also into the 1930s until 19389 before being drployed around the Dutch East Indies, Singapore and then Africa. Odd perhaps too that the trench art is bronze horse shoes – not usually an itegral part of a battle ship’s equipment. Anyway here they are listed as being made while Durban was in Hong Kong at some point in the 1920s…
What’s little, red and was waved about a lot once upon a time? “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung” was everywhere during the Cultural Revolution, waved enthusiastically more than it was read closely, perhaps, but still utterly essential. The Little Red Book is the latest, book #16, on The China Project’s Ultimate China Bookshelf…click here
I didn’t know the V&A in London owned one of Madame Chiang’s (Soong Mei-ling) qipaos. Though, it’s not currently on display it was made for and worn by Madame Chiang. More details are on their website here, but it appears to be derived from Taiwan , 1970-1983 (she was pictured wwaring this dress in 1983). The V&A apparenrly got it with the help of Gwendolyn Chien, the wife of the Taiwan Representative to the UK.
During her sojourn in England in the late 1920s – a time when she made five movies of which we still remember Piccadilly and less so The Flame of Love, The Road to Dishonour and Hai-Tang. Far, far less remembered is a strange film called Elstree Calling (1930), basically a bunch of variety skits (a chorus line, some blackface minstrels, a Russian dance troupe, a Highland singer, a bit of light opera, a Fred & Ginger-type ballroom dance duo, a magician, a Shakespeare performer all included). There are some comedic links (apparently directed by Alfred Hitchcock). In amongst all this mess is a bizarre spoof of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew featuring a motorbike and sidecar riding Petruchio who encounters a Barbarella-style Anna May Wong (38 years earlier than Jane Fonda!) throwing custard pies and spoting cod-Chinese. All quite odd and here on Youtube if you want to see it all. But here’s some stills…
26/4/23 6pm at the Daiwa foundation, Regents Park, London – David Martin, Curator for Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds, WA on Pictorialist Photography: Soichi Sunami & his Issei Contemporaries –
David F. Martin will discuss the work and international achievements of Issei photographers active in Seattle, Washington, in the early 20th century.
He will focus primarily on Soichi Sunami (1885-1971) whose artistic career began in Seattle and continued after he relocated to New York where he became the chief photographer for the Museum of Modern Art. Sunami’s main interest was dance photography and his subjects included Martha Graham, Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn and other iconic dancers of the period.
The Seattle Camera Club was founded in 1924 and held their first exhibition the following year. They became internationally recognized for their artistic or “Pictorialist” work as a group as well as individually. The key members of SCC were Hiromu Kira (1898–1991), Dr. Kyo Koike (1878–1947), Frank Asakichi Kunishige (1878–1960), and Yukio Morinaga (1888–1968). They exhibited in most of the prestigious international salons of the period, winning awards and having their work reproduced in important photographic publications and catalogues. The SCC became so well known that individual members ranked among the most exhibited photographers in North America.
With the exception of Sunami who was living on the east coast during WWII, the Seattle Issei photographers were interned at the Minidoka relocation centre (concentration camp) which collectively ended their artistic careers.
Tix and details here
Parks M Coble’s The Collapse of Nationalist China is out this week….
When World War II ended Chiang Kai-shek seemed at the height of his power-the leader of Nationalist China, one of the victorious Allied Powers in 1945 and with the financial backing of the US. Yet less than four years later, he lost the China’s civil war against the communists. Offering an insightful chronological treatment of the years 1944–1949, Parks Coble addresses why Chiang was unable to win the war and control hyperinflation. Using newly available archival sources, he reveals the critical weakness of Chiang’s style of governing, the fundamental structural flaws in the Nationalist government, bitter personal rivalries and Chiang’s personal lack of interest in finance. This major work of revisionist scholarship will engage all those interested in the shaping of twentieth-century history.
Coble is the James L. Sellers Professor of History at University of Nebraska-Lincoln