Out this month is photographer Nicky Almasy’s tavelogue-cum-memoirs, Recycling Reality, of roaming through 90s and ewarly 2000s London, Mexico, SE Asia and Shanghai. For anyone around in the late 1990s and early 2000s in Shanghai Nicky’s essays and experiences of the renaissance of jazz in ther French Concession and the skysraper boom in Pudong will be of interest. Click here to buy….
I’ve posted about half a dozen other silversmiths in Shanghai in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries before (just put ‘silversmith’ in the search box to see). Here’s another – Wang Hing, of Hong Kong (most of the silversmiths in Shanghai were originally from Cantonese speaking regions of China) and Shanghai, again largely targeting the Shanghailander and tourist trade.
Here, a Chinese Silver Scent Bottle and hinged gilt lined box decorated with embossed dragons, scent c. 10cm tall and box 9x4cm, stamped WH90 for Wang Hing of Hong Kong and Shanghai, 172g.
Three piece Chinese silver tea service comprising of teapot, sugar bowl & cream jug with embossed prunus decoration
silver goblet
rectangular box with hinged cover and sides embossed with dragons amidst clouds
silver three piece melon shaped tea service, comprising teapot, milk jug and sucrier, chased with birds and blossoming prunus on a textured ground
silver candle sticks
silver bowl with ruby glass liner and decorated with dragons
My ten China book author Q&As for the China-Britain Business Council’s Focus magazine last year – from business to travel; history to literature….click here…
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.
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.
