All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
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…
I’ve been spotting opium references in popular culture with interest for quite a few years now (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 & 2012) about just how opium keeps on fascinating us.
Let’s start with me! My new podcast this year, The Lady from Hong Kong, made with the South China Morning Post and RTHK3 in Hong Kong was all about opium smuggling from China to America in 1939. You can listen to all four episodes here.
And TV. The first episode of Series 2 of Vienna Blood – The Melancholy Countess – saw a Hungarian countess with a little bit of an opium problem. Opium also cropped up on the Victorian crime drama Miss Scarlet and the Duke (Alibi TV in the UK).
Some society wives in the French TV show Paris Police 1900 took to the needle for some opium injections too.
On the big screen opium among the Romantics appeared in Emily, the bio-pic of Emily Brontë that took a few liberties (the opium included).
And on to fiction…TL Mogford’s The Plant Hunter is a Victorian era romp that swings from London to China and Marco Polo’s footsteps with some opium and opium wars along the way.
And some non-fiction, primarily Peter Thilly’s The Opium Business….and Joseph Sassoon’s The Global Merchants, a history of the Sassoon clan, which also had numerous opium references obviously…
And…..opium on the stage!
Ballet Rambert’s Peaky Blinders ballet, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby had a bunch of opium references…
Not to be outdone, China’s National Center For The Performing Arts and Guangzhou Drama Art Center staged the play Lin Zexu, about the man sent by the emperor to Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, to stop the illegal importation of opium from Britain in 1838.
A little heads up for a grewat new contemporary Chinese novel, Cherries on a Pomegranate Tree by Li Er (translated by Dave Haysom), out next Chinese New Year…
In one-child China, when a mother runs from home because of her illegal pregnancy, it’s Kong Fanhua’s problem.
She’s the only female village chief in Xiushui County, and her day-to-day tasks range from the mundane to the near-impossible: tracking down this runaway who left her twins behind, keeping rumours of a vengeful ghost at bay while trying to convince some rich American to invest in the local paper plant. Not to mention looking after her own farm and family. After all, the crops aren’t going to plant themselves.
While the incompetent men in local government fail to get much done, Fanhua picks up the slack. But when higher-ups start investigating her hometown’s birth quotas, just as she’s up for re-election, the squeeze is on. Can she keep all the plates spinning? Or will she resort to villainous tactics to keep the peace? And why won’t her lazy husband shut up about camels?
In Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem (1928) the author attempted to capture the vitality of the “black vagabonds” of urban America and Europe. Jake Brown, the protagonist of Home to Harlem, deserts the U.S. Army during WW1, hangs out in France and then lives in London until a race riot inspires him to return to New York and Harlem. In and out of the barrel joints, bars, cabarets, clubs and gin parties of Harlem and Brooklyn he notes the meteroic rise of ragtime and its spread to an interesting group of places:
‘All America jazzed to it, and it was already world famous. Already being jazzed perhaps in Paris and Cairo, Shanghai, Honolulu, and Java.’
below with a miguel covarrubias cover…
This Christmas a festive whodunit for the South China Morning Post weekend magazine Christmas edition…Murder on the Shanghai Express…
Detective Chief Inspector John Creighton’s journey home for the holidays is derailed by a death, a dagger and a few drinks. Sit back and enjoy the ride….click here to read
From reform-era history and present-day policy to wartime history and protest fiction, regular contributors to The China Project (including me) round up their top picks from the China bookshelf of 2022. Click here to read.
