Shanghai of To-day, 1927

A lovely copy of Shanghai of To-day (yes, they hyphenated it), published in 1927 as a souveneir of 38 plates of photographs of the International Settlement. Published by the great Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong publishing house Kelly & Walsh.

It also included an introduction by OM Green, then the editor of the North-China Daily News. Green was perhaps the paper’s most strident and opinionated (some would say hardline) leader in its history andwas to serve as editor through to 1930 and remain active in writing about China until after the Second World War. Green was a forceful apologist for the British position in Shanghai and continued his advocacy of British superiority long after he left the paper and the city.

The Marvellous Book, By Star Talbot (1930)

The Marvellous Book, written and self-published by Star Talbot, was a hundred Studies of different types of Chinese Porcelains. It was also a marvellous item in itself, at least at its first printing in Shanghai in 1930 where each edition came in gilt decorated silk and the plates had tissue guards. The first edition was limited to a thousand copies. Talbot, an independently wealthy collector of Chinese porcelain from about 1900, included notes on each of the photographs in English, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, French and German. The book gives the address of 249 Nanking Road, but whether this was Talbot’s home, office, showroom (or combination of all three) I do not know. The book is pretty rare now.

An Abridged Extract from Destination Peking for The China Project – Beijing’s favorite Bolshevik

The China Project kindly suggested i might like to abridge a chapter from my collection Destination Peking (Blacksmith Books) for their readers. I thought perhaps the chapter on Lev Karakhan, the first Soviet Ambassador to China might be interesting and offer some background on the ever rocky Russia-China relationship…You can read it here

Rickshaw Waiting Post – Peking, 1908

I have done a few ‘old Shanghai signage’ posts before (just put ‘signage’ in the search engine and you can see them). This one though is from Beijing and I’ve never noticed one of these signs before – for a rickshaw rank, or waiting lot. It is apparently 1908, has been colourised (not by me) is supposedly adjacent to the South or Zhaoheng Gate (昭亨门; Zhāohēng Mén).

The little rickshaw logo is cool….

Shanghai, a new work by Gareth Fuller, released as part of his ‘Purposeful Wandering’ exploratory series

A nice opportunity to highlight Gareth Fuller’s latest work, an amazing Shanghai map….more details and more images of this fantastic map here…

Artist-explorer Gareth Fuller releases his latest large-scale drawing: a portrait of Shanghai as experienced through the Covid-19 pandemic. As part of his ongoing ‘Purposeful Wandering’ series, Gareth Fuller unveils a new intricate place-drawing – a work that captures the city of Shanghai as China moved in and out of lockdowns between 2020 and 2021. Fuller distils the visual curiosities one of Asia’s most significant
megacities into one canvas, collecting stories, research and visual anecdotes over a period between two of the world’s strangest years. The artist’s work manifests as illustrative transcripts of places he
explores and inhabits over time, unfolding through a doublephased process of pedestrian discovery and meticulous handdrawing. As with all of his work, Shanghai builds a topography of all
that is real and imagined within a specific place, at a specific time.

John D Wong on Hong Kong’s Aviation History – my Q&A with him for Focus magazine

John D Wong’s Hong Kong Takes Flight (Harvard University Asia Center) is a great background on the history of aviation – China Clippers, Kai Tak, the 1930s, 40s and 50s – as well as a discussion about the dreary state of aviation and travel to and from Hong Kong today. I interviewed John for the China Britain Business Council magazine, Focus. Click here to read my Q&A with him.

A Little More Luen Wo Silversmithing from Shanghai

Yesterday I posted about the late nineteenth/early twentieth centry Shanghai silversmith’s Luen Wo. Here’s some more Luen Wo items worth posting I think…

silver pepperettes decorated in relief with continuous pagoda terrace scenes and chrysantheums

Luen Wo of Shanghai Silver Page Turner & Namecard Holder

Referring back to previous posts on Shanghai silvesmithing – here on Tuck Chang and here on Zeewo (Zee Wo), I have also mentioned Luen Wo, also a Shanghai based decorative silversmith producing for the local tourist and foreign market. Below a lovely early 20th century silver page turner with a relief handle with large chrysanthemum flowers and leaves, while the blade has an engraved dragon to one side and Chinese characters to the other (the whole thing being 25 cm long, 109 grams)…

Luen Wo was one of the bigger silversmiths in the city and also traded in jewellery, diamonds and embroideries. The major designer for the company was Ning Zhao Ji whose work is usually accompanied by the mark “LW”. Luen Wo started earlier than many other Shanghai silversmiths (and like many others probably moved to the city from Guangzhou), around 1880, and also actively targeted the South East Asian Chinese disapora market with items decartaed to particularly appeal to the Peranakan community of the Malay States and Singapore at the time.

I am particularly taken with this silver namecard case (below) embossed with scenes of figures in landscapes with bamboo palm building and similar deisgn on the reverse.

(there are two other posts on Shanghai silversmiths that may interest readers – on Tuck Chang here and on Zeewo here)