Destination Peking is now available as a Kindle e-book on all the Amazons (US and UK)…and at a bit of a discount for the launch too!
New York Times bestselling author Paul French (Midnight in Peking) returns to the Chinese capital to tell 18 true stories of fascinating people – many Americans among them – who visited the city in the first half of the 20th century. From the ultra-wealthy Woolworths heiress Barbara Hutton and her husband the Prince Mdivani, to the poor “American girl” Mona Monteith, who worked in the city as a prostitute; from socialite Wallis Simpson and novelist JP Marquand, who held court on the rooftop of the Grand Hôtel de Pékin, to Hollywood screenwriter Harry Hervey, who sought inspiration walking atop the Tartar Wall; from Edgar and Helen Foster Snow – Peking’s ‘It’ couple of 1935 – to Martha Sawyers, who did so much to aid China against Japan in World War II; Destination Peking brings a lost pre-communist era back to life.
An excellent resource for anyone researching old Shanghai – Rosenstock’s Business Directory (1933) – a rare and delicious directory for China, including Shanghai, published by Millington, Ltd – is now available on the Internet Archive!
The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire
The 1793 British embassy to China, which led to Lord George Macartney’s fraught encounter with the Qianlong emperor, has often been viewed as a clash of cultures fueled by the East’s disinterest in the West. In The Perils of Interpreting , Henrietta Harrison presents a more nuanced picture, ingeniously shifting the historical lens to focus on Macartney’s two interpreters at that meeting-Li Zibiao and George Thomas Staunton. Who were these two men? How did they intervene in the exchanges that they mediated? And what did these exchanges mean for them? From Galway to Chengde, and from political intrigues to personal encounters, Harrison reassesses a pivotal moment in relations between China and Britain. She shows that there were Chinese who were familiar with the West, but growing tensions endangered those who embraced both cultures and would eventually culminate in the Opium Wars.
Harrison demonstrates that the Qing court’s ignorance about the British did not simply happen, but was manufactured through the repression of cultural go-betweens like Li and Staunton. She traces Li’s influence as Macartney’s interpreter, the pressures Li faced in China as a result, and his later years in hiding. Staunton interpreted successfully for the British East India Company in Canton, but as Chinese anger grew against British imperial expansion in South Asia, he was compelled to flee to England. Harrison contends that in silencing expert voices, the Qing court missed an opportunity to gain insights that might have prevented a losing conflict with Britain.
Uncovering the lives of two overlooked figures, The Perils of Interpreting offers an empathic argument for cross-cultural understanding in a connected world.
Delighted that Post Wave Publishing Co/Ginkgo Books in Beijing has published a Chinese translation of Carl Crow’s Four Hundred Million Customers (1937) (there’s a link to an English language edition here) with all the Sapajou illustrations & a new introduction to Crow for Chinese readers by me…if you want to buy a copy there’s a link here on JD and here on Dangdang.
Shanghai’s going through a hard time right now. It was in 1932 too after a blistering Japanese attack on the city that devastated some quarters and led to many destroyed buildings, an entire lost library (the best in the city) and many fatalities. The Detroit Free Press asked this question in March 1932, perhaps apposite today too…
Tragically after we had discussed and recorded the podcast on Hong Kong modernist architecture the North Point Methodist Church (1961) was bulldozed! An act of vandalismthat has slipped through in a time of covid and authoritarianism in Hong Kong. See my brief notes on the structure and its very important architect and influence from Le Corbusier. The demolition of the church was an act of architectural and aesthetic philistinism that is quite horrific…
A great example of ‘delayed modernism’. Designed in 1961 by the architect Robert Fan Wenzhao. Great modernist influences – primarily Corbusier’s 1954 chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France. But what’s really interesting is that this is a Robert Fan building, a Shanghai born/trained and working architect who embraced all aspects of modernism moving over the late 1920s and 1930s through art deco to a localised form of Chinese deco (in tandem with his sometime colleague the Chinese-American architect Poy Gum Lee) to, later, embrace the influences of the Bauhaus, Brutalism and Corbusier. He moved to HK in 1949 and this was his most overtly modernist commission in the colony.
The first modern indoor market in Hong Kong and a combination of an earlier streamline modern aesthetic with the slightly later functionality of the Bauhaus and completed in 1939. And the first female public toilet in Hong Kong apparently. Interestingly built by the colonial authorities to replace a Victorian structure so quite advanced of them. Similarly so the Old Wanchai Market.
Bank of China (1951)
Right in the heart of Central this is a classic 1930s modernist building of which Shanghai or Tokyo could claim many, but HK only a handful. But it was built post-war, 1951. But it is a pure 1930s building. It was done by the Shanghai firm, moved to Hong Kong, of Palmer and Turner who did the HSBC building on the Shanghai Bund and many other prominent buildings really creating what many see as the “Shanghai Style” – but twenty/thirty years earlier. ‘Delayed Modernism’! The building also matches Palmer & Turner’s design a couple of years later for the Bank of China building in Singapore.
North Point Methodist Church (1961)
A great example of ‘delayed modernism’. Designed in 1961 by the architect Robert Fan Wenzhao. Great modernist influences – primarily Corbusier’s 1954 chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France. But what’s really interesting is that this is a Robert Fan building, a Shanghai born/trained and working architect who embraced all aspects of modernism moving over the late 1920s and 1930s through art deco to a localised form of Chinese deco (in tandem with his sometime colleague the Chinese-American architect Poy Gum Lee) to, later, embrace the influences of the Bauhaus, Brutalism and Corbusier. He moved to Hong Kong in 1949 and this was his most overtly modernist commission in the colony.
Hung Hom Ferry Pier (1979)
Another fine example of ‘delayed modernism’ in 1979, though following the pattern of previous ferry terminals at Central and Tsim Sha Tsui. Superb Streamline Moderne lines. The once wonderful The 3rd generation Central Pier at Edinburgh Place was the model – designed by local Chinese architect, Hung Yip Chan for the Architectural Office (AO) of the Hong Kong government. Demolished 2007.
Of course without ‘delayed modernism’ we’d never have got it – nowhere would have done a Streamline Moderne pier in 1957! Hung Yip Chan was born in 1921 – basically the year modernism began, so we got a beautiful pier, and template for others, but he was basically an old fogey in architectural fashion terms! Interesting the 4th generation Central Piers (7&8), as with all the other piers along that strip, are a reversion to a sort of faux classical design and are mock-Edwardian with a clock tower, electric bells (Saints preserve us!) and the piers having Greek inspired doric columns.
Hong Kong Jockey Club Shatin Clubhouse (1985)
PMQ and Central Market show a sort of ‘delayed Brutalism’, the tail end of modernism. Almost HK catching up through the 1960s-1980s. It’s an egalitarian aesthetic that doesn’t always sit well with hyper-capitalist HK except for official barracks and markets, a couple of uni buildings such as the Science Centre at HKU (by Hong Kong Brutalist architect Szeto Wai I think), but no housing. The Shatin Clubhouse (British architect Jon Prescot) though elitist, is fabulous and the exterior ‘greening’ of it works very well. But still 1985 – 30 years after Brutalism emerged in Europe. The recent interior refurbishment is somewhat questionable – totally ignoring the raw materials, textured surfaces, simple silhouettes and geometric shapes that are the hallmarks of Brutalist interior design. Inevitably it’s flash trash bling-bling that feels very late 80s/early 90s. But the facade remains breath-taking.
Kadoorie Hill (junction of Argyle Street and Waterloo Road in Kowloon) (1930s)
Hong Kong has very few surviving, and indeed never really had, many modernist homes from the 1930s. Again perhaps as a result of being a British colony and lacking international tastes until after the war. Kadoorie Hill is an exception because it was originally a private residence and built by a family exposed to Shanghai styles. Still one of Hong Kong’s best kept secrets. Originally bought the land in 1931 to build a British-style “Garden City”.
