All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
Hermann Breuer who worked for many years in Shanghai for Melchers & Co., Christine Maiwald, his new biographer (see tomorrow’s post here) very kindly sent me some images to post associated with Hermann’s story….
On International Podcast Day 2021 I offer you a BBC Radio 3 & BBC Sounds Peking Noir & a RTHK3 Strangers on the Praia (Finalist NYC Radio Awards BTW) for your consideration…
Gloria Swanson at home in 1960 by Jack Mitchell, who photographed her many times throughout her career. Don’t know the backstory to these shots but clearly Gloria’s choice of a porcelain Chinese teacup, a black silk with gold moons blouse and an apparently blackwood Chinese style frame in the background indicate a tastes for things Chinese…
Dora Batty’s illutration for London Underground in 1926 encouraging Londonders to use the tube to get out into the country has a nice chinoiserie touch in the Qing-inspired blouse. Batty (1891-1966) was a British designer, working in illustration, poster design, pottery and textiles. I know of no connection between her and China so assume she was simply reflecting 1920s chinoiserie-inspired fashion trends.
Sorry to hear of the death of Jonathan Mirsky earlier this month. He was always a fascinating and combative interlocutor on matters China and, for me, a witness to a China i was just too young to experience. My own personal memory of him is after he kindly reviewed a book of mine favourably for The Literary Review we had lunch several times at the restaurant in John Lewis on Oxford Street overlooking Cavendish Square. I assume he was a regular as he knew all the staff by the name and it seemed everyone stopped by his table to say hi.
Here are two obituaries:
Jonathan Steele in The Observer
And, Stephen Vines for the HK FCC
In the 1920s Pal Moran was a noted lightweight boxer in the USA. There are endless accounts of his fights against most of the great American lightweights of the decade. Fighting out of New Orleans, 5’6″ described as a ‘strong, rugged boy’ Moran, was born Francis Paul Miorana and known by the 1930s as Paul Morgan. He was a pro between 1914 to 1929 – he won 48 (with 13 KOs), lost 40 (KOed 4 times) and drew 14 – not a bad record. he fought all over the USA.
And then, after retiring from the ring in 1929 he somehow ended up in Shanghai. How he got from New Orleans to Shanghai and what he was doing in the city I do not know. But in February 1935 he was given a 30-day sentence for vagrancy to be served at the Amoy Road jail. There, on about March 13th 1935 he was found having tried to hang himself with a knotted pillow slip in his cell tied around his neck and around a window bar. He then kicked away chair beneath him. However, thre guards got to him before he expired.
I know nothing of what happened to Pal Moran after this incident. One boxing site on the internet records that he died in 1977 at 79 – I hope so, but i don’t know for sure why he was in Shanghai, how he ended up vagrant and what happened to him in the years after his suicide attempt.
But a slice of old Shanghai history all the same… I’m posting anyway to see if any more comes to light….
Bespoke Beijing, the people behind the Midnight in Peking walking tour, have got another tour going based on my collection of stories, Destination Peking. And it’s been led by the brilliant historian and doyen of Beijing walking tours, Jeremiah Jenne. Plenty of aesthetes, hutongs, bad guys, conmen, royalty, swish hotels and a 1930s cocktail thrown in. The first tour (October 5) sold out before I could post it, so they’ve added another on October 9….
And, of course, you can still buy the book even if you can’t make it to Beijing this October…
An interesting episode of the Barbarians at the Gate podcast with David Moser and Jeremiah Jenne talking to the academic and doc maker Marketus Presswood on jazz in Shanghai that notes the likes of Teddy Weatherford and Buck Clayton (who pop up in my books quite often)….
