Remembering the old Shanghai Bastille

A nice piece (with some links to my own stuff) from That’s Shanghai on the old Ward Road jail over in Tilanqiao – once the world’s largest prison….

Advertise in the China Who’s Who

The China Who’s Who was the brainchild of Carroll Lunt and is now of course totally invalaubale to anyone researching foreigners in old China. It also carried quite a lot of advertising – mostly big Hongs. Their offices were right next to Carl Crow’s actually on Jinkee Road (now Dianchi Lu), just off the Bund….

Penguin China & World War One Collection – now available in Chinese

All the books in the earlier Penguin China and World War One Series with work by me, Frances Wood, Robert Bickers, Anne Witchard, Mark O’Neil and Jonathan Fenby….available at douban and other online outlets and bookstores in China…

Where to Repair your Philco in Old Shanghai?

If you’ve got a problem with your Philco wireless (founded as Helios Electric Company, renamed Philadelphia Storage Battery Company), or any American-made radio then China Philco Corp can help down on the Avenue Eddy (Chungcheng East Road), now Yan’an East Road…

The Shanghai Herald Classifieds

The Shanghai Herald was never a major newspaper in the city – never with as wide a circulation as the North-China Daily News, China Press or the Evening Mercury. But, it did publish regularly, a couple of editions a day, had offices on the Avenue Eddy (Yanan East Road) down on what was known as “Newspaper Row” and, for a while, ran a German language supplement. It was obviously keen to solicit classified ads….

Where to get your varnish in Old Shanghai….

One of the Old Shanghai ‘inside baseball’ team here – Wilkinson, Heywood & Clark Ltd, purveyors of British varnish, paints and enamels. The firm had been around since 1896 based on the Caledonian Road in North London and with a factory up in Bootle. Being on the Callie, up behind Kings X and Euston, it’s perhaps not surprising that supplying paint to the railway industry was a big part of their business.

The ad at the bottom indicates that the firm had supplied the British Empire with paint for quite some time and so a Shanghai branch is no surprise either. And so here they are on Kiukiang Road (Jiujiang Lu) in Shanghai and the Alexandra Building (completed 1904; demolished 1952 – see below) in Hong Kong.

Crime and the City – Ulan Batar & Mongolia

As you may know i write a fortnightly column for CrimeReads on crime writing in various cities and countries. If they may be of interest to China Rhyming readers i post them….so here’s one on Ulan Batar and Mongolia….

Destination Peking Giveaway in the Ming Pao

For Chinese readers Hong Kong’s Ming Pao are doing a few excerpts & some book giveaways of my Destination Peking from Blacksmith Books (which will appear in a Chinese edition next year i expect) – click here