I’ve blogged before about Alan Geoffrey Yates (aka Carter Brown), an English-born, Australian pulp writer who wrote in numerous genres under numerous non-de-plumes. He was the author of the 1962 pulp novel Hong Kong Caper (which isn’t that bad). What I hadn’t realised, till i read Michael Callahan’s piece on the recently deceased Shere Hite in Air Mail this week, was that the author and ‘sexologist’ Shere Hite was the model for so many Carter Brown covers drawn by the famous pulp artist Robert McGinnis. And I reckon, looking at those covers again in light of this information, that Hite was the insirpation for this cover for Hong Kong Caper.
A few days ago i mentioned a new publication, A Belgian passage to China (1870-1920) : Belgian-Chinese historical relations(1870-1930), based on personal documents and pictures of François Nuyens and Philippe & Adolphe Spruyt. David Leffman (author of the exccellent The Mercenary Mandarin) wrote to recommend a book i’m afraid to say i was not familiar with – Anne Splingaerd Megowan’s The Belgian Mandarin that came out in 2008….
There was nothing ordinary about Paul Splingaerd´s life after he left Brussels for China in 1865. Paul’s adventures over the 41 years he spent in his adopted land read more like fiction than fact, but he really did exist. His great-granddaughter relates the story of his youth, his travels throughout the “Middle Kingdom” with explorer/geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen, his years as a fur trader in Mongolia, and his fourteen years in China’s far west after being made a mandarin by legendary viceroy Li Hongzhang. On behalf of his native Belgium, Paul negotiated the rights to build the major railroad between Beijing to Hankou. For this service, Leopold II knighted him a “Chevalier de l”Ordre de la Couronne.” Reading about Paul´s life and activities during a pivotal period of China´s history can provide insights into her post-Opium War interaction with the West, and offer an understanding of what is happening in the dynamic China of the twenty-first century.
Ronald G. Knapp, Terry E. Miller, and Liu Jie. Photography by A. Chester Ong, Terry E. Miller, Ronald G. Knapp, and Others
China’s Covered Bridges: Architecture over Water is the first book in English to examine comprehensively one of the three great covered bridge traditions in the world. Based on decades of observation and ten years of intensive field research throughout China, this book illuminates countless covered bridges that have never been presented in a Western language.
Terry E. Miller, Ronald G. Knapp, and A. Chester Ong, whose America’s Covered Bridges: Practical Crossings, Nostalgic Icons, broke new ground, have joined here with Liu Jie, China’s leading timber covered bridge scholar. This team has traveled in areas rarely visited by others to document a living tradition whose roots go deep into Chinese history.
Long before professional engineers analyzed bridge structure mechanically, early builders in China, as in North America and Europe, solved the daunting problem of spanning deep ravines and wild rivers to facilitate the flow of pedestrians, animals, and vehicles. Their collective, yet independent, efforts represent the triumph of ingenuity and common sense.
Although there has been no census of covered bridges, and it is impossible to calculate how many existed in the past in China, some 3,000 remain, far more than found elsewhere in the world. Wooden trusses as understood in the West were not a component of China’s bridge-building traditions. Instead, covered corridors were situated atop either a masonry base or, more significantly, supported by an ingenious assemblage of timbers.
China’s Covered Bridges highlights covered bridges with a timber sub-structure, including both a variety of cantilevered forms and extraordinary “woven arch/woven arch-beam†types that until the until the last quarter of the 20th century were believed to have died out more than a millennium earlier.
The story of China’s covered bridges is fascinating not only in terms of technological achievement, social functioning, and aesthetic identity. Each covered bridge in China, whether still standing or long gone, has a story to tell about the nature of rural and urban life.
Thoroughly researched with a text of over 70,000 words and profusely illustrated with more than 600 historic and contemporary photographs, this book features the work of master photographer A. Chester Ong and is supplemented by photographs by the authors.
Like America’s Covered Bridges, China’s Covered Bridges is written in an accessible style that will satisfy not only those with general interests but also those with more specialized knowledge.
This is running till next April 21…more details here…
Immediately after the National Socialists seized power in Austria in March 1938, Jewish women and men were marginalized, humiliated and persecuted. The possibilities to leave the country increasingly dwindled. Harassment, the necessity of leaving all possessions behind, and the fact that many countries sealed off their borders made any prospect of escape difficult. Shanghai was an international special zone that did not require a hard-to-get visa, yet the German authorities required an exit document, whether it was a visa or a ship ticket. Dr. Feng Shan Ho, the Chinese Consul General in Vienna, issued thousands of these life-saving visas, against the Chinese government wishes.
For many Austrian Jews, Shanghai, the “City upon the Sea,†represented the last hope for refuge. The voyage there entailed a week-long sea crossing or an exhausting land journey across Siberia.
The new home away from home posed great challenges to most refugees. However, the Viennese quickly organized a “Little Vienna†in China, where, in addition to restaurants such as the “White Horse Innâ€, there were coffeehouses with Viennese pastry and coffee specialties, sausage stands and wine taverns. Sports clubs and newspapers were founded, and the many refugee artists offered a diverse range of musical evenings, operettas, cabaret and theatrical performances.
When the Japanese, who were allied with the German Reich, took Shanghai in 1941, the living conditions continued to worsen. In 1943, a ghetto was established in the rundown district of Hongkou. Bad hygienic conditions and the poor supply situation led to hunger and illness. The Kadoories and Sassoons, two Jewish families originating from the Middle East who had been living in Shanghai since the 19th century, provided together with several aid committees like the American JOINT, for food and kept the schools operating.
After the victory of the Allies and the landing of the US Army in 1945, many began planning a return. With the imminent capture of Shanghai by Mao Zedong, the last Jews also left the city for the USA, Canada, Australia or Israel. Some came back to their hometown of Vienna. Because of the murder and destruction of European Jewry their return to Vienna meant a completely new beginning in a changed world.
Facing an escalating demand for entry into the United States by German-speaking Jews in Shanghai in early 1941, the United States Consulate called the JDC for help. No one forewarned Laura Margolis, a translator for immigration interviews, about the living conditions of 16,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, all desperate for food and housing. She set up a new JDC Shanghai office, which stood as a rock for Jewish refugees under four directorships, four different regimes, and two wars.
Drawing from the JDC Archives, testimonies, and memoirs, this lecture by Sara Halpern, PhD candidate at Ohio State University, offers a tale of how the JDC Shanghai office — both a transnational American and an international Jewish relief organization — and its ingenious directors navigated the regimes of the treaty port controlled by multiple powers, the Japanese puppet government, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Mao Zedong. In contrast to Europe during the same period, the small, isolated JDC office in Shanghai had to rely on the goodwill of the various consulates and local authorities to assist with the Jewish refugees’ survival and emigration to other destinations. Hailed by the senior administration in New York, the “Shanghai job†was one of the most difficult in the world.
This book is apparently in English and seems to have a lot of photos…
A Belgian passage to China (1870-1920) : Belgian-Chinese historical relations (1870-1930) and the construction of the railway and the tramway based on personal documents and pictures of François Nuyens and Philippe & Adolphe Spruyt.
WHAT: “ULAANBAATAR: A TALE OF THREE CITIES†by Michael Aldrich, an RASBJ Zoom talk followed by QA
WHEN: Oct. 14 Wed. 20:00-21:00 Beijing Standard Time (this talk begins at 8PM in Beijing)
MORE ABOUT THE EVENT: Over 120 years, the capital of Mongolia has transformed from a monastic seat for Vajrayana Buddhism to a Soviet-inspired city to now an experiment in free-wheeling capitalism and democratic reform. Michael Aldrich presents an historical overview of the nomadic roots of Ulaanbaatar, its upheavals, and the sea changes in culture and society which it has undergone.
MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael A. Aldrich is a lawyer, author, and lecturer who has lived in Asia for more than thirty years. His book Ulaanbaatar beyond Water and Grass is the first book in the English language to explore all aspects of this unique Central Asian city. He is currently working on another “alternative†guide book, Old Lhasa: A Traveler’s Companion.
HOW MUCH: This event is free and exclusively for members of the RASBJ and other RAS branches. If you know someone who wants to join RASBJ, ask them to add MembershipRASBJ on Wechat or email membership.ras.bj@gmail.com
HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT: Members receive event notices by email. Non-members who wish to join RASBJ in order to attend this attend, please message MembershipRASBJ on Wechat or membership.ras.bj@gmail.com and submit membership payment two days before the event.
