I gave two talks in the Bespoke Beijing Spewaker Series during lockdown – on old Peking’s aesthetes (with Jeremiah Jenne) and on my Audible Original Murders of Old China – included in this sale….
But if you missed any of the 13 fantastic talks that made up our first two Bespoke Speaker Series’, now’s your chance to watch them at your own leisure – and for less!
We’re offering the recordings of all of the talks so far, so you can pick and choose from the ones you missed but wish you hadn’t.
So now you can enjoy an intellectual Sunday morning lecture on Cixi, or finally get to know the Great Wall in depth with the legendary William Lindesay over lunch. Perhaps you want to delve into Shanghai’s best hidden gems ahead of an upcoming trip, or hear author Paul French discuss his latest book. Whatever you’re into, there’ll be at least one that will brighten your day, teach you something, or surprise you.
Each talk recording now costs just 45RMB (select as many individual ones as you like at checkout) or you can buy either whole series for 280RMB.
Which were Bespoke’s favorites, we hear you ask? Well, we had an especially good time hand-pulling noodles with Sue Zhou; we cried a little bit (along with everyone else) listening to Liu Ping’s Story in ‘From Red Guard to CEO’; and also loved learning a new, brilliantly effective health practice with Master Eric in the Eight Golden Treasures.
It was hard to pick a favorite among the academic, historian and author talks, so we won’t, and will instead let you peruse the list in your own time (scan the QR below). What’s for sure is that once you’re done, you’ll understand China in a way you didn’t before, and you can’t put a price on that now, can you?
Got questions before purchasing? Just send us an email at info@bespoketravelcompany.com or add us on WeChat at Bespoketravelcompany to talk!Â
Despite everything – Covid-19, NSL, typhoons…it’s happening. This November is the Hong Kong International Literary Festival’s 20th anniversary. This year it will be a hybrid festival of live and online events. From 5th – 15th November we will present more than 70 events featuring writers and speakers from around the world. Join us to hear your favourite authors and discover new voices and ideas.Â
The flexible hybrid format means people can attend no matter what the COVID-19 situation in November. We hope it will be possible for people to enjoy the festival atmosphere at our live events, and we are also offering a fantastic virtual line-up so that people can attend at home with their family, friends or book club.
Our 20th edition theme ‘Present Tense/Future Perfect’ explores in fiction and non-fiction how the world is responding to issues such as health, inequality and climate change, as well as possible future directions for humanity and the planet.
PS: I’ll be there talking old Shanghai too – virtually, both in time and space!
WWII Revisited: Director Bill Einreinhofer discusses his documentary Shanghai 1937
WHAT: “WWII Revisited: Director Bill Einreinhofer discusses his documentary Shanghai 1937â€, an RASBJ Zoom talk with QA WHEN: Aug. 19, Wednesday, RASBJ presents a members-only in-person film screening from 7-8:00 PM Beijing Standard Time, and a Zoom dialogue with the director from 8:15-9:00 PM.
MORE ABOUT THE EVENT: On Aug. 13, 1937, hostilities erupted in Shanghai between Chinese Nationalist and Japanese troops, lasting more than three months. Film director Bill Einreinhofer believes the Battle of Shanghai was the last battle of WWI and the first battle of WWII. In discussing his documentary Shanghai 1937, he’ll explain the changes in Chinese society and politics which call for an analysis of WWII with fresh eyes. RAS MEMBERS CAN ACCESS THE FILM SHANGHAI 1937 ON VIMEO FROM AUG. 13 (THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF SHANGHAI) UNTIL MIDNIGHT AUG. 19 BEIJING STANDARD TIME (viewers in China may want to use a VPN, or view the film in person if in Beijing).
MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Bill Einreinhofer is a faculty member at the New York Film Academy as well as an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. He’s made films in and about China for a quarter century. His most recent, Shanghai 1937: Where World War II Began was shown in 2018 on more than 200 American Public Television stations.
HOW MUCH: FREE, exclusively for members of the RASBJ and other RAS branches, plus special invitees
An unusually long and deep interview on my researched-novella Strangers on the Praia with Annemarie Evans, the host of the long-running RTHK radio show Hong Kong Heritage….click here to listen to the podcast.
Destination Peking, the second volume of my Destination… series (Destination Shanghai came out in November 2018) is finished and with the editor. First cut of the cover here….should be on the shelves/online/in the post by November 2020…
Anyone with an interest in old Shanghai is not going to want to miss this…
The onion domes of the Orthodox Cathedral in central Shanghai serve as a tangible reminder of the once-numerous exile community, but there is more to the Russian heritage than the two surviving churches. The image of the Astrid Apartments, designed by a Russian architect, adorns nearly every book about Shanghai architecture. The Russians also created two out of three surviving synagogues, close to half the buildings on Yongfu Road and the city’s largest historic complex – the Sino-Soviet Friendship Hall, as well as dozens of public buildings, apartment houses, villas and lane compounds. This talk introduces the Russian architectural legacy in Shanghai and attaches names, faces and stylistic character to a variety of famous buildings and a few mysterious outliers.
About the SpeakerKatya Knyazeva, from Novosibirsk, Russia, is a historian and a journalist with a focus on urban form, heritage preservation and the Russian diaspora in Shanghai. She is the author of the two-volume history and photographic atlas Shanghai Old Town: Topography of a Phantom City (Suzhou Creek Press, 2015 and 2018). Her articles on history and architecture appear in international media and in her blog avezink.livejournal.com. Katya is presently a research fellow at the University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy.
Tatiana Linkhoeva’s Revolution Goes East does not concern itself with China specifically but has obvious overlaps for anyone interested in the subject….
Revolution Goes East is an intellectual history that applies a novel global perspective to the classic story of the rise of communism and the various reactions it provoked in Imperial Japan. Tatiana Linkhoeva demonstrates how contemporary discussions of the Russian Revolution, its containment, and the issue of imperialism played a fundamental role in shaping Japan’s imperial society and state. In this bold approach, Linkhoeva explores attitudes toward the Soviet Union and the communist movement among the Japanese military and politicians, as well as interwar leftist and rightist intellectuals and activists. Her book draws on extensive research in both published and archival documents, including memoirs, newspaper and journal articles, political pamphlets, and Comintern archives. Revolution Goes East presents us with a compelling argument that the interwar Japanese Left replicated the Orientalist outlook of Marxism-Leninism in its relationship with the rest of Asia, and that this proved to be its undoing. Furthermore, Linkhoeva shows that Japanese imperial anticommunism was based on geopolitical interests for the stability of the empire rather than on fear of communist ideology. Thanks to generous funding from New York University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes, available from Cornell Open (cornellopen.org) and other Open Access repositories.
