Mt favourite (or rather least favourite as i get a bit upset) subject…click here.
In this episode, Jeremiah and David talk with Matthew Hu, former Managing Directory of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, Co-founder of the Beijing Courtyard Institute, and a longtime activist for the preservation and restoration of historic Beijing architecture and historical landmarks. This episode is definitely for lovers of old Beijing and hutong aficionados, as we take a deep historical dive into the ongoing struggle to maintain and preserve Beijing’s historic architecture and cultural sites against the wrecking ball of urban modernization. Matthew covers topics such as the preservationist Liang Sicheng’s abandoned vision for the Old City and the city wall, the botched renovation schemes for areas such as Qianmen and Dashilanr, the waves of demolition and evictions in the hutong neighborhoods of Dongcheng and Xicheng, as well as the ongoing municipal project to renovate and revitalize the city’s abandoned industrial sites, such as the Shougang Iron and Steel Works, into Olympic venues.
I’ve been spotting opium references in popular culture with interest for a few years now (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 & 2012) – just how opium keeps fascinating us…
Well, 2020 was a funny year but anyway.
Let’s start with a few novels – Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s Blood and Sugar was a great trip to 1780s Deptford and the slave trade. Opium addicts of course and a few on tinctures of laundanum for various eighteenth century ailments. Lydia Kang’s Opium and Absinthe took us to 1889 New York, vampire scares, and opium. Elizabeth Bailey’s The Opium Purge is back in 1790 England with mysteries that lead back to dope. The Opium Prince by Jamine Aimaq starts in Afghanistan, 1970s. Born to an American mother and a late Afghan war hero, Daniel Sajadi has spent his life navigating a complex identity. After years in Los Angeles, he is returning home to Kabul at the helm of a US foreign aid agency dedicated to eradicating the poppy fields that feed the world’s opiate addiction.
On TV we had plenty of opium in the BBC/Working Title TV adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries (which was, in my humble opinion, a major part of the reason it was all such a mess).
Opium more unexpectedly in Dickinson (a rather free and easy bio series about young Emily on Hulu). Included was a party where Emily and her friends dipped into the opium. True? Vulture magazine asked Martha Nell Smith, a distinguished scholar-teacher, professor of English, and the founding director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, who’s devoted most of her career to studying Emily Dickinson:
‘Is there any evidence that Emily had parties and took opium? The opium party, I was like, “Hmmm. Why is this here?†Opium was used as a painkiller and all of that. Whether George Gould brought some to Emily to take at a party? I don’t know. Maybe Smith is trying to capture that Dickinson was much more social than we’ve been led to believe, and that she was fun-loving. I think that’s true. But opium? I don’t know.’
Any other opium references from 2020 I’ve missed please do leave a comment….
My review of Lawrence Osborne’s new Bangkok-set novel The Glass Kingdom is the Mekong Review’s Free Read for a while – have a look and think about a subscription to this fine publiucation that has battled Hong Kong and Thai censors this year to keep publishing…..click here
Ching Ling Foo: America’s First Chinese Superstar tells the incredible story of the iconic Chinese magician Ching Ling Foo’s obstacle laden rise to unprecedented fame and private railway car riding fortune as a bustling, polyglot, entertainment mad, ever richer, disruptive technology embracing America burst into the Twentieth Century. Ching Ling Foo; reportedly the greatest illusionist ever seen on American soil along with his talented family of musicians and acrobats overcome on stage attacks, deportation attempts, homeland tragedy, and a talented and diabolically clever American copycat to make an indelible impact on American popular culture becoming the highest paid, most popular performers in the United States – twice!Ching Ling Foo’s story is a magical one that, with its focus on the interaction of Chinese and Western cultures, geopolitical tensions, international intrigue, nativism, the importance of celebrity and disruptive technological developments seemingly has much resonance for our current era.Even a partial list of “the Original Chinese Conjurer’s accomplishments still dazzle:· Highest paid and most popular performer in American vaudeville, twice breaking box office records from 1898-1900 and again from 1912-1915,· Inspired a mania for Chinese magic, a seemingly endless list of copycats, and one real genius: William Robinson, a.k.a. Chung Ling Soo, the doomed rival with whom Foo would become paired for eternity.· Subject of a historic, precedent-setting deportation trial, closely followed across the U.S.· Maker, in 1899, of the first sound recordings of Chinese music and singing.· Instigator of the infamous 1905 London “World Championship of Chinese Magic.” This much-hyped “War of the Wizards” would pit Foo against archrival Chung Ling Soo, the stage name of American performer William Robinson-the man who had appropriated both Foo’s act and his identity. The contest and its denouement would result in an enduring mystery when, at the last minute, the sphinxlike Foo walked away from his own challenge. (This biography will provide, for the first time, a plausible and research-based solution to this otherwise puzzling outcome.)· Maker, in 1911, of Wuchang Uprising, considered by many to be China’s first documentary. This daring and innovative war documentary, which played to rapt audiences in theaters across China, would play a significant role in rallying opposition to the Qing Dynasty and the founding of the Chinese Republic.· In the 1930s, more than a decade after his death, his impact on the evolution of the film industry would be acknowledged when the man who would become known as the father of film special effects-and an inspiration for George Lucas’s Star Wars-would identify Foo as the man who mentored him in the field of optical illusion.Beyond all this-and there is more-perhaps the genial and charismatic Chinese conjurer’s greatest legacy was in the area of cultural and person-to-person diplomacy. In the era of the uniquely discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Act, over a period of almost 20 years, Ching Ling Foo and his talented family, through the joyful and dignified presentation of their sheer talent, managed to introduce to an American public awash in very hostile representations involving opium, deceit, and vice, what was aptly termed a very “different picture.”
Fine antique and vintage maps from 16th to 20th century
Tuesday 8th December 2020 – Saturday 27th February 2021 Gallery open: Monday – Saturday 12 – 6pm Wattis Fine Art Gallery 20 Hollywood Road, 2/F, Central, Hong Kong Tel. +852 2524 5302 E-mail. info@wattis.com.hk
A WW2 relief map of Hong Kong Dec. 27 1941 – Gordon Home
Nice to think that the Wing On Department Store on Nanking Road (Nanjing XI Lu), built 1918 with add ons in the 1930s, was such a great site it inspired postcards….
On March 31 1943 the Artists Aid China Exhibition opened in a badly bombed London’s . It was one of the largest and most interesting displays of Chinese art in London during the war years and, of course, all aimed at raising money to support China’s war effort against Japan.
The exhibiton was held at Hertford House on Manchester Square and included 700 works of art, objets d’art, sculpture and paintings including several Chiang Yee watercolours. Chiang also gave a talk about the works in the exhibiton on the BBC. There were some donations from private collections including a rose quartz figurine (below) lent by Queen Mary (as in Mary of Teck and then Queen following the accession of her husband King George V), and a carved jade bowl from Edwina Mountbatten.
