The Comluck Cantonese restaurant on Nanking Road was part of a group of Cantonese kitchens, cafes and restaurants operated in Shanghai before the war by a group that also ran the Cantonese restaurant in the Pacific Hotel in the China United Assurance Building, opposite the race course (still there). The Comluck was opened in the late 1930s at a cost (then fantastical) of C$6 million and described as ‘luxourious’.
The Comluck advertised the best Cantonese in town but most memoirs and guide books direct diners to either the King Hwa (on Foochow Road) or the Sun Ya (719 Nanking Road)
Along with the Nanking Restaurant the King Hwa was probably one of od Shanghai’s best known Cantonese restaurants and one frequented by both Shanghainese and Shanghailanders. It operated for many years on Foochow Road (Fuzhou Lu)….
Learn how to write compelling true stories, from family memoirs to true crime from the author of Midnight in Peking and City of Devils….organised by the Singapore Book Council – more details and booking here…
How do writers bring the past alive? Is it all right to guess at a historical character’s motivations or put words into his / her mouth? When does creative non-fiction turn into historical fiction?
In this workshop, participants will learn how to investigate and tell true stories in entertaining ways under the guidance of Paul French, author of a number of acclaimed books including Midnight in Peking and City of Devils. French will also talk about researching family histories in China and using unexpected sources to get at the essence of an era.
Participants will be guided on what they would require; their ‘toolkit’, when planning for a work based on a true story – be it family history or true crime. The workshop will address considerations such as source materials, choosing an appropriate genre and writing style, plot, voice and tense for creative non-fiction.
The workshop will also touch on the creation of an exciting and compelling opening for the story that both grabs the reader and explains the core elements (period, genre, style, plot arc) of the true story.
This workshop will be conducted via the Zoom platform.
“The Pagoda Project” by Isaac Duffy an RASBJ online talk
WHAT: “The Pagoda Project” by Isaac Duffy, an RASBJ online talk followed by QA WHEN: June 3, 2020 19:00-20:00 Beijing Standard Time WHERE: Online via Zoom HOW MUCH: Free exclusively for RASBJ members and invitees. If someone you know wants to join RASBJ, ask them to Wechat MembershipRASBJ or go to www.rasbj.org HOW TO BECOME AN RASBJ MEMBER: If you’d like to become an RASBJ member (or, for PRCpassport holders, to become an Associate) please Wechat MembershipRASBJ and send your name, nationality, mobile number and email address plus the annual subscription amount (or, for Associates, the suggestion donation) of RMB 300for those resident in China, RMB 200 for those resident overseas and RMB 100for students. If you join RASBJ by June 1, you’ll receive login details for this event.
MORE ABOUT THE EVENT: The pagoda forms an integral component of China’s incredibly rich architectural heritage. Scattered all across the country in many different forms, shapes, and sizes, these evocative structures have a history stretching back 2,500 years. But what actually is a pagoda? And how many of them are left? The answers might surprise you. Isaac Duffy will introduce Chinese pagodas with a brief history and explain his team’s ongoing efforts to create the world’s first online pagoda museum and archive. The team plans to visit, document, and photograph every historic pagoda in China — and is giving RASBJan exclusive sneak preview into “The Pagoda Project” before its upcoming public launch. MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Isaac Duffy is an amateur art historian whose interest lies in heritage protection and conservation. He previously spent a year working in the Western Himalayas on the Matho Monastery Museum Project: helping restore and preserve a 600-year old Buddhist Monastery’s art collection and build an onsite museum. He has now lived in Beijing for two years, during which he has become particularly interested in traditional Chinese architecture.
I recently read Julia Boyd’s excellent study of those foreigners who spent time in Nazi Germany and what they wrote, thought and said – Travellers in the Third Reich. Boyd previously wrote a good book about the foreign colony of Peking –ADance with the Dragon. But Travellers reminded me of Ji Xianlin’s memoir, from which Boyd quotes several times. Ji, a Sanskrit scholar studying for his Phd at Heidelberg University was trapped in Germany by the war and couldn’t get back to China until 1946. On a visit to Berlin sometime in 1942 he sought out a functioning restaurant run by some Chinese from Tianjin:
Ji Xialin, 1952
‘It was like entering a strange world. The room was full of my fellow countrymen, mostly businessmen with gold teeth. I felt that I had arrived in a region of demons, black marketeers and crooks. Chinese students were also there, behaving like their brothers, dealing in the black market and playing mah-jong. Very few were concentrating on their studies. I felt frozen with fear for China’s future.
