Sin Jelly Belly of Weihaiwei

Joy Packer was a journalist, writer, radio broadcaster and keen traveller. She was also a “China bird”, the wife of a Royal Navy officer stationed with the Far Eastern Station, based usually either in Hong Kong or Weihaiwei (Weihai). Her autobiography Pack and Follow (1953) has many amusing and interesting China- and Asia-related stories including that of Sin Jelly Belly…

Sin Jelly Belly was, in the 1930s, was Weihaiwei’s naval outfitter. He was apparently an excellent tailor able to run up perfect fitting naval officers uniforms in a matter of hours. His son Jelly Belly Junior inherited both the business and his fathers large stomach.

The only problem was that (being trustworthy naval officers) they would leave their tailor a cheque which he would cash with his bank in Weihaiwei – when the London bank saw a payment required to a Mr Jelly Belly they were often rather suspicious of a fraud.

Opium References in Popular Culture, the 2018 List

I’ve been spotting opium references in popular culture with interest for a few years now (2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 & 2012) – just how opium keeps fascinating us…

The (frankly not that good) Limehouse Golem saw George Gissing in an East End opium den which was better than the script. ITV’s dire Maigret in Montmarte saw the Parisian detective confronted with a dead countess who’d been a hefty morphine addict prompting some opium references. Also I didn’t much got for the BBC’s Christie adaptation this year – Ordeal by Innocence – by some tincture of opium made an appearance. I only caught up on it this year, but the Frankenstein Chronicles begins with a chase involving opium smugglers on the River Thames.

Is that opium I smell Monsieur Inspector?

In non-fiction Daniel Smith’s The Ardlamont Mystery: The Real-Life Story Behind the Creation of Sherlock Holmes, as an aside, retold the famous Victorian murder of Elizabeth Chantrelle in 1878 whose fiendish French husband killer her by adding opium to her food.

In fiction opium popped up in the second Babylon Berlin novel from Walter Kutscher (I mentioned the first one last year), The Silent Death and the third, Goldstein. It also briefly in Thomas Mullens’s Lightening Men, the second in his excellent Boggs & Smith novels of the first black cops in Atlanta after WW2. Abir Mukherjee’s Captain Sam Wyndham in his third outing in Smoke and Ashes, set in India in 1921 is still battling a serious addiction to opium that he must keep secret from his superiors in the Calcutta police force. Shanghai opium dens got a fleeting mention in Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach and there’s mention of a Nazi morphine smuggling ring in Chris Petit’s second Schelgel & Morgen wartime Germany series Pale Horse Riding.

Of course I might well have missed some, so let me know….

A Chinoiserie Bedroom in 1938 – for $49….

Carroll’s Furniture Company of Georgia (which may still be going in some form?) offered complete rooms in 1938 for US$49, on tick – that’s about US$850 today. I’m not sure if that’s a bargain or not but, honestly, it’s better than IKEA. Zoom in on the US$49 bedroom, top right, and it looks like it might be a tad Chinoiserie too – check that bed marquetry…..

Just for a Change – Some Non-China Christmas Murder Mysteries

As Christmas is coming….

My round-up of “Golden Age” 1930s crime reads for Christmas – click here

and some first editions….

Asia Literary Review #35 is Out….

The thirty-fifth edition of the Asia Literary Review is out now – it includes an excerpt from my book City of Devils as well as lots of other good stuff…including an interview with Anuradha Roy, who has just been announced winner of the 2018 TATA Book of the Year Award for Fiction.

There’s lots of fiction, and we feature stories set in India, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, the US and North Korea. Start with Zach Macdonald’s A Happy Ending - a harrowing counterpoint to cheerful media reports about the Korean Peninsula. Finally, sample some of the issue’s poetry with Kunwar Narain and Katherine Wu.

Chinoiserie Ideas for the Modern Home, 1938

In April 1938 The Atlanta Constitution had some ideas for homemakers looking to freshen up their look with the latest trends…a Chinoiserie dining alcove?

Inside the World of the Eunuch: A Social History of the Emperor’s Servants in Qing China

Melissa Dale’s study of the world of the eunuch looks like a fascinating read…

The history of Qing palace eunuchs is defined by a tension between the role eunuchs were meant to play and the life they intended to live. This study tells the story of how a complicated and much-maligned group of people struggled to insert a degree of agency into their lives. Rulers of the Qing dynasty were determined to ensure the eunuchs’ subservience and to limit their influence by imposing a management style based upon strict rules, corporal punishment, and collective responsibility. Few eunuchs wielded significant political power or lived in a lavish style during the Qing dynasty. Emasculation and employment in the palace placed eunuchs at the center of the empire, yet also subjected them to servile status and marginalization by society. Seeking more control over their lives, eunuchs serving the Qing repeatedly tested the boundaries of subservience to the emperor and the imperial court. This portrait of eunuch society reveals that Qing palace eunuchs operated within two parallel realms, one revolving around the emperor and the court by day and another among the eunuchs themselves by night where they recreated the social bonds–through drinking, gambling, and opium smoking–denied them by their palace service. Far from being the ideal servants, eunuchs proved to be a constant source of anxiety and labor challenges for the Qing court. For a long time eunuchs have simply been cast as villains in Chinese history. Inside the World of the Eunuch goes beyond this misleadingly one-dimensional depiction to show how eunuchs actually lived during the Qing dynasty.

Sale Time at Hong Kong University Press Bookstore

There’s a sale on at the Hong Kong University Press bookstore up at Pokfulam and the HKU…30% off all titles – including mine (see below)

Excellent Christmas presents for that China Hand in your life include….