Posted: September 5th, 2018 | No Comments »
Peter Gordon: The Silver Way: China, Spanish America and the Birth of Globalisation, 1565–1815
13 September 2018, 13:30 to 15:00
King’s Building, Strand Campus, London
Long before London and New York rose to international prominence, a trading route was discovered between Spanish America and China that ushered in a new era of globalisation. The “Ruta de la Plata†or “Silver Way†catalysed economic and cultural exchange, built the foundations for the first global currency in the Spanish and Mexican pesos, and led to the rise of the first “world cityâ€. And yet, for all its importance, the “Silver Way†and Manila galleons that traversed it have too often been neglected in conventional narratives on the birth of globalisation.
This talk will recap the history of the “Ruta de la Plataâ€, its connection to past and future “Silk Roadsâ€, how it can inform an understanding of China’s global role today, its relevance to the extension of the Belt & Road Initiative to Latin America, and what financial lessons there might from the time when “the dollar spoke Spanishâ€.
Speaker: Peter Gordon
Peter Gordon is co-author of “The Silver Way: China, Spanish America and the Birth of Globalisation, 1565–1815†(Penguin 2017) and editor of the Asian Review of Books. He has been resident in Hong Kong since 1985 and was instrumental in the establishment and organization of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival and Man Asian Literary Prize. His writings have appeared in the Diplomat, South China Morning Post, the Nikkei Asian Review, Caixin and other publications.
Posted: August 31st, 2018 | No Comments »
I hate pub quizzes, but….
Posted: August 30th, 2018 | No Comments »
Bill Savadove is a nice guy – really, honestly, I swear it…if you’d ever met him on Blood Alley you can rest assured he’d simply be reporting, not indulging…
Here Bill takes a walk down the old Blood Alley (now just a truncated and dreary street, but once upon a time….) and recalls its heady past…
click here to read
Posted: August 23rd, 2018 | No Comments »
Tin Hats and Rice – A fascinating new memoir from Hong Kong’s Blacksmith Books – “I can’t visualise us getting out of this, but I want to TRY to believe in a future,” wrote 23-year-old Barbara Anslow (then Redwood) in her diary on 8th December 1941, a few hours after Japan first attacked Hong Kong. Her 1941-1946 diaries (with postwar explanations where necessary) are an invaluable source of information on the civilian experience in British Hong Kong during the second world war. The diaries record her thoughts and experiences through the fighting, the surrender, three-and-a-half years of internment, then liberation and adjustment to normal life. The diaries have been quoted by leading historians on the subject. Now they are available in print for the first time, making them available to a wider audience.
Posted: August 22nd, 2018 | No Comments »
The Mapping of Asia
A collection of fine antique maps from 16th to 20th century including city plans and nautical charts
Heinrich Bunting – map of Asia as Pegasus 1646
from 30th August 2018 until 30th September 2018
Wattis Fine Art Gallery
www.wattis.com.hk
Gallery open: Monday – Saturday 11am – 6pm
Posted: August 21st, 2018 | No Comments »
Having offered up a brief factoid about the shared accommodations (quite a while apart admittedly) of Arthur Waley and George Chinnery I offer another – I had not know that Waley also met with Ella Maillart, the Swiss explorer, photographer, author and the woman who crossed China with Peter Fleming back in the thirties (i have blogged about her before – see search engine).
How did Waley (who famously never went to China) know Maillart? Apparently in 1937 Waley was skiing in Kitzbuhel in Austria and had an acquaintance with both Ian and Peter Fleming (who had recently married the film star Celia Johnson who was with him on the slopes) who were there too. Through Peter Waley was introduced to Maillart. Maillart would presumably have been aware of Waley’s translations and he aware of her travels in China.
It appears that after that meeting in Kitzbuhel Waley and Maillart did communicate by letter occasionally. They did also, it seems, meet once more, in the 1950s, when Waley was again in Switzerland and visited Maillart at her home in the Alpine village of Chandolin. A photograph of Waley leaning against her fireplace is mentioned (though appears to be lost).
I’d love to know what they talked about….
Waley on the slopes in Switzerland
Maillart with a parasol
Posted: August 20th, 2018 | No Comments »
After yesterday’s post on the Little Shop I am grateful, once again, to Mike Franco for also sending me a receipt and a very elaborate receipt it is too) he acquired from old Shanghai’s Hou Chang House – “Dealers in Perles (sic), Diamonds, Chinese Antiques Curious and Furniture of Arts”
The Hou Chang House store was on the Bubbling Well Road (Nanjing West Road) by Moulmein Road (Maoming Road North) – in 1929 someone living in Young Allen Court (still standing on Chapoo Road/Zhapu Road) bought several lovely items. Hou Chang House is shown at No.151 in 1929, but in the mid-1930s they changed all the road numbering on the Bubbling Well Road for some reason and it is later listed as No.1465. And just for the nerds – their telephone number was 38364!
Posted: August 19th, 2018 | No Comments »
Some time back I posted on the Little Shop – an antiques and curios store that used to be on Shanghai’s Kiangse (Jiangxi Road) run by Mrs Boyd…
My thanks to Mike Franco in the United States who sent me a picture of a Chinese ginger jar he recently acquired at auction in America and which contained inside the original sales receipt from the Little Shop….
