All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French

Robin Moyer: My China (1976 – Present) – Pekin Fine Arts, Hong Kong, to August 25th

Posted: July 30th, 2018 | No Comments »

Some really great China/Hong Kong photography here….For over five decades, award-winning photojournalist and fine art photographer Robin Moyer has lived and worked around Asia, capturing a continent in constant flux. His ongoing solo exhibit at Pékin Fine Arts in Hong Kong, Robin Moyer: My China (1976 – Present), is a glimpse into the country’s past and present in 43 signed black-and-white images printed in platinum and archival pigment on fine art paper.

Robin Moyer: My China (1976 – Present)

Solo Exhibition

Jun 23 – Aug 25, 2018

Pékin Fine Arts (Hong Kong)

Union Industrial Building, 48 Wong Chuk Hang Road
16 /F Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 2177 6190
Fax: (852) 2177 6183

Hours: Tu-F 10am-6pm
Sa 11am-6pm Su by appointment only

More details here


An Exhibition Commemorating the End of The First World War – Hong Kong

Posted: July 26th, 2018 | 1 Comment »

I imagine this is worth a visit if you’re in Hong Kong….

Entitled The Great War at Its Centenary, the exhibition reveals the situation on the battlefield, reflects on the cost of war, and how it has changed world order, including the far-reaching impact WWI had on modern China and Hong Kong on political, military and social levels.

Highlight exhibits include a postcard sent from a war prisoner in the Hung Hom internment camp to Germany, a postcard showing warships anchored in Victoria Harbour before the outbreak of World War I, a Shanghai pictorial that illustrates the military actions of the Allies during the war, and a .303″ British Lee-Enfield rifle used in the War.

Details

When: 15 Jun 2018 – 30 Jan 2019 Where: Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence – 175 Tung Hei Rd – Shau Kei Wan


Why Not Give The Midnight In Peking Walking Tour to A Friend As A Gift?

Posted: July 26th, 2018 | No Comments »

It feels nice to do nice things for people. So if you have friends coming to Beijing for a birthday or a honeymoon (or maybe even leaving Beijing after living here for years!) – may we suggest giving them the gift of this brilliant, historian-led walking tour? Heck, you could even throw in the book if you’re feeling extra generous…

The next tour happens this Saturday, July 28th and is perfect for culture fans, history buffs and those looking for a Saturday night out with a difference!

Paul French’s New York Times bestselling murder mystery captured imaginations across the world when it was released. Now, with the help of historian Lars Ulrick Thom, Bespoke Beijing brings 1930s Peking back to life through a walking tour like no other. As night falls, you’ll follow in the footsteps of the victim’s father, ETC Werner, as he frantically searched for his daughter, and learn about the shady characters implicated in her killing.

So what are you waiting for – sign yourself (or a friend!) up now so you don’t miss out.

Tickets cost 388 RMB and include a post-walk cocktail and donation to Equality, an organization helping victims of domestic violence in China.

To buy tickets for this walking tour, which runs from 6:30pm-9:30pm on Saturday, July 28th, send us an email to info@bespoketravelcompany.com, scan the QR code below, or click here


The Vandals of Shanghai are Back at Work – & Trying to be Stealthy About their Destruction

Posted: July 23rd, 2018 | No Comments »

And so goodbye to another old Shanghai building – The Ezra Building (1930), just back off the Bund (take note all those who say the Bund is safe!) – they tried to do this demolition by stealth but got found out anyway. As others have said the trend to bulldoze a building and then claim it as a heritage site is one of the most disgusting aspects of the ongoing total destruction of old Shanghai – in the last twelve months major destruction in Hongkou, Yangpu, Beijing Lu, Kangding Lu, the broad swathe of Laoximen and Huangpi/Hefei Lu in Frenchtown to name but a few….tragic….and, yes, the building has a historic preservation plaque awarded in 2015 in case

Katya Knyazeva has the story they tried to hide…click here

 

 


A World of Empires: The Russian Voyage of the Frigate Pallada

Posted: July 22nd, 2018 | No Comments »

Somehow I missed this book but I’m on it now!! and it look fascinating….Edyta Bojanowska’s A World of Empires and a rare look at the early Russian missions to China/Asia…

Many people are familiar with American Commodore Matthew Perry’s expedition to open trade relations with Japan in the early 1850s. Less well known is that on the heels of the Perry squadron followed a Russian expedition secretly on the same mission. Serving as secretary to the naval commander was novelist Ivan Goncharov, who turned his impressions into a book, The Frigate Pallada, which became a bestseller in imperial Russia. In A World of Empires, Edyta Bojanowska uses Goncharov’s fascinating travelogue as a window onto global imperial history in the mid-nineteenth century.

Reflecting on encounters in southern Africa’s Cape Colony, Dutch Java, Spanish Manila, Japan, and the British ports of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, Goncharov offers keen observations on imperial expansion, cooperation, and competition. Britain’s global ascendancy leaves him in equal measures awed and resentful. In Southeast Asia, he recognizes an increasingly interlocking world in the vibrant trading hubs whose networks encircle the globe. Traveling overland back home, Goncharov presents Russia’s colonizing rule in Siberia as a positive imperial model, contrasted with Western ones.

Slow to be integrated into the standard narrative on European imperialism, Russia emerges here as an increasingly assertive empire, eager to position itself on the world stage among its American and European rivals and fully conversant with the ideologies of civilizing mission and race. Goncharov’s gripping narrative offers a unique eyewitness account of empire in action, in which Bojanowska finds both a zeal to emulate European powers and a determination to define Russia against them.


The City of Devils Comes to The Hamptons – Book-Hampton, July 20, 5pm

Posted: July 19th, 2018 | No Comments »

And so we progress to The Hamptons…

Book-Hampton

Friday, July 20, 2018 – 5:00pm

41 Main Street
East Hampton, NY 11937

Talking Old Shanghai in Arlington with Scott Tong – One More Page, Arlington VA, Monday 7pm

Posted: July 16th, 2018 | No Comments »

Delighted to be going back to One More Page in Arlington on Monday evening to talk about City of Devils and to do so with Marketplace’s Scott Tong (whose book A Village With My Name was a standout China title last year)…

Monday, July 16 @7PM

Historian Paul French in conversation w/ journalist Scott Tong (A VILLAGE WITH MY NAME) about French’s new book CITY OF DEVILS: THE TWO MEN WHO RULED THE UNDERWORLD OF SHANGHAI. Perfect for readers of Erik Larson & Karen Abbott, CITY OF DEVILS is a rags-to-riches tale of two self-made men set against a backdrop of crime and vice in the sprawling badlands of 1930s Shanghai.

More details here

 


The City of Devils vs Francis Underwood – Politics & Prose, Washington DC, Sunday July 15, 5pm

Posted: July 15th, 2018 | No Comments »

Which administration was dirtier – the Shanghai Municipal Council in 1940 or Washington’s own Francis Underwood? Well, it has to be admitted Francis was baaad; but Shanghai was baaaader – how bad? Politics and Prose this Sunday at 5 – more details here….

This Sunday – who had the dirtier politicians, more corrupt police and worst crims? DC or the ‘Hai?

VS

Tony Keswick – taipan and boss man of the Shanghai Municipal Council