A groundbreaking volume by Annika Culver and Norman Smith that critically examines how writers in Japanese-occupied northeast China negotiated political and artistic freedom while engaging their craft amidst an increasing atmosphere of violent conflict and foreign control.
The allegedly multiethnic utopian new state of Manchukuo (1932-1945) created by supporters of imperial Japan was intended to corral the creative energies of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, and Mongols. Yet, the twin poles of utopian promise and resistance to a contested state pulled these intellectuals into competing loyalties, selective engagement, or even exile and death surpassing neat paradigms of collaboration or resistance. In a semicolony wrapped in the utopian vision of racial inclusion, their literary works articulating national ideals and even the norms of everyday life subtly reflected the complexities and contradictions of the era. Scholars from China, Korea, Japan, and North America investigate cultural production under imperial Japan’s occupation of Manchukuo. They reveal how literature and literary production more generally can serve as a penetrating lens into forgotten histories and the lives of ordinary people confronted with difficult political exigencies. Highlights of the text include transnational perspectives by leading researchers in the field and a memoir by one of Manchukuo’s last living writers.
Carl Crow, the great Amerian ad man in Shanghai and writer on China between the world wars claimed that the clamour of foreign manufacturers to make a killing in the China market was such that even when Shanghai was hit by a cholera outbreak in 1923 causing many foreigners to send their families home and evacuate the city for a time the advertising business continued to boom. Real estate prices collapsed along Nanking Road and vacant shops littered the city as businesses went bankrupt, clubs found that members couldn’t afford to renew their subscriptions and the stock market went into a tailspin, but still everyone advertised and still Carl Crow Inc prospered.
You may, or may not, know that i write the fortnightly Crime and the City column for the excellent Crime Reads web site (here). It’s not always Asia obviously but this fortnight’s column on Saigon may be of interest to China Rhyming readers…
David Bellis’s (aka Gwulo) exellent photo book series on old Hong Kong continues in a third volume – this one concentrating on Hong Kong’s maritime and nautical history…more on the book and author here
Aldrich Bay, more commonly known today as Shau Kei Wan, on the north side of Hong Kong Island in 1902. It is just one image from David Bellis’ new book Old Hong Kong Photos and The Tales They Tell, Volume 3. Photo: Gwulo
In 1938 you really needed to warn the kids about playing with unexploded ordinance in your French Concession garden….And just for the record – AC Cornish had worked for the Standard Oil Co. of New York (SOCONY) since 1915 (since graduating from Princeton) all over the country including a stint in Changsha and was also one of the American Concillors on the Shanghai Municipal Council and a President of the American Chamber of Commerce. Not sure who the Reilly’s were.
Old Town expert Katya Knyazeva notes that Chinese blogs have begun to alert the public to the impending demolition of the historic neighborhoods on Canton (Guangdong) Road. Click here:
For more details see Katya’s excellent blog – here
As she rightly points out this is a very important street that once housed all manner of tea houses and curio shops. It is still very vibrant and walkable – though not for much longer sadly it would seem.
An advert for the great China Motors that had several branches around town before the war – mostly US cars, but also Fiat flatbed trucks (which were the preferred flat bed of Shanghai)….
