Delighted of course to be back at the Beijing International Literary Festival – promoting City of Devils and my new essay collection of old sojourner tales Destination Shanghai and talking with the ever-fascinating Jeremiah Jenne – Bookworm – Saturday 16th, 4pm.
Tickets here – http://bookwormfestival.com/events/blf-2019-sojourners-to-china/
SOJOURNERS TO CHINA Paul French, Jeremiah Jenne Saturday, March 16, 4:00 PM 60 RMB | The Bookworm – TICKETS From the brief visits of Eugene O’Neil and Langston Hughes to the long and deep sojourns of Harold Acton and the Peking aesthetes. Writers, movie stars, journalists, minor royals, poets, artists and even the founder of Scientology. From around the world a fascinating range of people, at one time or another, called China home in the first half of the 20th century. Writers and China historians Jeremiah Jenne and Paul French discuss some of them and their time and travels in the Middle Kingdom.
I don’t do them very often but if anyone in Beijing is interested I’m doing a workshop on 17/3/19 as part of the Beijing International Literary Festival 2019…. http://bookwormfestival.com/events/blf-2019-writing-workshop-based-on-a-true-story/
How do writers bring the past alive? Is it OK to guess at a
historical character’s motivations or put words into 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 about China, 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.
Please Note: This event will take place in MESH in the Opposite House
Issue 2 of Tsundoku – a column by me for Asian Books Blog.com, that aims to make that pile of ‘must read’ books by your bed a little more teetering – fiction, non-fiction, photography and kids…and so…This is what has come across my desk so far that should be in the shops in March…
The new Channel 5 series brings the black-and-white films of the era back to life through colourisation. And here we are in Accrington, Lancashire in 1908 and a bicycling festival parade celebrating the British Empire. And here we see, colourised a man and woman dressed in Chinese garb of a sort….
here were see a man on a bicycle dressed as a Chinese person (sort of)…he appears to have blacked his face too?
here we see a partial colourisation which highlights his blackened face…
here, in full colourisation, we see a woman riding slightly behind him coming into shot also dressed in Chinese style, but seemingly without a blackened face….
Of course it’s hard to work out the reasoning for what appears to be blackface on the man. I’m also not sure how decisions on colourisation are made by the TV producers – though the black and white picture clearly seems to indicate that the man blacked his face up?
Destination Shanghai: The Lost, the Wanted, the Famous & the Forgotten Sojourners to China (moderated by NPR’s Rob Schmitz)…23/3/19 – 4pm – M on the Bund, Shanghai…
From the brief but crazy visits of American playwright Eugene O’Neil and British occultist Aleister Crowley, to recruiting spies on the Suzhou Creek while German silent movie stars flee from the Nazis to Hongkou. From the success of the Russian refugee chorus girls who became Hollywood stars and the writers who found their muse on the Bubbling Well Road, to the tragic murders and crimes of passion that characterised the darker side of Shanghai in the first half of the twentieth century. From around the world a fascinating range of people, at one time or another heard the siren call of Shanghai.
And I’ll be moderating the Australian travel writer Richard Fidler in taking about ancient Constantinople – 22/3/19 – 12 noon – M on the Bund…
Richard Fidler is the author of Ghost Empire, a history of the medieval Roman city of Constantinople. A thousand years ago, Constantinople was the greatest and richest metropolis in Europe. People from all over the world described it as a mirror of heaven. The Vikings called it ‘Miklagard’, the Big City. In China, it was known as Fu-Lin, a city of enormous granite walls and fantastical creatures. Positioned on the threshold of Europe and Asia, Constantinople became one of the world’s great centres of trade and culture. Yet the story of the city, and the great empire it ruled over, has largely been forgotten in the West. Richard Fidler and Paul French discuss the story of this lost city, and how its culture continues to haunt the world.
More details on booking tickets and other events – https://yoopay.cn/host/m-restaurantgroup?showevent=1
I missed Patrick Fuliang Shan’s new study of Yuan Shikai when it came out last year – better late than never – well worth a read and a nice bit of colourisation on the cover! (see my post yesterday)….
Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) has been both hailed as China’s George
Washington for his role in the country’s transition from empire to
republic and condemned as a counter-revolutionary. Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal
sheds new light on the controversial history of this talented
administrator and modernizer who endeavoured to establish a new dynasty
while serving as the first president of the republic, eventually
declaring himself emperor. Drawing on untapped primary sources and
recent scholarship, Patrick Fuliang Shan offers a lucid, comprehensive,
and critical new interpretation of Yuan’s part in shaping modern China.
