Remembering June 4 1989….

The Burlington Hotel, Bubbling Well Road

My eternal thanks to Jamie Carstairs and the Historical Photographs of China project at Bristol University for permission to use this image of the Burlington Hotel.

The Hotel features briefly in my new book City of Devils but, although I had read references to it in various places (not least the Shanghai Municipal Police records as a place of illegal gambling on occasion) I’d never seen a photo of it. It stood  at 135 Bubbling Well Road (now Nanjing Xi Lu) until they changed the numbers in the mid-1930s and it became 1225 (which has led to some confusion over the years as to where it was). It is now sadly under the enormous, and distinctly less appealing, JC Mandarin  Hotel. According to Edward Denison is his essay Chinoiserie: An Unrequited Architectural Affair contained within Anne Witchard’s collection British Modernism and Chinoiserie the hotel’s architects were the British firm of Robert Moorhead and Sidney Halse.

The hotel was around for a long time and may have had several iterations and lots of refurbishments and adjustments. It was one of the first hotels in Shanghai to offer central heating in all rooms (1904) as well as telephones in every suite and modern elevators. A certain Mr Bourke was a long serving manager.

Adverts from the mid-1930s offer single rooms at $8 and doubles for $15 – the hotel accepted Chinese guests. During the ‘Solitary Island’ period the hotel was occasionally a base for Free China hitmen sent into Shanghai by the Nationalists to assassinate supporters of Wang Jing-wei’s puppet collaborationist government. The hotel continued to operate as the Burlington during the war, though seems to have become a little more down-at-heel – they staged boxing matches in the ballroom to attract customers. ITs fortunes continued to fall – indeed during and after the war it was often referred to in memoirs as ‘seedy’ – signs saying ‘NO COOKING IN ROOMS’

You can see a luggage label for the Burlington here on the Picture This site

My post on “Old Bill” Hawkins and the Burlington Hotel gang is here

Image courtesy of David Noyce and Historical Photographs of China, University of Bristol.

When Shanghai Boo-ed Harold Lloyd

Silent-era comedy star Harold Lloyd’s first talkie Welcome Danger in 1930 was partly set in San Francisco’s Chinatown and featured some very negative portrayals of Chinese people which resulted in loud booing in Shanghai cinemas. This audience outrage, which the Shanghai Municipal Police reported almost turned violent, led to a change in policy in the Settlement. Whereas before the Nationalist government censors in Nanking had been able to censor and ban movies within the Chinese-controlled portions of Shanghai they had not been able to influence screenings within the foreign concessions. However, the Shanghai Municipal Police, concerned with public security (and at the urging of cinema managers fearing a boycott by Chinese patrons), agreed to liaise with the Nanking censors and potentially follow their lead on banning films. Welcome Danger was withdrawn after a short run in the Settlement and an apology issued to Chinese patrons by cinema managers.

Distant Worlds: Shanghai and Hong Kong in the 1930’s – Museum of Chinese Australian History, Melbourne

The Museum of Chinese Australian History is launching a new exhibition that explores amateur photographer Henry (Harry) Curtis adventures in Shanghai and Hong Kong. The photographs taken over eighty years ago are from the Chinese Museum’s permanent collection.

Curtis captivating images reveal his rapport with the people he photographs despite language and cultural differences.

His photographs do not romanticize his subjects; he observes them and relates to them as people. Joyce Agee, Senior Curator, Chinese Museum

Many of the prints in the exhibition were produced by Curtis, a radiographer for British hospitals, and reflect his sophisticated skills in the darkroom.

Through Harry Curtis lens, we experience Distant Worlds and the Shanghai and Hong Kong of the mid-1930s. In less than seven years, these vibrant cities were to be immeasurably changed with the outbreak of WWII.

Dates: Sunday 6th May 2018 - Thursday 16th August 2018
Times: 10am-4pm

The London Launch of Humphrey Hawksley’s ASIAN WATERS:The Struggle Over the Asia-Pacific and the Strategy of Chinese Expansion – 28/6/18, SOAS

Scott Tong’s A Village with my Name….

Finally got round to reading Scott Tong’s A Village with my Name (only took so long because it’s been a bit tricky to locate in England). I am usually super-wary of biographies written by family members – grandma’s misdemeanors or sexual encounters often get rather ignored and the necessary distance is lost. Quite the opposite with Tong’s book – indeed he head on confronts some very tricky family history. A superb read….

When journalist Scott Tong moved to Shanghai, his assignment was to start up the first full-time China bureau for “Marketplace,” the daily business and economics program on public radio stations across the United States. But for Tong the move became much more—it offered the opportunity to reconnect with members of his extended family who had remained in China after his parents fled the communists six decades prior. By uncovering the stories of his family’s history, Tong discovered a new way to understand the defining moments of modern China and its long, interrupted quest to go global.
 
A Village with My Name offers a unique perspective on the transitions in China through the eyes of regular people who have witnessed such epochal events as the toppling of the Qing monarchy, Japan’s occupation during World War II, exile of political prisoners to forced labor camps, mass death and famine during the Great Leap Forward, market reforms under Deng Xiaoping, and the dawn of the One Child Policy. Tong’s story focuses on five members of his family, who each offer a specific window on a changing country: a rare American-educated girl born in the closing days of the Qing Dynasty, a pioneer exchange student, an abandoned toddler from World War II who later rides the wave of China’s global export boom, a young professional climbing the ladder at a multinational company, and an orphan (the author’s daughter) adopted in the middle of a baby-selling scandal fueled by foreign money. Through their stories, Tong shows us China anew, visiting former prison labor camps on the Tibetan plateau and rural outposts along the Yangtze, exploring the Shanghai of the 1930s, and touring factories across the mainland.
 
With curiosity and sensitivity, Tong explores the moments that have shaped China and its people, offering a compelling and deeply personal take on how China became what it is today.

Next Official Midnight in Peking Walking Tour: This Saturday!

Bespoke’s next Midnight in Peking Walking Tour takes place on Saturday, May 26th. Perfect for fans of the book, 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 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.

Saturday, May 26th, tickets 388RMB, email info@bespoke-beijing.com or scan the QR code below:

City of Devils – Now Available in Australia from Penguin

City of Devils is now available in Australia….all over Australia, and New Zealand….bookshops and online….click here…

Paul French resurrects the denizens of old Shanghai’s badlands, the drug-running, the gambling, and the graft, vividly restoring this long overlooked side of the city’s history