Posted: August 1st, 2018 | No Comments »
I sometimes think of old Shanghai as a city of suicide. Reading the old newspapers it is striking just how many suicides are reported, both Chinese and Shanghailander. The reasons are many and varied but mostly go to the core issues of Shanghai –
- In a town with effectively (beyond a little charity) no safety net people got sick, they didn’t have money for treatment so they committed suicide;
- old age and the fear of unemployment – no pensions and often for rootless and stateless people no families. But this wasn’t always the elderly; Beatrice Den Adel committed suicide in Shanghai at 33, a dancer she feared that as she got too old to dance she’d fall on hard times.
- Financial ruin, gambling debts, opium addiction all feature
- for women the loss, through death or desertion of a male spouse often triggered suicide and a sense of hopelessness.
- Mental illness was of course under diagnosed and under treated and seems to be behind many cases
- and, as in this case today, broken promises – especially hard for people offered a future that is then taken away leaving them stateless, alone and poor…
The Embassy Hotel was on No.7 Carter Road (Shimen No.1 Road) near the junction with the Bubbling Well Road (Nanjing Road West) in the International Settlement. It wasn’t the grandest hotel in town but it was far from the worst. It was managed for many years by Mrs. Jessie Cameron and her staff. In 1933 a Dane by the name of F.M. Bjergfeldt, who was in Shanghai on a contract working for the Danish Great Northern Telegraphy Company, was a long term resident.
Bjergfeldt had taken up with a 24-year-old White Russian emigre called Tamara Tavgueridze. She was described as his fiance. On Sunday July 2 Tamara went to Bjergfeldt’s room, drank poison, and committed suicide. Why she did it? – I don’t know. I can surmise a broken off engagement, a sense of futility living in exile…The Embassy Hotel was quite the place for suicides (many foreigners chose it as a suicide spot). It was said to be a gloomy hotel and perhaps that encouraged suicidal thoughts.
I’m afraid I don’t have a picture of the hotel, but do have this shot of the junction of Carter Road and Bubbling Well Road at the time…which does include the marvelous old Bubbling Well Pharmacy…
Posted: July 31st, 2018 | No Comments »
On the Track of Robert Van Gulik
Friday, 24 August 2018, 7.00pm-9.00pm
Screening in Khalili Lecture Theatre (KLT)
As part of the First London International Guqin Festival, we are pleased to welcome van Gulik’s granddaughter, Marie-Anne Souloumiac – Van Gulik, to the festival to show a special film about her grandfather’s life as a diplomat, writer, Sinologist and qin player.
Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) is one of the world’s most popular Dutch writers, but relatively unrecognised in his own country. A diplomat, Chinese specialist and scholar, he became famous with his detective series about Judge Dee, which in many ways, are projections of his own life: a permanent duality between his real life
and the hero in his books.
Written and directed by Rob Rombout.
Duration: 88 mins.
Spoken in English, Dutch, French, Chinese and Japanese.
Subtitled in Dutch, French or English.
The film screening will be chaired by SOAS Research Associate, Dr Hwee-san Tan.
The tour dates for our concerts in the series are as follows:
20th: Oxford Town Hall (7pm)
23rd: Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge (7pm)
25th: DLT, SOAS (7.30pm)
26th: DLT, SOAS (7pm).
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
Posted: July 19th, 2018 | No Comments »
And so we progress to The Hamptons…
Book-Hampton
Friday, July 20, 2018 – 5:00pm
