All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
My interview with China Plus radio show in Beijing on Midnight in Peking & City of Devils – in audio & sort of transcription – click here
I must plug Scott Seligman’s great new book….The Third Degree
Three years in the making, The Third Degree: The Triple Murder that Shook Washington and Changed American Criminal Justice is finally being published! It is already available on Amazon.com
Anyone who has ever seen an episode of Law and Order can probably recite a suspect’s “Miranda rights†by heart. But what most people don’t know is that these rights had their roots in the compelling case of a young Chinese man accused of murdering three of his countrymen in Washington, DC in 1919.
The nation’s capital had never seen anything quite like it: three foreign diplomats assassinated in the city’s tony Kalorama neighborhood, and no obvious motive or leads. The Washington police were baffled. But once they zeroed in on a suspect, they held him incommunicado without formal arrest for more than a week until they had browbeaten him into a confession.
Part murder mystery, part courtroom drama and part landmark legal case, The Third Degree tells the forgotten story of a young man’s abuse by the police and his arduous, seven-year journey through the legal system that drew in Warren G. Harding, William Howard Taft, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John W. Davis and even J. Edgar Hoover. It culminated in a landmark Supreme Court ruling penned by Justice Louis Brandeis that set the stage for Miranda v. Arizona many years later.
Dr Magnus Hirschfeld was an eminent German sexologist and one of the first outspoken advocates for gay and transgender rights. In 1931 he visited China on a world tour. In Shanghai he met a young Chinese man in his early twenties called Li Tao (or Li Shiu-tong, or Li Zhaotong), also studying sexology and sexual minorities. Despite a significant age gap and cultural differences they fell in love. Li acompanied Hirschfeld to Peking and Beida university (below – Li is the man on the right, on the steps in a dark jacket). Then Li agreed to accompany Hirschfeld back to Germany and live with him. Perhaps surprisingly for 1931 China, Li’s parents were accepting of his sexuality and wished him and Hirschfeld bon voyage when they departed. Li’s father, who was I think an academic too, expressed the hope that his son would become the “Hirschfeld of China”.
Unsurprisingly Hirschfeld fell foul of the Nazis and had to leave Germany for France and resettled in Nice. Li Tao was one of the two named heirs of Hirschfeld. I think Li Tao died in Europe in 1993. To my knowledge nobody has ever written a biography of him.
I’ll be talking about old Shanghai and the remarkable Jewish women who lived there Sunday night to the Jewish Historical Society of Hong Kong…
Rarely Mundane, Usually Extraordinary: Jewish Women’s Lives in Shanghai
Sunday evening, 15 April 2018
 |
care for their children, through to secretaries who picked the wrong men and bookshop owners who became communist spies, it seems that every Jewish woman in Shanghai at that time lived an incredible life. Their stories were extraordinary.
6:15 PM for a prompt 6:30 start (new time!)
Jewish Community Centre, One Robinson Place, 70 Robinson Road, Mid-Levels
Please note that visitors to the JCC are required to register at the Reception desk upon arrival.
We expect the talk to last about an hour. Sorry, no kids under 10.
To reserve your seat at the chat, please contact us at contactus@jhshk.org.
A HK$50 entrance fee will be charged and donated to the JHS Library Fund.
The JHS has published several volumes on the subject of the Jewish community in Hong Kong and the Jews in China, in addition to promoting the spread of balanced knowledge about Judaic traditions in Chinese academic circles. This has included assisting with the establishment of a Jewish studies programme at Nanjing University and the publication of the world’s first Chinese language “Encyclopaedia Judaica”, copies of which are now in the libraries of almost every university throughout China.
For more information about the publications of the JHS, please contact our librarian at the Jewish Community Centre. She can be reached at 2589-2660 or via email at contactus@jhshk.org.
Came across this photograph of a Shanghai dance hostess and partner mid-fox trot in an article on Asian dance hostesses in the Santa Cruz Evening News on Saturday July 1 1933…it’s too evocative not to post….
NB: my City of Devils event for the Royal Geographical Society Hong Kong on 12 April sold out rather quickly – so its now 2 events on 12/4 at a larger venue – so you can still get in if u didn’t manage it before …click here for more details
Speaker: Nicolas Grevot
During this session we will hear and discuss Nicolas Grevot’s presentation on “The Forgetten Tribes of Taiwanâ€.
Nicolas Grevot invites you to rediscover the indigenous tribes of Taiwan. What has become of the former Rainbow Warriors? Let’s meet him, at his place, where he will reveal all there is to know about these magnificent people and share his personal collection of impressive tribal artifacts; the largest in the hand of a non-Taiwanese.
Limited seats available!
Chinese History Study Group meets monthly – generally the second Tuesday of each month September through June. Our members select and research topics of personal interest, make brief oral presentations, then engage in discussion with those attending the talk. Each month one or two members discuss their topics.
For a list of future topics and presenters, please contact convener Furkan Erdogan studygroup@
Venue
Julu Road, Jingan District
(RSVP neccessary due to limited seats and specific location confirmed following RSVP )
First London exhibition devoted to the Scottish photographer John Thomson (1837-1921) and his photography in Asia will be shown from 12 April – 22 June 2018 at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS. Thomson’s photography of China, Siam (Thailand) and Cambodia was widely praised by his peers and continues to enthuse new audiences today. Widely credited as one of the greatest travel photographers and precursor to photojournalism, Thomson was the first photographer to record Angkor Wat and these striking images are included in the exhibition. The images are from newly discovered negatives held at the Wellcome Library, London.
John Thomson (1837–1921) was a Scottish photographer and writer who set off for Asia in 1862. Over the next ten years he undertook numerous journeys photographing countries including Siam, Cambodia and various provinces of China. Photographs from these journeys form one of the most extensive records of any region taken in the nineteenth century. The range, depth and aesthetic quality of John Thomson’s vision mark him out as one of the most important travel photographers whose influence is still felt today