Posted: April 7th, 2018 | No Comments »
The Royal Geographical Society is delighted to welcome to Hong Kong again well-known Chinese historian and author Paul French to speak on his new book “City of Devils: Shanghai in the 1930s’. In this talk, he gives an exciting account of Shanghai in the 1930s, an era of entrepreneurship, glitter and lawlessness in perhaps the most interesting decade of its storied history.
Members of the RGS, their guests and others are most welcome to attend this event, which is HK$150 for RGS Members and HK$200 for their guests.Â
More details and registration – click
here
Posted: April 5th, 2018 | No Comments »
I ordered it immediately but haven’t had a chance to read yet – a first English translation (from Jane Meizhen Pan and Martin Mertz) of perhaps Chang’s most autobiographical novel, Little Reunions. It’s in bookshops and online at all the usual places. Ilaria Maria Sala has managed to read it and write a review here. However, it Eileen Chang so you might not need a review any more than I did and just need to get it….
A best-selling, autobiographical depiction of class privilege, bad romance, and political intrigue during World War II in China. Now available in English for the first time, Eileen Chang’s dark romance opens with Julie, living at a convent school in Hong Kong on the eve of the Japanese invasion. Her mother, Rachel, long divorced from Julie’s opium-addict father, saunters around the world with various lovers. Recollections of Julie’s horrifying but privileged childhood in Shanghai clash with a flamboyant, sometimes incestuous cast of relations that crowd her life. Eventually, back in Shanghai, she meets the magnetic Chih-yung, a traitor who collaborates with the Japanese puppet regime. Soon they’re in the throes of an impassioned love affair that swings back and forth between ardor and anxiety, secrecy and ruin. Like Julie’s relationship with her mother, her marriage to Chih-yung is marked by long stretches of separation interspersed with unexpected little reunions. Chang’s emotionally fraught, bitterly humorous novel holds a fractured mirror directly in front of her own heart.
Posted: April 4th, 2018 | No Comments »
An interesting new series from Rana Mitter on BBC Radio 4 (and then, presumably, on the BBC iPlayer for a time afterwards) – Chinese Characters….
Chinese Characters is a series of 20 essays exploring Chinese history through the life stories of key personalities.
In this first episode Rana Mitter tells the story of Wu Zetian, the only woman ever to rule as China’s emperor in her own right, in two thousand years of dynastic history. Even more remarkably, she did it during one of the finest moments of China’s cultural history – the medieval Tang dynasty.
Wu Zetian grew up as a lady of the court, but threw off her humility to plan her way to the top with strategic precision, leaving a trail of elite corpses along the way. Once on the throne, she secured China’s borders and promoted Buddhism as a powerful new religious force. Later, history condemned her as a dreadful anomaly, as women were never supposed to rule in traditional China. But she has had the last laugh – now regarded as a feminist icon in China with a 74-part TV soap opera dedicated to her rise and rule.
Starts BBC Radio 4 – April 9th – 1.45pm GMT
Posted: April 3rd, 2018 | No Comments »
I’ve talked before about Italian soldiers behaving badly in Shanghai’s cinemas – in 1937 Italian sailors rioted at the Isis Cinema in Hongkew, egged on by some local fascisti from the Italian community, complaining about a Soviet documentary detailing the Italian army’s abuses in Abyssinia. More on that here…
But it seems there was precedent.
In 1928, nearly a decade before former French soldiers, about 60 in total, turned up at the Carlton Theatre (Ka’erdeng) to protest a screening of Beau Geste. The Shanghai Municipal Police were in attendance but were, apparently sympathetic towards the veterans. But why Beau Geste?
There are several movie versions of Beau Geste and we’re talking about the 1926 Ronald Coleman version from Paramount, based on Percival Christopher Wren’s novel. Michael “Beau” Geste leaves (a pre-WW1) England in disgrace and joins the infamous French Foreign Legion. He is reunited with his two brothers in North Africa, where they face greater danger from their own sadistic commander than from the rebellious Arabs. It was the biggest movie in box office terms in 1926. I’m assuming the French veterans objected to the sadistic French commander, but if anyone knows different….???
Posted: April 2nd, 2018 | No Comments »
I’ve blogged about Scott’s the best known funeral directors in the Shanghai International Settlement – there’s a post on the firm’s history here…
I came across another ad for them the other day so best mention them again – this ad is from 1930. I still love that their cable address (their WeChat name of the day) was ‘Chincasket’. Their offices and private chapel were up on Kiaochow Road, now Jiaozhou Road…
Posted: April 1st, 2018 | No Comments »
My Penguin Special published last summer on the 80th anniversary of August 14th 1937 and the Bloody Saturday bombings in Shanghai was review in Cha Journal – click here to read…you can buy the e-book on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk.
Posted: March 31st, 2018 | No Comments »
What should be a fascinating event for anyone in London this early April….
“China Watching” during the GPCR
John Gittings (SOAS, University of London)
9/4/18 – SOAS
50 years ago, John Gittings joined the Far Eastern Economic Review  in Hong Kong as its “China Watcher”, following  the turbulent events of the  GPCR across the uncrossable Chinese border. In 1971 he finally managed to visit the mainland, not as a journalist but with a delegation from the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding . At the time and after, both types of observation aroused controversy, with outside commentators criticised for Pekinology and lack of understanding, while “friendship” visitors were accused of bias and self-censorship.  In retrospect the limitations of both approaches are evident, whether arising from lack of information or failure of perception. Gittings looks critically at his own output as well as that of others and concludes that the insights gained then can still add to our understanding
More details here
Posted: March 30th, 2018 | No Comments »
I spoke last week at the Royal Asiatic Society’s debate on the relative merits of Shanghai vs Beijing at the Beijing Bookworm as part of the 2018 Beijing International Literary Festival…I mentioned a couple of quotes from Harold Acton’s fantastic 1941 novel (but about 1930s Peking) Peonies and Ponies. A couple of people asked me for the quotes but I never got their cards contacts, so here they are….
And, by the way, if you haven’t read the novel you really should….
First the ever entrepreneurial booster of old Peking to visiting tourists, writers and wealthy sojourners, Mrs. Mascot…
“Peking’s such loads of fun. Jugglers, fortune-tellers, acrobats, puppet-shows, temple tiffins, treasure hunts and Paomachang picnics – not to speak of costume jamborees, galas and fancy dress affairs – always something original! Home-made natural fun, not imported or artificially manufactured as in Shanghai. And there’s always a delicious spice of the unexpected.â€
and now the more dour but traditional China-loving Philip Flower:
“Sufficient to know and be profoundly grateful, to realise that he was as far as it was possible to be from post-war politics and the general jumpiness of Europe while comfortably within the orbit of its dubious civilisation, imbibing serenity from the geometrical quietude of China’s ancient capital. And everything about him still remained supernatural, brought grist for pantheistic reverie and wonder.â€
I’m sure you all know the types….!!
