All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
A c.1957 guide/booklet to Macau issued by the Tourist Department. It features a painting of St Paul’s Cathedral ruins by George Smirnoff (who gets a chapter in my Destination Macao) and a map of Macao.
Excellent to see Misha Glenny will be taking over the chair for BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time from Melvyn Bragg. Had great fun chatting with Misha last year for the 4-part The Invention of China, which if you haven’t listened yet is right here…..
Daunt Books Marylebone China section… with a little Wallis (& other Christmas gift ideas)…..
David Guerrero’s You Won’t See Me – A very fun read about when the Beatles ghosted Imelda Marcos in 1966 Manila…. more here….
On Lantau and want to buy the full set of my China Revisited set of historic reprints of travel writing on HK, Macao and southern China from the 1870s to the 1930s? VIBE in Mui Wo has got ‘em all – everywhere else in Hong Kong there’s Bookazine and everywhere else in the world there’s the Blacksmith Books web site! Get the 5-book bundle at a Christmas discount here…
Lei Ping’s Shanghai Mundane: Survival and Revival of Bourgeois Sentiments under Chinese Socialism (Bloomsbury)…
This book offers a new critical intervention into the studies of the paradox of Chinese socialism. Centering on the “unremodable” Shanghai bourgeoisie and middle class, the book brilliantly discovers Chinese society’s persistent aspiration to bourgeois lifestyle and remarkable resistance to socialist ideology from the Mao era to the Xi era.
Shanghai Mundane offers a new critical intervention into the studies of the paradox of Chinese socialism. Through the lens of contested state-society relations, the book challenges conventional China Studies by repositioning Shanghai as the key to decode the protracted ideological warfare between socialism and capitalism. Based on significant archival, ethnographic, and theoretical evidence unearthed from the distinct cases of Shanghai bourgeoisie and middle class, Lei Ping discovers the city’s persistent aspiration to bourgeois lifestyle and remarkable resistance to socialist ideology throughout the entire history of the People’s Republic of China. Ping argues that despite the socialist remolding of capitalist industry and commerce, the post-1949 Chinese state failed to eradicate bourgeois heritage in the domain of everyday life in the Mao era, which ironically contributed to its controversial policy reversals in the post-Mao era, from Deng to Xi. What lies at the heart of the major intellectual conundrum, namely the survival and revival of bourgeois sentiments, is what Ping calls the “unremodable Shanghai mundane.” This captivating and provocative account sheds new light on understanding the larger questions as to the crisis-ridden practices of Chinese socialism and the raison d’être of the Chinese Communist Party in the twenty-first century.
Cecile Armand’s Madmen in Shanghai: A Social History of Advertising in Modern China (1914–1956) (De Gruyter) came out last year – now she has published a second volume – Between Public and Market: A Spatial History of Advertising in Modern Shanghai (1905–1949), also with De Gruyter.
Between Public and Market: A Spatial History of Advertising in Modern Shanghai (1905-1949) unveils the silent revolution advertising brought to Shanghai’s press and urban life during the pre-communist era. While traditional scholarship often treats advertising as a commercial tool or cultural “mirror,” this book reveals its transformative role as a driver of municipal policies and public engagement among urban elites within the transnational context of the treaty ports. Drawing on untapped sources—municipal archives, photographs, newspapers—and employing innovative digital methods like Geographic Information System, the author examines how advertising reshaped urban landscapes, nightlife, traffic management, and the physical appearance, content, and business model of Republican-era newspapers. As a sequel to Madmen in Shanghai: A Social History of Advertising in Modern China (De Gruyter, 2024), this book shifts the focus from the rise of advertising as an industry to its social and political impact in early 20th-century China. It will engage students and scholars of modern Chinese history, urban and media studies, as well as professionals in advertising and urban management.
When I first met the indefatigable Tess Johnston in Shanghai it was the legendary Grape Restaurant on Xinle Lu which, at the time, was a popular eating spot for foreigners in the city. She was described to me as Shanghai’s #1 Brickhugger. Over the years we became friends, regular co-panelists and jointly mourned and tried to at least remember the ongoing destruction of the city’s heritage. She was never anything less than fascinating, a great teller of anecdotes, a repository of facts and a first stop for so many interested in Shanghai’s past. Tess died last September.
There will be a Memorial/Celebration of Life and a luncheon at Dacor Bacon House in Washington DC on Tuesday, December 9, 2025 starting at 12:00 noon. (www.dacorbacon.org). The club is composed of foreign service and foreign affairs professionals – Tess was originally with the US foreign service. She a;s has financially supported Dacor Bacon House and donated some of her antiques as well.
Anyone who would like to attend please contact Katie Baker in DC (who has done so much for Tess) on katebaker99@yahoo.com
