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….!!
Posted: March 29th, 2018 | No Comments »
So, one of the first reviews in is from the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and they were, God love ’em, kind….click here to read…
Posted: March 27th, 2018 | No Comments »
Many thanks to Rosie Milne who runs the excellent Asian Books Blog for inviting me to contribute a guest blog post about City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir (timely obviously as the book was released in Asia late last week)…as always seems to happen I started out trying to explain how a book intended to be solely about the city itself evolved into a character-driven literary non-fiction narrative, but ended up just listing books I love…..
click here for the whole blog post…
Posted: March 26th, 2018 | No Comments »
Missionaries, Medicine, and the Nanjing Massacre
WHAT: Missionaries, Medicine, and the Nanjing Massacre: a family in China 1870-2018 by Dr. Peter Brinsden
WHEN: Mar. 27, Tuesday, from 7:30-9:00 PM
WHERE: The Courtyard Institute, #28 Zhonglao Hutong (map)
HOW MUCH: RMB 50
RSVP: please reserve via yoopay  https://yoopay.cn/event/78995752 or here
ABOUT THE PRESENTATION: Dr. Peter Brinsden’s family first went to China in 1870 as American Presbyterian missionaries.  Peter was born in Peking (now Beijing) in 1940, the fourth generation of his family to be born in China. Their narrative covers a wide arc of Chinese history. Missionary and teacher Robert Fitch – Peter’s great grandfather, founded one of the first colleges of Zhejiang University and was a keen photographer. Many of his pictures will be shown to illustrate this talk.  Peter’s great-uncle George Fitch was YMCA head in Nanjing during the December 1937 atrocities known as the Nanking Massacre, and was appointed director of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. He also visited Yanan where he met Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other communist leaders. Peter has visited China on many occasions in the last thirty years and will describe China, as seen through his family’s eyes, from the past to the present.
MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Peter Robert Brinsden is a specialist in fertility and assisted reproduction. He was born in Beijing and, as a child, lived in China, the United States, Canada and Hong Kong. He was educated at Rugby School and qualified in medicine from St George’s Hospital, London, in 1966, when he joined the Royal Navy. He qualified as a Consultant Gynaecologist in 1978, and retired from the Royal Navy in 1982. He gained his MRCOG in 1976 and FRCOG in 1989, choosing to specialise in fertility and was appointed Medical Director of Bourn Hall Clinic in 1989. Following his semi-retirement in 2006 Peter was Consultant Medical Director of Bourn Hall Clinic until 2016, and remains a Consultant to Bourn Hall. Peter has Honorary or Visiting Professorships at the Capital Medical University, Beijing; Peking Union Medical College (where he was born); and China Southern Medical University, Guangzhou. He travels widely to lecture — especially in the Middle East, India and China – and has led three delegations of gynaecologists to China in the past six years
Posted: March 24th, 2018 | No Comments »
The UK premiere of North Korea’s first ‘girl power’ movie tells the story of a young coal miner’s pursuit of her dream to become an acrobat.
Barbican Cinema – 28/3/18 – click here for ticket details
Comrade Kim Yong Mi is a young coalminer who lives with her father and grandmother in the North Korean countryside. As a young girl she had always dreamt of becoming an acrobat, a dream her mother supported. Following her mother’s death, her father dismissed her dreams, wanting her to focus on her work. However, her love for acrobats never goes away and when work takes her to Pyongyang, the first thing she does is visit the circus.
Backstage, she meets a famous trapeze artist who encourages her to audition. But at the audition Yong Mi finds she cannot cope with the height and falls. She is mocked by Pak Jang Phil, the handsome, arrogant trapeze star, who tells her that miners belong underground, not in the air. But she’s determined to prove him wrong.
Co-directors Nicholas Bonner and Anja Daelemans join us for a ScreenTalk following the film.
In association with House of Illustration’s exhibition (open 23 Feb to 13 May) – Made in North Korea: Everyday Graphics from the DPRK.
Posted: March 23rd, 2018 | No Comments »
An event definitely not to miss if you’re in Shanghai this weekend….
BLACK LIVES IN JAZZ AGE SHANGHAI
Writer Aaliyah Bilal recounts stories of African-American artists who travelled to Shanghai in the early 20th century. Join us to learn about their experiences navigating the pitfalls and opportunities of this vibrant city, leading up to the onset of the Japanese Occupation.
More details and tickets…here
Posted: March 23rd, 2018 | No Comments »
UNCOVERING THE OLD CHINA
PAUL FRENCH
Saturday, March 24, 11 am – 1 pm | 250 RMB | OH24-11 – Ticket
Click here for tickets
There were foreigners in Peking a hundred years ago. But who were they, what were they doing, how did they live, what attracted them, how did they get on with the local people? Of course, things were so totally different then, but also they were sometimes rather familiar to us today. Author of Midnight in Peking, City of Devils and many other books on China’s past Paul French reveals how we can use film, newspapers, photography, old letters, books and memoirs to travel back to a very different China.
Posted: March 22nd, 2018 | No Comments »
Launching City of Devils in Beijing tonight, a city that loved Midnight in Peking but are they willing to step once again into the Badlands, Shanghai this time, and see just how really down and dirty sleazy old x-pat China can get in the late 1930s….I do hope so…. more details and tickets etc here…
CITY OF DEVILS: A SHANGHAI NOIR
Paul French
moderated by Alec Ash
Thursday, March 22, 8 pm | 60 RMB
It’s time to go back and explore Shanghai’s Badlands…
Immerse yourself in 1940’s Shanghai with this astonishing story of two men whose lives intertwine in crime and twisted friendship. In a city under siege Viennese Joe Farren rose to fame by cashing in on Shanghai’s desperate pleasure seeking. King of the chorus lines, his name was splashed in neon across the infamous Badlands nightclub ‘Farren’s’. American fugitive Jack Riley, his fingertips acid-burnt found a future in Shanghai as ‘The Slots King’. ‘Dapper Joe’ and ‘Lucky Jack’ collided, clashed and came together again in a frantic struggle to survive the city’s last days. In City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir Paul French resurrects the denizens of old Shanghai’s ganglands, the drug-running, the gambling, and the graft, vividly restoring this long-overlooked side of the city’s history. In conversation with Alec Ash, author of Wish Lanterns.