Sikh Traffic Cop on the Nanking Road

Here, from 1936, a Sikh traffic constable of the Shanghai Municipal Police on the junction of Nanking Road (Nanjing East Road) and Szechuen Road (Sichuan Middle Road). Right outside the old Whiteaway and Laidlaw department store ( at no.98, founded 1913 and known to all Shanghailanders as the “Right Away and Paid For”)….Naturally, as it’s 1936, everyone’s driving on the right…

The Shanghai AA

Nice to see this Shanghai registered car in 1933 sporting its AA badge on the grill. The car belonged to Richard Martin, a Shanghai Municipal Police officer, here taking a drive out around the city walls of Soochow (Suzhou)…

Shanghai Public Works Department Barrier, 1933 – Old Shanghai Signage

Another in my occasional series on old Shanghai street signage (admit it, you were waiting for another post with bated breath!). We’ve had telegraph pole numbering and a Shanghai Municipal Police ‘No Waiting’ sign now for the amazing Shanghai Public Works Department (PWD) barrier indicating some building works or other disruption, in this case a procession by Anhui Guildsmen through Yangtszepoo (Yangpu) in 1933…

News under Fire: China’s Propaganda against Japan in the English-Language Press, 1928–1941

I’ve been waiting a while to read this new book from Shuge Wei….

News under Fire: China’s Propaganda against Japan in the English-Language Press, 1928–1941 is the first comprehensive study of China’s efforts to establish an effective international propaganda system during the Sino-Japanese crisis. It explores how the weak Nationalist government managed to use its limited resources to compete with Japan in the international press. By retrieving the long neglected history of English-language papers published in the treaty ports, Shuge Wei reveals a multilayered and often chaotic English-language media environment in China, and demonstrates its vital importance in defending China’s sovereignty.

Chinese bilingual elites played an important role in linking the party-led propaganda system with the treaty-port press. Yet the development of propaganda institution did not foster the realization of individual ideals. As the Sino-Japanese crisis deepened, the war machine absorbed treaty-port journalists into the militarized propaganda system and dashed their hopes of maintaining a liberal information order.

Shuge Wei is a historian based at the Australian National University. Her research interests include Chinese media history, Chinese political culture, Sino-Japanese War, and grassroots movements in China and Taiwan.

“A superbly researched and well-nuanced account of an overlooked topic: nationalist China’s propaganda system and the multiple ways in which it intersected with the treaty-port foreign-language press of the time. Combining a wealth of archival and newspaper sources, it is destined to be on the ‘must read’ list of all who are interested in state propaganda and news dissemination in the Republican period.”
—Julia C. Strauss, professor of Chinese politics, SOAS, University of London

“An absorbing and well-sourced study of KMT propaganda efforts to convince the United States to side with China rather than Japan in WWII. The study shows how the KMT, facing a massive power asymmetry compared to its Japanese opponent, managed to effectively use the soft power of foreign propaganda.”
—Rudolf G. Wagner, senior professor of Chinese studies, Cluster of Excellence Asia and Europe, Heidelberg University, Germany

Shanghai’s Skyline from the Racetrack 1938

This is from a puff piece, entitled ‘What is Shanghai Like?’, that appeared in newspapers in 1938 with lots of funny Chinese talking English and nightclubs and all that….right at a time when Shanghai was being invaded and effectively at war!!

Anyway, it’s an interesting perspective from down on the race course looking across to what is now Nanjing Road…

Meia-Noite Em Pequim – Available now in Brazil

Should you happen to be Brazilian and/or Portuguese speaking then the lovely people at Editora Fundamento have just published the Brazilian edition of Midnight in Peking (with a translation by Celso Antonio Almeida)  – more details here…

July 31 1938 – Gas Masks in Hong Kong

July 31 1938 – As the Japanese bomb nearby Canton experts are shipped from London  to Hong Kong to advise on the distributions, use and effectiveness of gas masks in the colony. Hopefully they checked out the supplier of “locally-made” gas masks – fake masks had already been appearing in Shanghai since 1937 (see blog post on that here)

Chinese Basketball Champions, 1935

The 1935 basketball champions of China were the boys from Fu Jen University (otherwise known as the Catholic University of Peking)….