Jean Lindsay of 22 Nanking Road

So, this advert from 1930 talks of Jean Lindsay selling ivory and bronze – Unusual “Things Chinese”. This is interesting as I had always associated Jean Lindsay with tapestries, brocades, dresses and bags rather than curio items. Jean Lindsay was always at 22 Nanking Road, on the third floor of the Kelly & Walsh Building (after the famous Shanghai publishers). I’ve put a few examples of Jean Lindsay items below, but simply do a google image search and you’ll come up with loads – most bags, dresses and accessories.

Jean Lindsay was really a ladies accessories shop and so I suppose the sideline of ivories and bronzes was just that, a sideline to the main business. It makes sense – Lindsay had a high end Shanghailander and rich Chinese clientele and, it seems, 1930s Shanghai (with it ocean liners of sojourners arriving daily) just couldn’t get enough of curio and antique shops. I believe the curios were kept in a “Studio” adjacent to the main store. The Studio had regular exhibitions – for instance in 1935 the Studio hosted “Brass Ornaments of the Ming and K’ang Hsi Periods”.

Jean Lindsay items can be partly (but not wholly – there were, you’ll not be surprised to hear, fakes out there) identified by a label stating:  ‘Jean Lindsay, 22 Nanking Road, Shanghai’.

I’m afraid I don’t know much about Jean Lindsay – beyond she must have been a woman of taste given the items below. I believe she was interned during the war though was married to a Chinese man called Yu. Anymore information of course greatly appreciated….

Hand bag – Rectangular beaded hand bag (evening) in silver gold and green small glass beads. Twisted bead fringe. Gilt frame and chain. Label inside brown sateen lining ‘Jean Lindsay, 22 Nanking Road, Shanghai’. 1920 (circa)

Eastman-Kodak Shanghai Head Office, 1930

I’ve posted various 1930s ads for Kodak in the past – here for their cine camera and here for the 1940 model Kodak 35 camera. Kodak were pretty much always at the same address in Shanghai – 24 Yuen Ming Yuen Road (Yuanmingyuan Road now), back behind the Bund (and, by the way, handily close to their ad agency in China, Carl Crow of course, on Jinkee/Dianchi Road).

A Tradition Worth Reestablishing – Shanghai Jazz Funerals

Planning to die in Shanghai? Perhaps it’s time to resuscitate the tradition of the “Jazz Funeral”. 1934…and a prominent Chinese merchant gets a majorly face giving jazz funeral – wireless sets with loud speakers blasting American jazz. What a way to go – you can keep your paper Louis Vuitton bags! Classy as our 1934 merchant was – he wasn’t original.

Carl Crow recalled, in the 1920s, the noisy funeral processions that made their way through Shanghai playing such strange Western standards as Ta-ra-ra, Boom-de-aye and There’ll Be A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight.

Bigger than Coke in old Shanghai – Green Spot Orangeade

Coca-Cola was of course available in old Shanghai, but it wasn’t the most popular soft drink – that was Green Spot. Green Spot was a brand of bottled non-carbonated orangeade. It was developed in the US in 1934 but became phenomenally popular in Asia in the late 1930s and throughout World War Two. By the late 1930s it was already being bottled in Shanghai under license by a Cantonese called Lau Bong.

Best Car Hire in Shanghai, 1930?

Need a car in 1930 Shanghai – try Best Car Hire. how could you not manage to hire a car with three – yes three – phone lines open and representatives prowling the lobby at both the Palace (on the Bund/Nanking Road and now the stupidly named Swatch Art Peace Hotel whatever) and the Astor over in Hongkew (now the Pujiang).

Chefoo, the Rev. McMillan & the town’s lace industry

Two adverts from 1936 for Chefoo-based lace firms. Chefoo (now Yantai) was famous as a lace production centre between the wars. The story goes that a certain Reverend James Mcmillan, a missionary, decided to create a lace industry to alleviate the poverty of Chefoo. It seems the workers of Chefoo took to a bit of needlepoint and an industry was born – with all its attendant sidelines including hair nets! At least that’s if the advert from the Sydney department store Hordern Brothers (below) is to be believed (by the way the marvellous Victorian Italiante-style Hordern Brothers store was demolished in 1986 to make way for the utterly disgusting World Square – you can see many pictures of the old store here).

From its nineteenth century origins the trade flourished, even up to early communist times. Here then are Franklin Trading and Hwa Ching Ho & Co. advertising their Chefoo lace to the world.

J.L. George – Chinese Furniture in Old Shanghai

The J.L. George Chinese furniture shop does indeed sound worth a visit. George’s (the apostrophe slipped on the ad below) was up on Avenue Road, now Beijing West Road, that ran parallel to the Bubbling Well Road right to the western edge of the Settlement. Like many retailers of the 1930s looking to dodge sudden rent rises (nothing new there then) George appears to have moved around – at 1475-1477 in 1930 but also listed at No.805 at times. Their telephone number was 34732, by the way.

J.L. George appeared to be obviously foreign-owned though using Chinese craftsman – mostly originating from Dongyang in Zhejiang. In fact the company was owned by Shuang Hong Tai. We could speculate why Shuang used a western name of course – issues of trust and reliability were similar then as often today. Whatever the reason, Shanghailanders made the store popular.

Shuang hired low cost rural carpenters and craftsmen and brought them to Shanghai. This was a tradition begun in the early 1900s in Hangzhou before the furniture “factories” realised the potential size of the coastal Shanghai market and the spending power of Shanghailanders. Each one of their objects was stamped “Made in China” (which had a rather better reputation then than now!). The company moved to Hong Kong in 1949 to escape the communists and remained in business for some time after that as J.L. Georges. Interestingly, looking at various adverts from the 1930s – the company switched between J.L. George and J.L. Georges quite often. Items of furniture made by J.L. George come up for auction quite often, but due to the not completely great quality, the abundance of items they produced and their relative newness they don’t attract much money. However, they are of interest as being a staple brand found in Shanghailander homes.

Occasionally items do come up for auction with a J.L. George provenance, such as the carved wooden chest below (which sold for US$375 at auction in 2010!)….and below those a collection of three J.L. George tables that went for US$234.

And some other J.L. George items….

Voicemap’s China Routes

I’ve been meaning to write something about Voicemap for a while…so here we are. Walking tours that you can download on to your mobile telephone or “device”, some are free and some cost a small fee. My own walk retracing the locations of Midnight in Peking and the 1930s city of that book is available (free) – it’s here. I note there are some other China-based walks by people who know their stuff:

Alec Ash (author of the recently published Wish Lanterns) has a stroll through the old hutongs (those that are left anyway) around the Drum and Bell Tower (here);

There’s also a walk – that I can only imagine is excellent – with Katya Knyazeva through Shanghai’s old town (again, probably best to go out and do while it’s still there!)

Hong Kong, Bangkok, Seoul, Singapore, Yokohama and other Asian destinations are also available.