What if the US Fleet had Sailed for Singapore in May 1940?

An interesting possible alternative history of the naval war in the Pacific offers itself from Paul Willetts’s new book Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms (which I will get round to reviewing in full in another place soon), about the Tyler Kent affair in early World War Two. I’ve blogged about the China-born Kent before here briefly.

Kent, working in the US Embassy in London in 1940, stole various private communiques between Churchill and Roosevelt. Churchill was obviously keen to solicit aid and possibly military involvement from the American president as continental Europe fell to the Nazis and Britain was left alone.

Among these communiques was one extremely TOP SECRET communique from May 1940 from Churchill to FDR. In it Churchill says:

“I am looking to you to keep that Japanese dog quiet in the Pacific, using Singapore in any way convenient.”

FDR replied:

“As you know, the American fleet is now concentrated at Hawaii where it will remain for the time being…The best of luck to you.”

So FDR didn’t take Churchill up on his offer to utilise Singapore for American naval vessels. But what if he had? Perhaps the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would not have been so devastating? Perhaps the invasion of Singapore would have been delayed or averted? Impossible to know of course, but an interesting “what if?” of history I think…..

The troopship RMS Queen Mary in Singapore Graving Dock, August 1940

The Royal Asiatic Society Beijing – October Events

Very happy to report that the recently formed (a couple of years anyway) chapter of the Royal Asiatic Society appears to be going from strength to strength…here’s their October programme….

October Events

• Tuesday 20^th – at the Bookworm: “Western Literature in Chinese movies”- a panel discussion led by Laura Daverio and Isobel Wolte

• Friday 23^rd – at The Courtyard Institute: “55 Days at Peking”, an RASBJ Film Club showing, introduced by John Olbrich

• Tuesday  27^th – at the Bookworm: “Contemporary Chinese Landscape Photography”, an illustrated talk by Yining He

You are on our list to receive event notices by email, and details are also available at www.rasbj.org. Expect more superb events in November and December, which together will illustrate the Society’s developing theme of bringing China and the world together.
If you have found our events interesting, please spread the word – and encourage friends and acquaintances to join RASBJ at http://www.rasbj.org/membership.php.

The Lord of Strange Deaths: The Fiendish World of Fu Manchu – Now Available

Out this week and with an essay by me on Dragon Ladies and Rohmer….available from the Strange Attractor web site and soon all over

Lord of Strange Deaths: The Fiendish World of Sax Rohmer
Edited by Phil Baker & Antony Clayton

Forever associated with his creation of evil genius Dr Fu Manchu, a Chinese super-criminal scheming to destroy Western civilisation, Sax Rohmer (1883-1959) was the king of pulp exotica. At the height of his fame Rohmer was one of the most popular writers on the planet, but now he is largely remembered for outrageous attitudes and lurid Chinaphobia. Lord of Strange Deaths approaches Rohmer with something more than routine disapproval, and instead brings out the complexity and historical significance of his work.

This is the first extended attempt to do justice to Rohmer, and it ranges across the spectrum of his output from music-hall writing to Theosophy. Contributors focus on subjects including Egyptology, 1890s decadence, Edwardian super-villains, graphic novels, cinema, the French Situationists, Chinese dragon ladies, and the Arabian Nights. The result is a testimony to the enduring fascination and relevance of Rohmer’s absurd, sinister and immensely atmospheric world.

Contributions from:
Jean Augris • Phil Baker • Clive Bloom • Antony Clayton • Gary Dickinson • Christopher Fowler • Christopher Frayling • Paul French • Robert Irwin • Lawrence Knapp • Gary Lachman • Roger Luckhurst • Alan Moore • Steve Moore • Kim Newman • Kevin O’Neill • Mark Valentine • Anne Witchard.

British Troop Bunker to Defend the Settlement in 1937

Rather jerry-built structures in Shanghai are, it appears, nothing new. Here’s a rather hastily erected British troop bunker designed to defend the Settlement in 1937. Obviously they could fire from ground and raised level and it had a pretty heavily sandbagged frontage, though I doubt the rotunda on top would withstand a tank shell! Sadly, I do not know the exact location of this bunker….

Annamite Soldier in 1940 Shanghai

We see a lot of pictures of western, Chinese and Sikh police and soldiers in old Shanghai – far fewer Annamite soldiers who worked and served in the French Concession. This picture is from 1940 and is of an Annamite soldier guarding Shanghai’s “Newspaper Row” (Avenue Edward VII) – I’ll blog on the attacks on “Newspaper Row” imminently. Annamite soldiers may have been in Shanghai earlier but certainly the  3rd Regiment of Tonkinese Rifles was posted to Shanghai in 1915, another company was sent to the city in 1927 during the disturbances. Anyway, here’s “A tough little French Annamite” on Avenue Edward VII (Yan’an Road today and the elevated highway)….

Some Random Yellow Peril Pulp Covers

Some random Yellow Peril pulp covers for your Saturday…..

Chinese Style: Rediscovering the Architecture of Poy Gum Lee, 1923-1968

A new exhibition at New York’s Museum of Chinese in America…

PS: More on Poy Gum Lee here in the New York Times

And, more relevantly to this blog, here from Shanghai Art Deco on his Shanghai work (including the old YMCA below with its ornate Chinese roof – now crowded in but once standing majestically)….

Chinese Style: Rediscovering the Architecture of Poy Gum Lee, 1923-1968

In this survey exhibition, architectural historian Kerri Culhane documents and explores Poy Gum Lee’s (1900-1968) nearly 50-year long career in both China and New York and examines Lee’s modernist influence in New York Chinatown. This project will result in the first-ever comprehensive list of Lee’s projects in New York. Lee’s hand is visible in the major civic architecture of Chinatown post 1945, which blends stylistically Chinese details with modern technologies and materials. Lee was the architectural consultant for the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association’s building on Mott Street (1959) and the On Leong Tong Merchant’s Association at Mott & Canal Street (1948-50) – the most prominent Chinese modern building in Chinatown. Among his highly visible commissions, Lee designed the Chinese-American WWII Monument in Kimlau Square (1962), a modernist take on a traditional Chinese pailou, or ceremonial gate; the Lee Family Association (ca. 1950); and the Pagoda Theatre (1963, demolished).

The Beijing Bookworm Turns 10

Amazing to think the Beijing Bookworm has been ten years up those steep, steep steps of Nan Sanlitun! And so a brief trip down memory lane….

In those ten years I got to be on quite a few panels as well as moderating a host of great writers including Louise Welsh on Naming the Bones, Carol Birch on Jamrach’s Menagerie, Chris Womersley on Bereft, Qiu Xiaolong on Inspector Chen, Guy Delisle on Pyongyang, Michel Faber on The Crimson Petal and the White, Barbara Demick on North Korea, Catherine Sampson on Robin Ballantyne, Ridley Pearson on writing multiple bestsellers, Jonathan Fenby on warlord China and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir on Icelandic crime among others….

Plus, over the years, the Bookworm invited me to talk about foreign journalists in China, Carl Crow, the old Peking Badlands, Midnight in Peking and the Pamela Werner murder (which was originally a short story in the Bookworm’s own 2008 publication Beijing: Portrait of a City) and even Andre Malraux’s Man’s Fate one year. Penguin China kindly launched Midnight in Peking on the roof one hot August night and, after I decided to adapt Lao She’s short story Ding into a one-man monologue, we transformed the stage area into a Qingdao beach for a night!!

Chatting with Carol Birch about her novel Jamrach’s Menagerie in 2012

Talking murder, mayhem, opium and all round Peking Badlands badness…

With Qiu Xialong and Cathy Sampson talking criminal minds in 2009

Up on the roof launching a book one hot August night in 2012

You have to admit local actor Wang Xuankun was up for it to play Lao She’s Ding…on his own, with my script, in his trunks!!

Clearly one of the more bizarre performances to graze the stage of the Bookworm in the last decade!!