Posted: February 1st, 2016 | No Comments »
A map showing the naval reach of the Great Powers in 1932. The newspaper noted the problems in China in 1932 with Japanese fighting in Shanghai – Britain had already dispatched ships to Hong Kong and Shanghai in case of any incursion into the International Settlement. The US had battle fleets capable of reaching Shanghai in Cavite and Pearl Harbor. The French were a bit stuck as Saigon could only handle smaller ships. Rangoon sadly gets misspelled. You can click on the map to enlarge….
Posted: January 31st, 2016 | No Comments »
Shanghai Bound with Richard Dix and Mary Brian was a silent hit in 1927. Mutinous river freighters in China were a regular news item at the time so it was a “ripped from the front pages” type story about a chaotic China and love on board ship. Sadly the term “tenderfoot” (a person who is not used to living in rough conditions or outdoors) has rather slipped from everyday usage….
Posted: January 30th, 2016 | No Comments »
Nowadays a triptych of those with “China Trouble” would probably be either three disgraced corrupt politicians/businessmen or three unfortunate Hong Kong booksellers. In 1926 it was the following: an imprisoned ex-president and two warlords…..
Posted: January 29th, 2016 | 1 Comment »
This letter posted from the offices of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration offices (in the Embankment Building (below) down on Soochow Creek) to St Louis, Missouri in 1947 shows you just how crazy inflation got in post-WW2, Civil War China. What should have cost US¢45 cost 6,900 Chinese dollars. fortunately the Chinese post office issues stamps in C$3,000 and 1,000 denominations to help….
From here….
to here…for C$6,900!
![Star-Times Building [St. Louis Star-Times]. Twelfth Street and Delmar Avenue. Photograph by Joseph Hampel, 1946. Joseph Hampel Album. p. 19a. Acc. # 1998.94. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collections. NS 23714. Scan © 2007, Missouri Historical Society. {"subject_uri":"http://collections.mohistory.org/resource/18482","local_id":"34632"}](https://chinarhyming.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/18482.jpg)
Star-Times Building [St. Louis Star-Times]. Twelfth Street and Delmar Avenue. Photograph by Joseph Hampel, 1946. Joseph Hampel Album. p. 19a. Acc. # 1998.94. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collections. NS 23714. Scan © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.
{“subject_uri”:”http://collections.mohistory.org/resource/18482″,”local_id”:”34632″}
Posted: January 28th, 2016 | No Comments »
In April 1930, when he was 27 years old, Galeazzo Ciano married Benito Mussolini’s daughter Edda. Soon after their marriage, Ciano left for Shanghai to serve as Italian consul where his partying, womanising and politics became notorious (and she was apparently no slouch either). The oldest of their three children, Fabrizio Benito Costanzo (“Ciccino”), was born in Shanghai on 1 October 1931 and is pictured here with Edda in the city a short while later….
Posted: January 28th, 2016 | No Comments »
Feb. 19, Friday “History of China in 50 Objects” by Newman Tours for RASBJ
RASBJ has asked Newman Tours to lead us on an exploration of “The History of China in 50 Objectsâ€, for a fresh perspective on the Middle Kingdom. Inspired by the wildly popular radio series, this tour was created by Newman Tours to explore the human history of China through 50 of the most celebrated art objects in Beijing’s National Museum of China. Our guide will take you on an informative and entertaining journey of 4,000 years, using the most venerated objects of the museum’s collection to illustrate the principal developments of China’s epic history. Hear about reknowned Royal Asiatic Society explorer Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943), the fabled Silk Road archaeologist!
Guests MUST BRING PASSPORTS in order to be able to get into the National Museum – them’s the rules in the People’s Republic!!
WHAT: “History of China in 50 Objects†at the National Museum, organized for RASBJ by Newman Tours
WHEN: Feb 19, Friday 10:00 AM -12 noon
WHERE: Meet at 10:00 AM at Tiananmen East Metro Station Exit D, 天安门东地é“ç«™D出å£å¤–é¢ (on Dong Changan Jie, near Guangchang Dongce Lu: 在东长安街上，é 近广场东侧路)
HOW MUCH: RASBJ members RMB 130, non-members RMB 180
RSVP: email events@rasbj.org and write “50 Objects†in the subject header
Posted: January 27th, 2016 | No Comments »
An interesting new re-issue from the equally interesting Taipei-based Camphor Press…
Little known today, Instructions for Chinese Girls and Women has a storied place in Chinese history as the first educational text for women and a standard reference for them from the first century AD all the way into the nineteenth. Polymath author Ban Zhao was perhaps China’s greatest female scholar. A writer, historian, mathematician, and astronomer, she was also a tutor to the ladies of the imperial court and a close confidant of Empress Deng. Although Ban Zhao completed a monumental historical tome on the Western Han dynasty, she would be best remembered for this slighter work – a short handbook of female etiquette in which she advises submissiveness in order to achieve household harmony. A kind of women’s Art of War, there is more yielding than winning in the guidebook, but at least Ban Zhao was a pioneer in asserting that girls should be educated.
Instructions for Chinese Girls and Women is an easy, enjoyable read. It contains passages preaching subservience that will make the modern reader cringe and/or laugh, but there is interesting nuance there for readers with an open mind.
Posted: January 26th, 2016 | No Comments »
Over the years of its existence British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) consistently produced beautiful posters advertising its London-Hong Kong routes. Sadly BOAC ceased operations in 1974 – the final picture below is from shortly before that….I’ve tried to get them in chronological order…sorry but can’t attribute the artist on most of these…
1957
This one I do know is from 1961 is by artist David Judd
1966
1966
late 1960s by Arnold Fujita