Mayor Hsiao Chen-ying – A Most Enlightened Mayor of Tientsin

If China’s city mayors these days aren’t on the take or spending most of their time with their multiple mistresses then they’re prudes who spend their time locking up young feminists or banning old ladies from dancing in parks. Wonder then at the remarkably liberal and practical views of 1936 Mayor of Tientsin (Tianjin) Hsiao Chen-ying. Hsiao, faced with quite a few streets of sin and red light areas in his town, took a somewhat different approach to the previous “Moral Mayors” who had tried to suppress the drugs, girls and gambling. His basic idea was that if the foreigners in their concessions in Tientsin could have gambling, horse racing and lotteries, then why shouldn’t the Chinese in their portion of the treaty port? Simply license these activities, tax them and use the money to support the building of roads, bridges and schools. Let people smoke opium and pay a tax. And, by the way, by liberalising the whole scene you’d stop corrupt coppers taking squeeze from the brothels and casinos.

Hsiao, is seems, was as good as his word, allowing 50 opium dealers to commence business. Still, apparently a rather bunch of strait-laced students objected and protested. The Japanese turned a blind eye, shrugged their shoulders and invaded the city anyway the next year.

Historic Newspaper cover of the day – today being June 4th

Regular readers will know I often post newspapers articles from the past highlighting events in Chinese history….Here’s the only one to really post today….

The Mandarin at Sadler’s Wells, London – April 28, 1790

A feast of Chinoiserie entertainment in store for the patrons of Sadler’s Wells in April 1790….

Fresno’s Old and New Shanghai Cafes

The Old Shanghai Cafe stood at 1405 Kern Street in Fresno. This ad is from Christmas 1935 and the place was still in operation a decade later advertising in the 1946 edition of the California Police Officers Journal. Now, I just found the ad, I’m afraid I don’t know Fresno at all. Still, it did have a Chinatown – Tulare Street was the heart of it along with G Street, F Street, China Alley and Kern Street. Competitive too it seems – Johnnie Gee had the Old Shanghai Cafe and round on Tulare was the New Shanghai Cafe (might be the same folk owning them though) and plenty more Chinese restaurants too…..

Nicholas Kitto’s Photographic Record of China’s Treaty Ports

Photographer Nicholas Kitto has spent the last seven years visiting all the larger former Treaty Ports to photograph the remaining buildings from that era. At the same time he’s been seeking to track down the homes and offices of various members of his family who were in China from the 1860’s until 1945.

He has generously made all these photos available at his Treaty Port Galleries website – here – well worth a browse…

Mark Twain in China

Selina Lai-Henderson’s Mark Twain in China sheds light on Twain’s interest in China and that country’s interest in him….

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) has had an intriguing relationship with China that is not as widely known as it should be. Although he never visited the country, he played a significant role in speaking for the Chinese people both at home and abroad. After his death, his Chinese adventures did not come to an end, for his body of works continued to travel through China in translation throughout the twentieth century. Were Twain alive today, he would be elated to know that he is widely studied and admired there, and that “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” alone has gone through no less than ninety different Chinese translations, traversing China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Looking at Twain in various Chinese contexts–his response to events involving the American Chinese community and to the Chinese across the Pacific, his posthumous journey through translation, and China’s reception of the author and his work, “Mark Twain in China” points to the repercussions of Twain in a global theater. It highlights the cultural specificity of concepts such as “race,” “nation,” and “empire,” and helps us rethink their alternative legacies in countries with dramatically different racial and cultural dynamics from the United States.

James Ricalton’s China Stereoscopes

I first came across early American photojournalist James Ricalton’s (below looking like a fascinating chap) stereoscopes of China while researching my history of foreign correspondents in China, Through the Looking Glass (yes, Metropolitan Museum of Art – I already did that title!). Here though is an essay – China Through the Stereoscope – on Ricalton’s stereoscopes by Lissa Mitchell (I think there’s meant to be two S’s?) in New Zealand’s Off the Wall from 2014 (that I somehow missed when it first appeared). Well worth a look and a read.

If you happen to be in Canberrra – China & ANU — Diplomats, Adventurers, Scholars

China & ANU — Diplomats, Adventurers, Scholars

Exhibition dates: Friday, 29 May – Friday, 18 September 2015, and selected weekends
Gallery hours: 9:00am – 5:00pm, Monday to Friday

The Pacific War and its aftermath radically transformed Australian perceptions of what was then called ‘the Near North’ (Asia). Many recognised that in the postwar world Australia’s strategic interests and economic fortunes called for a new understanding of Asia and the Pacific. China loomed large in these calculations.

Australia’s first diplomatic representative to the Republic of China, Frederic Eggleston, was posted to the wartime capital of Chungking in 1941. In his despatches to Canberra he urged the government to recognise the importance of Asia and the Pacific in preparation for China’s emergence as a major power following the Pacific War. When Eggleston joined the Interim Council of The Australian National University (ANU) in 1946, he promoted the study of China as a key feature of the new School of Pacific Studies — today’s College of Asia and the Pacific.

In 1947, Eggleston wrote to Australia’s second minister to China, the noted economist Douglas Copland, to see if he would be interested in becoming the inaugural Vice-Chancellor of the new university. Copland accepted the position and, in 1948, he returned from a China embroiled in civil war to oversee the founding of ANU. It was on Copland’s recommendation that the British writer and scholar CP FitzGerald — whom he had known in postwar Nanking — was appointed as the university’s first China scholar. With Copland’s support, FitzGerald travelled to Hong Kong and acquired the library of the renowned writer and Buddhist scholar, Hsu Ti-shan 許地山. These books form the core of the Menzies Library Chinese collection, which has played a pivotal role in the scholarly study of China in this country.

Based on extensive research and featuring rare archival documents, photographs and films ‘China & ANU’ introduces the diplomats, adventurers and scholars who contributed to Australia’s engagement with China, the ‘Chinese Commonwealth’ and our region. In particular, the exhibition focusses on the interconnection between Australia’s first diplomat-scholars in China and Chinese Studies at the newly established Australian National University.

Special Events

Building Tour & Chinese Tea
Thursday, 23 April
5:15 – 5:45pm, The Bamboo Hall

Join us for a tour of the award-winning China in the World Building, designed by the Beijing-based architect Gerald Szeto 司徒佐. A selection of Chinese tea will be served in the CIW Teahouse following the tour.

Public Lecture: China & ANU – Diplomats, Adventurers, Scholars
Thursday, 23 April
6:00 – 7:00pm, The Auditorium

As part of the 2015 Canberra and Region Heritage Festival, titled ‘Conflict and Compassion’ to mark this ANZAC centenary year, CIW research scholar William Sima will discuss the connection between Australia’s first diplomatic representatives to the Republic of China and the establishment of Chinese Studies at The Australian National University.