Truly Criminal – A 1907 Murder in the Shanghai Trenches, the sad case of Eliza Shapera

I’m delighted to be a contributor to the new true crime anthology from the UK Crime Writers’ Association – Truly Criminal. My contribution – A Murder in the Shanghai Trenches – is the true story of the 1907 murder of Eliza Shapera, a Jewish woman of dubious virtue, a prostitute, probably trafficked from Russia in the then notorious red light area of Scott Road in Hongkew, aka The Trenches. The murder was investigated by two veteran detectives of the Shanghai Municipal Police Detective-Sergeant Thomas Idwal Vaughn and Detective-Inspector John McDowell. Their investigation took them into the heart of The Trenches and the brothels of the area and their suspects included a mysterious Indian pimp, two Chinese house thieves and various Chinese and European prostitutes. It was a major cause celebre at the time and highlighted the dark underbelly of turn of the century Shanghai, a world of vice and crime that was to make the city notorious as it grew and festered throughout the first half of the twentieth century up to the Second World War. I’ve based my reinvestigation of the case on the newspaper articles and court documents of the time and, I think, that even after more than a century we can now see quite clearly who killed Eliza, and why they did it….

I’ve added some additional background on old Shanghai’s districts of sin and murder as well as an excerpt from the piece here on the Los Angeles Review of Books China blog and an interview on the case of Eliza Shapera and writing about old Shanghai on RTHK Radio 3 in Hong Kong…..

Last Chance to Hear About China’s Ghost Cities in London – Tonight

A last chance to hear Wade Shepard on his new book Ghost Cities of China, the latest release in my Zed Books Asian Arguments series…

Arthur Probsthain Bookshop

22nd April 2015, 6.30pm
Ghost Cities of China
by Wade Shepard

London’s oldest Orientalist bookstore – Probsthains…as it was

and as it is now

The Arthur Probsthain Bookshop is pleased to invite you to a book launch reception co-hosted with Zed Books on Wednesday, 22nd April, at 6.30 pm at Arthur Probsthain Bookshop, 41 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3PE (opposite British Museum).

Wade Shepard, the author of Ghost Cities of China, will be happy to sign copies of his book on purchase.

Light refreshments and drinks will be available.

RSVP. Tel. 0207 636 1096

Minnie the Lu Lu Terrier, Tunbridge Wells’s Most Famous Victorian Chinese Stuffed Dog

Say hello to Minnie, the Lu Lu Terrier, born in China in 1871 and died in Tunbridge Wells, Kent in 1883 and is now preserved, stuffed, in a glass case in the Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery as perhaps their strangest exhibit. Tunbridge Wells was once the home of rakes and dandies, rather than yummy mummies and tired commuters and so quite the place for Minnie. The cabinet (a bit hard to see in this photo I admit) was created by Minnie’s owner with preserved flowers and pictures of wide eyed children. Though described as a Lu Lu terrier, no such breed exists officially but Minnie’s owner called her a Lu Lu terrier and so that is what she has remained – a stuffed, preserved, garlanded, ball of white floss from China in a glass cabinet in Tunbridge Wells. Seems happy enough to me….

The Best Writing by Diplomats from China – Don’t expect anything recent

Reading Kerry Brown’s recent short, but measured, Penguin Special on the parlous state of diplomacy when it comes to China I couldn’t help pondering one of the problems that Brown posits with tact but I’ll mention with none – the generally poor state of most western nations diplomatic staff in China. Britain in particular has not had anyone able to offer much thought on China for some time now in Beijing. But once diplomats in China were fun, fascinating and all-round intellectuals, scholars and poets. Blandness is today’s key to being a top diplomat in China it seems – say nothing, do less, hold no opinions. It wasn’t always like that and the books below prove it…books we will never see the like of again now the age of the diplomat-scholar and diplomat-poet is long past….

Paul S Reinsch, An American Diplomat in China (1922). Reinsch was an early China Hugger who had the temerity to like China and the Chinese and actually believe in promoting the Open Door Policy, Wilson’s 14 Points and agenda for smaller, less powerful nations and had to resign after the First World War when Washington turned its back on all that. He was attacked for being soft on China, and for having a German surname, but he was a great American Ambassador and wrote a considered and affectionate book about his time in Peking. In An American Diplomat Reinsch fought back and defended his position and the Chinese – not a likely thing to appear on bookshelves these days from an Ambassador to the PRC.

Daniele Vare’s The Maker of Heavenly Trousers (1935) is the best of several books Vare wrote while an Italian diplomat in Peking. He was urbane, stylish, extremely well read and very popular. A modern day diplomat would find wandering the hutongs for chance conversations with interesting merchants a bit tricky – they’re pretty much all bulldozed and somehow the tale of a walk round a Carrefour and a chat with the staff at a new Subway Sandwiches franchise is just not as charming.

Reginald Johnston was a British diplomat in Hong Kong and Weihaiwei and, of course, tutor to Pu Yi. Twilight in the Forbidden City (1934) is the story of that experience and the old Forbidden City. One imagines that the tutors of some horrid Red Prince at Harvard won’t get quite the same lush source material.

Saint-John Perse’s Anabasis is a wonderful poem written in 1924 and then translated by none other than TS Eliot in 1930 (any diplomat poetry worthy of an Eliot translation currently!). Perse was actually Alexis Leger, the press attache at the French Legation in Peking between 1916 and 1921. While in Peking he wrote Anabasis and so it is suffused with imagery from China and Asia.  It is simply beyond comprehension to imagine a diplomat in Beijing doing such a thing now!

The marvelously named Count Damien de Martel and Baron Leon Viktorovich de Hoyer wrote Silhouettes of Peking in 1920 something or other – it was mildly scandalous at the time recounting various love affairs and infidelities. De Martel served as Chargé d’Affaires in the 1910s and Foreign Minister in the 1920s; De Hoyer was the Russian head of the Russo-Asiatic Bank’s Peking branch. Imagine the British Ambassador and the head of Standard Chartered in Beijing writing a racy, scandalous and immensely evocative book of the city after the fall of the Qing nowadays!

Very Special RAS Shanghai Event – A Screening of The Shanghai Document—‘Shanhkayskiy Dokument’ from 1928 – 23/4/15

RAS Documentary Group

The Shanghai Document—‘Shanhkayskiy Dokument’

 

Ghost Cities of China – London launch with Wade Shepherd & Owen Hatherley, Waterstone’s, Piccadilly – 20/4/15

I’ll be launching the latest book in my Asian Arguments series for Zed Books at Waterstone’s on Piccadilly (a lovely, lovely big bookstore if you’ve never been inside and a wonderful piece of architecture itself) on April 20th with a round table discussion on China’s Ghost Cities with the author Wade Shepard and Owen Hatherley, author of A Guide to The New Ruins of Great Britain and Militant Modernism.

Place: Waterstone’s, Piccadilly

Time: 7pm

This event is free but booking your place is essential! Please contact: piccadilly@waterstones.com or 020 7851 2400

Laowai Rampage in Shanghai – The Night Angry Italians Trashed the Isis Cinema in Hongkew

Years ago I came across a reference to the riot at the Isis Theatre (cinema) in Hongkew in February 1937. I thought it worth a little investigation. On a cold February night in 1937 200 Italians – Squadrini posted in Shanghai, Italian sailors on shore leave and some particularly nationalistic local Fascisti Shanghailanders descended upon the Isis Theatre (cinema) in Hongkew and trashed it. As you can see from the newspaper article below there was quite a fight and the Russian projectionists got done over. The interior of the cinema was wrecked and they stole the film. Why such a kerfuffle?

The film in question was a Soviet Russian made movie showing the atrocities committed by Italy in its invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) a year or two before. The Italians in Shanghai were obviously not happy at the film’s portrayal of their country and its empire building actions under Mussolini. The Nationalist Chinese government tried to get the film back, but I don’t think they ever did. The cinema did recover and resume screenings of other films.

The Isis was up on Boundary Road (now Tianmu Road), effectively the junction between the International Settlement in Hongkew (Hongkou) and the Northern External Roads in Chinese controlled Paoshan (Baoshan). The Laslo Hudec designed cinema was close by the North Szechuen Road (now Sichuan Road North) and not far from the heavily patronised Venus Cafe. The fighting spilled out of the cinema onto Boundary Road until a combined force of Shanghai Municipal Police, Japanese Gendarmes, Italian military police and the Chinese police turned up to sort it all out.

The North Szechuen Road

Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937-1945

One for the specialists on WW2 in China I think….

Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937 – 45 is the first ready reference to the organization and armament of Chinese ground forces during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 – 45. The work integrates Chinese, Japanese and Western sources to examine the details of the structure and weapons of the period. Recent scholarship has contributed greatly to our understanding of China’s role in the war, but this is the first book to deal with the bottom-level underpinnings of this massive army, crucial to an understanding of its tactical and operational utility. An introductory chapter discusses the military operations in China, often given short shrift in World War II histories. The work then traces the evolution of the national army’s organizational structure from the end of the Northern Expedition to the conclusion of World War II. Included are tables of organization and strength reports for the wartime period. The armament section illustrates and details not only the characteristics of the many and varied weapons used in China, many seen nowhere else, but also their acquisition and such local production as was undertaken. This is complemented by a chapter on the arsenals and their evolution and production programs. The Chinese army was one of the largest of the war and it, and Japan’s, fought longer than any other. It faced unique challenges, including fragmented loyalties, huge expanses of territory, poor logistics networks, inadequate arms supplies, and, often, incompetence and corruption. Nevertheless, they fought bravely in major battles through 1941 and were able to counterpunch effectively in important regions through the rest of the war. Aimed at both military historians and wargamers, this work fills an important gap in our understanding of this, the most under-appreciated army of the war.