Shanghai ’37 (Shanghai Hotel), Vicki Baum and Women’s Boxing in Berlin

I blogged the other day over at the Los Angeles Review of Books China blog on some comparisons between inter-war Istanbul and Shanghai, by way of slipping in a review of Charles King’s excellent book Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul. I happened to mention in that review that Shanghai’s equivalent of the Pera Palace in the 1930s was probably Sir Victor Sassoon’s Cathay Hotel (now the rather less exciting Peace Hotel) and that that hotel had its own novel – Vicki Baum’s Shanghai ’37 (sometimes called Shanghai Hotel). I’m going to assume a hefty percentage of China Rhyming readers will know Baum’s novel, but I thought this as good a opportunity as any to slip in a picture of its rather good original cover…

What I didn’t realise until I happened to check Baum’s bio was that she was an early advocate of women’s boxing and, in the 1920s, trained with the Turkish prizefighter Sabri Mahir at his Studio for Boxing and Physical Culture in Berlin. So there actually was a Turkey/Shanghai link in Baum’s life.

Baum in a Berlin boxing gym in the 1920s

And a few other Shanghai’37 (Shanghai Hotel covers)

Royal Asiatic Society Beijing – Imperial Splendor and a Life in Ruins – A Tour of the Yuanming Yuan – October 18

Imperial Splendor and a Life in Ruins: A guided tour of Yuanming Yuan (the Old Summer Palace)

WHEN    Saturday, October 18, 2014, 2.00 PM – 6.30 PM (details below)
WHERE  YuanmingYuan (the Old Summer Palace), starting at the East Gate
COST    Members RMB 100, non-Members RMB 150  (prices include entrance tickets but NOT bus transport – see note below)
Background
The Yuanming Yuan, “garden of perfect brightness”, symbolizes the bandwidth of European- Chinese relations, as in its history we see cultural exchange as well as conflict. In its heyday during the reign of Emperor Qianlong, its buildings were designed in Western rococo style by European Jesuits in collaboration with Chinese architects. 100 years later, on October 18, 1860, British troops (who had allied with the French for this expedition) put the Yuanming Yuan to the torch. The ruins of the buildings in Western style became the distinctive landmark of the Yuanming Yuan.

Our guide and cultural interpreter is Dr. Ines Eben v. Racknitz, who will lead a tour of the ruins of the Yuanming Yuan, explaining its role in the Imperial history of China, the tragic events of 1860 that led to its destruction, and contemporary issues of conservation and restoration of this exceptional Chinese garden and monument.

Dr. Ines Eben von Racknitz currently teaches Chinese history at Nanjing University, focusing on late Qing, as well as global, history.  Her PhD thesis (now published as a book) focuses on the China expedition of 1860 and the destruction of the Yuanming Yuan; she is also an expert on European colonialism in China.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON POSSIBLE BUS: If demand is sufficient, RASBJ can arrange a bus departing from the Hilton Hotel on the E. Third Ring Rd., 400 meters north of Lufthansa Center.  Cost depends on numbers, though will likely approximate taxi fare to/from central Beijing. But we need to decide SOON. If you’re willing to pay for bus transport, please email membership@rasbj.org  NO LATER THAN SEPT. 30, specifying how many seats. If bus is viable, RASBJ will e-mail you to confirm, with exact cost and payment method. THOSE WANTING A BUS MUST PAY FOR IT BY OCT. 11; the bus cost will not be refundable.
TIMETABLE (INCLUDING BUS OPTION):
2.00 PM —depart Hilton Hotel, N. Third Ring Rd.  by bus, with Prof. v. Racknitz
3.00 PM —arrive YuanmingYuan East Gate
3.15-5.15 PM — starting at the East Gate, tour includes view of model, ruins, new exhibitions and other sites
5.30 PM —depart East Gate by bus
6.30 PM —arrive Hilton Hotel  by bus

Numbers will be limited; RASBJ Members have priority until September 30th.

Location and access: see map below for location. There is no direct public transport to the East Gate. From central Beijing, taxi takes approx. 1 hour and costs approx. RMB70 each way.
REPLY–Please email membership@rasbj.org to RSVP , stating  whether you want to pay for seats on a bus, and if so how many. 

Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves

Peipei Qiu’s Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves may not be comfortable reading but it is essential….I would also point China Rhymers to this extended review piece on the book from Megan Shank in the Los Angeles Review of Books…

During the Asia-Pacific War, the Japanese military forced hundreds of thousands of women across Asia into “comfort stations” where they were repeatedly raped and tortured. Japanese imperial forces claimed they recruited women to join these stations in order to prevent the mass rape of local women and the spread of venereal disease among soldiers. In reality, these women were kidnapped and coerced into sexual slavery. Comfort stations institutionalized rape, and these “comfort women” were subjected to atrocities that have only recently become the subject of international debate.

Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Japan’s Imperial Sex Slaves features the personal narratives of twelve women forced into sexual slavery when the Japanese military occupied their hometowns. Beginning with their prewar lives and continuing through their enslavement to their postwar struggles for justice, these interviews reveal that the prolonged suffering of the comfort station survivors was not contained to wartime atrocities but was rather a lifelong condition resulting from various social, political, and cultural factors. In addition, their stories bring to light several previously hidden aspects of the comfort women system: the ransoms the occupation army forced the victims’ families to pay, the various types of improvised comfort stations set up by small military units throughout the battle zones and occupied regions, and the sheer scope of the military sexual slavery-much larger than previously assumed. The personal narratives of these survivors combined with the testimonies of witnesses, investigative reports, and local histories also reveal a correlation between the proliferation of the comfort stations and the progression of Japan’s military offensive.

The first English-language account of its kind, Chinese Comfort Women exposes the full extent of the injustices suffered by and the conditions that caused them.

Anybody ever had a toke of “Tokyo”?

So series 1 of the excellent Birmingham gang saga Peaky Blinders featured a hyper realised Chinatown and a plenty of sucking on the good old style opium pipe. But now in series 2 we’re in the mid-1920s and we’re in London and the boys are snorting back long lines of “Tokyo”, which we can safely assume to be cocaine. OK, cocaine was a big 1920s drug and London nightclubs were the place to get into it, but ” Tokyo”? I’ve never heard that slang name for coke and I think I’ve heard most – anyone?

According to the programme notes for Peaky Blinders series 2, in an interview with Colm McCarthy, the director, he claims, “Tokyo is the street name for cocaine at the time” (the time being 1924). I can’t find any references to Tokyo as a slang name for coke in the 1920s in either the UK or US so I’m thinking this is made up – bit, if so, why, it’s not as if cocaine hasn’t got enough slang names from the period.

Anyway, just being anal as ever I suppose – it’s all great TV!

The boys have come down to London…and got a taste for a line of “Tokyo”….

Ruan Lingyu’s The Goddess – Remastered and with Live Music – 14/10, BFI

As part of the BFI’s London Film Festival Ruan Lingyu’s amazing silent The Goddess has been remastered and shown with a live soundtrack….October 14th, 7.30, Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank

China’s place in the British Empire of Crime

Browsing the book tent at the Wigtown Book Festival last week I came across this book I hadn’t heard of before – Tim Newark’s Empire of Crime: Organised Crime in the British Empire. Of course plenty of references to China, Hong Kong and especially Shanghai (Bill Fairbirn and the SMP, Big Eared Du, opium etc etc). Though readers of China Rhyming will be aware of most of these things the book does usefully show how Shanghai and China fitted into an “empire” of crime linking Cairo with India to China and so on as well as linking the British ending of the opium trade to the rise of the illicit narcotics business across the empire and wherever its tentacles reached.

San Francisco Chinese Hospital Demolition

I recently posted a series of old postcards of San Francisco Chinatown. Although I’ve visited several times I can’t really claim to know the area well or what has gone on there in terms of architecture and redevelopment. Thanks then to a reader who pointed out that the old Chinese Hospital in Chinatown was knocked down last year. Apparently this was after strong objections from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A new hospital is being built on the site but still it does seem a shame they couldn’t have found a new location and re-purposed the old building. The original building dates back to 1925 as the only purpose built Chinese hospital in the USA. It was originally built to replace the Tung Wah Dispensary. Incidentally, so Wikipedia tells me, Bruce Lee was born there. Anyway, some pictures….

New From Zed Asian Arguments – A Kingdom in Crisis: Thailand’s Struggle for Democracy in the Twenty-First Century by Andrew MacGregor Marshall

Zed Asian Arguments is a series of shorter, but serious, books I commission and edit on topical Asian issues…we do two a year, and this October I’m delighted to be publishing Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s A Kingdom in Crisis (for American Amazon click here). I believe this is an exceptionally important book on a subject that, while the Thai government would like it not to be published or spoken about, is intrinsic to understanding the still unfolding events in Bangkok politics….

Struggling to emerge from a despotic past, and convulsed by an intractable conflict that will determine its future, Thailand stands at a defining moment in its history. Scores have been killed on the streets of Bangkok. Freedom of speech is routinely denied. Democracy appears increasingly distant. Long dreaded by Thais, the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej is expected to unleash even greater instability.

Yet in spite of the impact of the crisis, and the extraordinary importance of the royal succession, they have never been comprehensively analyzed, because Thailand’s draconian lèse majesté law has silenced most discussion – until now. Breaking Thailand’s draconian lèse majesté Andrew MacGregor Marshall is one of the only journalists covering contemporary Thailand who tells the whole story. He provides a comprehensive explanation that makes sense of the crisis for the first time, revealing the unacknowledged succession conflict that has become entangled with the struggle for democracy in Thailand.