Royal Asiatic Society Shanghai – Looting and Burning the Yuanmingyuan: The event of 1860, its Afterlife and Interpretation Today in China – 8/11/14

RAS WEEKENDER

The event of 1860, its Afterlife and Interpretation Today in China

Graphic Images and Consumer Culture – Republican Era Advertising in China

Graphic Images and Consumer Culture is in Chinese but worth it for the images alone…

That’s China London Launch with Mark Kitto – 5/11/14 – Daunts Marylebone

It may seem like just yesterday to some of us, but to many younger people the events that took place in Shanghai back in the 1990s and early 2000s are indeed ancient history, so they probably now get included on China Rhyming.

Anyway, the saga of Mark Kitto and the That’s magazine empire in China has become quite legendary (and the details in brief here for those not in the know) and now there’s a book by the man himself detailing those events….That’s China

launching this week at Daunts in Marylebone and China Rhymers are invited….

 In his best-selling debut, China Cuckoo, Mark Kitto described how he ‘lost a fortune and found a life in China’. In That’s China, the thrilling prequel, he tells the story of how he made that fortune. To the Chinese Communist Party, media is state owned propaganda. No individuals, let alone foreigners, will ever have a stake in it For seven roller coaster years, Mark Kitto outwitted powerful competitors and jealous partners to build the most profitable and popular English language publishing business in China since 1949. No foreigner in modern times has come so close to the heart of the Chinese propaganda machine on his own terms. Not even Rupert. Told with Kitto’s trademark self-deprecating humour and potentially unsettling honesty, That’s China is a rare thing, a business saga that will have you on the edge of your seat all the way to the final showdown; in the highest law court in China.

Hong Kong International Literary Festival 2014

Hong Kong Lit Fest 2014 gets underway from October 31st to November 9th…a few events of possible interest to China Rhymers….

November 5th – Frank Dikotter will be talking about China immediately post-1949 – The Tragedy of Liberation

Following the critically acclaimed Mao’s Great Famine, Frank Dikötter’s latest book The Tragedy of Liberation is the second in a planned trilogy about the history of China under Mao Zedong, making use of new archival evidence to look at the first decade of the People’s Republic of China. The book, nominated for the Orwell Prize, was declared by the South China Morning Post to be “essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the nature and history of the communist state.” In this session, Frank Dikötter will take us into a profoundly dark period of Chinese history.

November 6th – Mark O’Neill will be talking about his history of the Coolie Corps in WW1 – The Chinese Labour Corps

During WWI, tens of thousands of Chinese labourers travelled to Europe to work both on the war front and on the home front. They return to China at the end of the conflict but their brave contributions have been largely ignored in histories of the war to end all wars. In his concise book The Chinese Labour Corps, part of Penguin’s series on WWI in China, O’Neill explores this overlooked chapter in the history of the First World War.

Los Angeles Review of Books Luminary Dinner with Lisa See – November 8th

As you may know I occasionally review and blog for the Los Angeles Review of Books, an excellent institution well worthy of support. You can support the LARB by subscribing or buying their publication online or attending a luminary dinner. The next LARB Luminary Dinner happens to have a China feel to it as Lisa See (subject of several blog posts over the years) is the luminary being given dinner. If you’re in the LA area it should be a good dinner, a good cause, and a good luminary.

The next LARB Luminary Dinner will feature American writer and novelist Lisa See, author of On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family and the New York Times bestselling novels Flower Net, The Interior, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, and China Dolls. Both Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan received honorable mentions from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. Ms. See was honored as National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women in 2001 and was the recipient of the Chinese American Museum’s History Makers Award in Fall 2003

A Few Posts on Madrid #4 – Classical Chinese Studies on the Metro

Any slightly forgetful Sinologists or classical Chinese scholars on the Madrid metro system are in luck. This handy book vending machine spotted on the Getafe Central metro station contains Lao Tzu and several other Chinese classics handily….

A Few Posts on Madrid #3 – The Palacio Real

The Palacio Real is the home of the royal family in Spain, used for official occasions. The Palacio Real’s Gasparini Room, named after its Italian creator, was Charles III’s robing room. The lovely ceiling, encrusted with stuccoed fruit and flowers, is a superb example of 18th-century Chinoiserie.

A Few Posts on Madrid #2 – The Chinoiserie fountains of the Palace of Aranjuez

The Royal Palace of Aranjuez is the home of the King of Spain in Madrid, but it’s open to the public. Ir was mostly completed in the mid-18th century so Chinoiserie would have to appear somewhere. The gardens also feature a number of fountains and pavilions (first two images below) as well as what are called “kiosks”, officially “Kioscos chinescos” (bottom image), which look fairly unique to me.