Posted: December 8th, 2014 | No Comments »
An ongoing exhibition at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich in London….on now and runs till end of January 2015
Yan Fu and Chinese Imperial Students at the Royal Naval College
- Dates – Sun 16 Nov 2014 – Sat 31 Jan 2015
- Details – click here for times etc
An exhibition on the celebrated thinker who was one of the first group of Chinese students to study in the UK (at the Royal Navy College now the ORNC), and who introduced western philosophy to China through translations of Thomas H. Huxley, Adam Smith, J.S. Mill.
More on Yan Fu here
Posted: December 7th, 2014 | No Comments »
Thanks to Sue Anne Tay’s Shanghai Street Stories blog for bringing this book to my attention, Qin Shao’s Shanghai Gone. The blurb (below) is a little overstated in terms of Shanghai “gleaming” and rivalling London and New York as a financial centre but it still raises important issues, not least the human tragedies behind the Xintiandi nonsense that set back the preservation and heritage debate several decades in Shanghai but being lauded by many who should know better….
Shanghai has been demolished and rebuilt into a gleaming megacity in recent decades, now ranking with New York and London as a hub of global finance. But that transformation has come at a grave human cost. This compelling book is the first to apply the concept of domicide—the eradication of a home against the will of its dwellers—to the sweeping destruction of neighborhoods, families, and life patterns to make way for the new Shanghai. Here we find the holdouts and protesters, men and women who have stubbornly resisted domicide and demanded justice. Qin Shao follows, among others, a reticent kindergarten teacher turned diehard petitioner; a descendant of gangsters and squatters who has become an amateur lawyer for evictees; and a Chinese Muslim who has struggled to recover his ancestral home in Xintiandi, an infamous site of gentrification dominated by a well-connected Hong Kong real estate tycoon. Highlighting the wrenching changes spawned by China’s reform era, Shao vividly portrays the relentless pursuit of growth and profit by the combined forces of corrupt power and money, the personal wreckage it has left behind, and the enduring human spirit it has unleashed.
Posted: December 6th, 2014 | 1 Comment »
I never realised Lego had done a Shanghai gangster figure – quite accurate too, given its pre-war and part of the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Shanghai Chase collection. The set recreates the great chase at the start of the movie through Shanghai when Indy, Willie and Short Round escape from a showdown with crime boss Lao Che and his goons at Club Obi Wan.
Posted: December 5th, 2014 | No Comments »
#2 -what a great game for Christmas!! Mysteries of Old Peking dates from only 1987 (personally I’m rather alarmed that many web sites refer to its a “vintage” 1987 game!!) and apparently….
As one of the best detectives in Chinatown, you’ll have to solve one of the mysteries in the casebook and reveal the criminal. To get clues, you must go to the different witnesses and interrogate them. You may move the dragons with the help of fortune cookies and prevent the other detectives from getting there before you. When you discover the culprit, you must go to the dragon he is hiding in.
The most important witnesses are the Spy and the Wise Man, so you must reach them as soon as possible in order to get vital information for the case. The Wise Man will tell you which of the witnesses is lying, and the Spy will tell you where the culprit is hiding. But you’ll have to visit the rest of the witnesses around the board to get the description of the culprit.. Does he have glasses, a scar, a mustache or a hat? But beware! Some witnesses will have nothing useful to tell you!
The game includes 3 decoders in order to decipher clues: a red filter to look at general clues, a mirror to look at the “wise man” clue, and a mask card to check the culprit in the casebook.
Posted: December 4th, 2014 | No Comments »
China in the Archives
an RASBJ panel discussion
Saturday December 6th 2:30-4:30 p.m.
The Royal Asiatic Society China, Beijing invites you to a December 6th panel discussion on how hidden nuggets of information about China are revealed through archival research, enriching our understanding of Chinese society today. Panelists include Beijing Postcards co-founder Lars Ulrik Thom, who’ll discuss how Beijing archives have helped enliven his walking tours of old Beijing, and Marie-Anne Souloumiac who was inspired by diary material and archival films to promote the legacy of her late grand-father, the legendary Dutch author, diplomat and Sinologist Robert van Gulik. Ms. Souloumiac recently attended the opening of a permanent exhibition in Chongqing’s Three Gorges Museum dedicated to van Gulik, who wrote the famous Judge Dee detective stories based on the life of a Tang Dynasty Chinese magistrate.
Newsweek’s Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu will moderate the talk.
WHEN: Saturday, December 6th, 2:30-4:30 PM
WHERE: The Courtyard Institute, No.28 Zhong Lao Hutong, Dongcheng District, Beijing. 活动地å€ï¼šåŒ—京市东城区ä¸è€èƒ¡åŒ28å·
MAP: http://www.courtyardinstitute.net/?page_id=360&lang=en
HOW MUCH:Â 30 RMB for members; 60 RMB for all others.
IF YOU HAVEN’T YET RENEWED MEMBERSHIP, NOW’S YOUR CHANCE!Â
RENEW AT THIS EVENT AND ENJOY MEMBERS’ RATES.
RSVP: please email membership@rasbj.org before December 4th, and let us know how many seats to reserve; space may be limited.
Thanks to the Courtyard Institute for providing this venue.
Posted: December 4th, 2014 | No Comments »
Just a quick note that I occasionally review over at the Los Angeles Review of Books and happen to have a China related review up at the moment – Ha Jin’s new spy novel, set between about 1949 and the 1980s, A Map of Betrayal….the review’s here for anyone interested.
Posted: December 3rd, 2014 | No Comments »
#1 – Shanghai pinball – the Chicago Coin Machine Manufacturing Company started making games in 1932. The Shanghai is a 1948 model pinball machine – sorry, can’t quite get a close up of the patterns on this flyer for the machine….I’ll take one though!
Posted: December 2nd, 2014 | No Comments »
Opened December 1st on our Bodleian Library Advent Calendar (I know, I know…) and got Chiang Yee’s The Silent Traveller in Oxford (1944) – the calendar has an Oxford theme rather than a China theme (I think, anyway). Nice start to the month anyway – it is a lovely book. For those not in the know – Chiang Yee spent 1933-1955 in England as a poet, author, painter and calligrapher. His silent traveller series is both a wonderful record of England at that time and during the War, as well as being a fascinating look at England and the English through Chinese eyes. Later Chiang Yee centured further, to America and Japan but his series of books on England are by far the best known. The cover design (first edition below) is by Chiang.
