All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
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….
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.
Gasparini Room
Named after its Italian creator, this dazzling room was Charles III’s robing room. The lovely ceiling, encrusted with stuccoed fruit and flowers, is a superb example of 18th-century chinoiserie.
Read more at http://womenworld.org/family/Madrid-s-Top-10—Palacio-Real-(part-1).aspx#uGQzaXeJHT4iy3Wf.99
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.
A recent trip involved a great deal of mooching around Madrid and, of course, yielded a few China/Chinoiserie-related posts. Today Madrid’s well known Cafe de Oriente is situated on the Plaza de Oriente near the Royal Theatre and opposite the Royal Palace. It is one of Europe’s noted literary cafes but is a late twentieth century construction with a neo-Baroque interior. It’s a nice place to stop for a drink. However, the original Cafe de Oriente (or Oriental Cafe) was some way away along the Calle Gran Via between the streets of Carmen and Atlantico in the basement of a hotel – a few photos of the exterior survive….I’m not sure any exist of the interior….
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Sadly the Oriental Club is a fiction, created for the 1960 film The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, a bio-pic of the life and times of the Irish-American gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond. As well as being a gangster and a thief Diamond was an accomplished dancer, as well as having several mistresses associated with the Ziegfeld Follies. In the movie version of his life (which is not entirely accurate) Diamond, played by Ray Danton, and his girlfriend Alice, played by Karen Steele, enter a dance competition in 1920s Manhattan at a place called the Oriental Club. Though, in reality, Diamond did participate in such events none of his biographies record the Oriental Club so I’m assuming it’s fictitious (though dancehalls called the Oriental did exist at the time, most notably in New Orleans). Anyway, here’s some stills of the place, that didn’t exist, but would have been fun to visit if it did….
The real Jack “Legs” Diamond
Jack’s real life dancing partner – Ziegfeld Follie girl Marion “Kiki” Roberts
Jonathan Wattis has an exhibition of early views of Hong Kong for all to see at The Rotunda in Hong Kong’s Exchange Square running from the 28th of October. The exhibition runs till the 12th of November and includes original paintings and prints as well as some pictures from the Chater Collection of early Hong Kong photographs from 1860-1935.
A.R. Johnston’s Record Office believed to be the first Government House c.1845
by unknown Chinese artist
Andrew Field, author of Shanghai’s Dancing World and the recent Mu Shiying: China’s Lost Modernist will be speaking on Shanghai’s old dancehall culture on the 28th October in Shanghai – details below (ignore the date – it’s apparently wrong, but the venue is right)
Rian Thum’s The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History looks like an interesting read….
Read an excerpt from the book here
For 250 years, the Turkic Muslims of Altishahr—the vast desert region to the northwest of Tibet—have led an uneasy existence under Chinese rule. Today they call themselves Uyghurs, and they have cultivated a sense of history and identity that challenges Beijing’s official national narrative. Rian Thum argues that the roots of this history run deeper than recent conflicts, to a time when manuscripts and pilgrimage dominated understandings of the past. Beyond broadening our knowledge of tensions between the Uyghurs and the Chinese government, this meditation on the very concept of history probes the limits of human interaction with the past.
Uyghur historical practice emerged from the circulation of books and people during the Qing Dynasty, when crowds of pilgrims listened to history readings at the tombs of Islamic saints. Over time, amid long journeys and moving rituals, at oasis markets and desert shrines, ordinary readers adapted community-authored manuscripts to their own needs. In the process they created a window into a forgotten Islam, shaped by the veneration of local saints.
Partly insulated from the rest of the Islamic world, the Uyghurs constructed a local history that is at once unique and assimilates elements of Semitic, Iranic, Turkic, and Indic traditions—the cultural imports of Silk Road travelers. Through both ethnographic and historical analysis, The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History offers a new understanding of Uyghur historical practices, detailing the remarkable means by which this people reckons with its past and confronts its nationalist aspirations in the present day.