Taipei 1960s

A lovely photo of Taipei in the 1960s today….

The Rather Lost Peter Blundell

This is one of those posts where I’m rather hoping someone knows something – as I know next to nothing. Talking of George Orwell in yesterday’s post I happened to be rereading his essay Good Bad Books, first published in Tribune in 1945. In the essay Orwell looks at popular books that are not considered good literature. Among those he cites as having been rather forgotten (even in 1945) are the works of “…Peter Blundell, who wrote in the WW Jacobs vein about Far Eastern seaport towns, and who seems to be unaccountably forgotten, in spite of having been praised in print by HG Wells.’ Jacobs remains well known for the horror story, The Monkey’s Paw (1902) but mostly wrote fiction around the misadventures of seamen in the East End of London and on their voyages.

But who was Blundell? A bit of a mystery to me but anyone who writes about Far Eastern seaport towns has to be of interest and worth pursuing. His books seem to be remarkably rare and hard to get and even a complete list and description of them seemingly impossible to find. In reality it seems Blundell was a certain Frank Butterworth (1875-1952) a seaman and engineer who ended up working in the Malay States, especially Brunei, between 1905 and 1913. Hence several of his books appear to be about Malaysia including On the Fringe of the Eastern Seas, Kidnapped and The Banja Pirates among others. Not too sure how many books he wrote, when exactly (mostly around the 1920s it seems) and whether he covered other “Far Eastern seaports” other than Brunei?

He does indeed seem to have been quite popular at one time – the National Portrait Gallery in London has his portrait (below), but I really know nothing else about him or if the books are worth tracking down. However, if Orwell and Wells thought him worth a read who am I to disagree…

Orwell and Chinese Ginger Jars

As regular readers will know this blog is nothing if not dedicated to the more obscure references to China. And here’s a candidate for most obscure posting to date perhaps. I realise that I just missed the anniversary of George Orwell’s death in 1950 (21st January) but felt a post in his honour always something worth doing. Who knew that Orwell liked to mooch around junk shops in 1940s London and, among other things, seek out Chinese ginger jars? I didn’t and I’m a massive fan of the bloke! Writing in the London Evening Standard in 1946 Orwell wrote in his essay Just Junk – But Who Could Resist It? of some of the treasure he encountered while rummaging:

‘…a medley of bamboo cake-stands, Britannia-ware dish covers, turnip watches, dog-eared books, ostrich eggs, typewriters of extinct makes, spectacles without lenses, decanters without stoppers, stuffed birds, wire fire guards, bunches of keys, boxes of nuts and bolts, conch shells from the Indian Ocean, boot trees, Chinese ginger jars and pictures of Highland cattle.’

So here’s some Chinese ginger jars for Orwell…I think he would have liked them…

Delphine Day’s nightclub adds a little Chinoiserie Spice to Mr Selfridge

Series 2 of Mr Selfridge is now on TV (in the UK anyway) and this season we have the marvellous character of Delphine Day, a woman of (as they say) questionable morals who runs a Soho nightclub of the most louche type. I wouldn’t be so silly as to offer any spoilers here but Delphine’s is an interesting place and probably modelled on Austrian Frida Strindberg’s (divorced from the Swedish playwright) Cave of the Golden Calf, a basement club on Heddon Street, just off Regent Street that operated around the same time (just pre-WW1). The Cave of the Golden Calf loved Chinoiserie (Katherine Mansfield introduced the acts in Chinese robes) and Delphine’s has some rather Chinois furniture, paintings and wallpaper too. More on the Cave of the Golden Calf in plenty of books including Anne Witchard’s Thomas Burke’s Dark Chinoiserie and Peter Brooker’s Bohemia in London. The Cave also featured, in thinly veiled form, in several of Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu novels. Can’t find any pictures from the show that highlight the Chinoiserie of Delphine’s, but here’s a peek….

and the real thing…

From the Daily Mirror, July 1912

Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China

Should you feel you need to know more about the China Imperial Maritime Customs Service (and you could be forgiven for holding your head in your hands and crying ‘NO!’) then there’s a new book out, Breaking with the Past from Hans Van de Ven….

Between its founding in 1854 and its collapse in 1952, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service delivered one-third to one-half of all revenue collected by China’s central authorities. Much more than a tax collector, the institution managed China’s harbors, erected lighthouses, and surveyed the Chinese coast. It funded and oversaw the Translator’s College, which trained Chinese diplomats while its staff translated Chinese classics, novels, and poetry and wrote important studies on the Chinese economy, its financial system, its trade, its history, and its government. It organized contributions to international exhibitions, developed its own shadow diplomacy, pioneered China’s modern postal system, and even maintained its own armed force. After the 1911 Revolution, the agency became deeply involved in the management of China’s international loans and domestic bond issues. In other words, the Customs Service was pivotal to China’s post-Taiping integration into the world of modern nation-states and twentieth-century trade and finance. If the Customs Service introduced the modern governance of trade to China, it also made Chinese legible to foreign audiences. Following the activities of the Inspectors General, who were virtual autocrats within the service and communicated regularly with senior Chinese officials and foreign diplomats, this history tracks the Customs Service as it transformed China and its relationship to the world. The Customs Service often kept China together when little else did. This book reveals the role of the agency in influencing the outcomes of the Sino-French War, the Boxer Rebellion, and the 1911 Revolution, as well as the rise of the Nationalists in the 1920s, and concludes with the Customs Service purges of the early 1950s, when the relentless logic of revolution dismantled the agency for good.

Old Haiphong

A friend recommended to me a touring exhibition of 500 photographs entitled “Les traces d’architecture française de la fondation et du développement urbain de Hai Phong” – only problem is it keeps popping up and disappearing rather quickly so if anyone knows where it’s going next please let me know….

Anyway, here’s a picture of the old port of Haiphong….

The Long Arm of the China Trade – London: The Selden Map and the Making of a Global City, 1549-1689

I’ve posted about Timothy Brook’s book Mr Selden’s Map of China last year but I note that the Economist reviewed it alongside this book, on London, the Selden map and the making of a global city via, in part, the China trade, from Robert Batchelor – so I’m also noting it….

How to Bury the Chinese During WW1

This year we can obviously expect to hear a lot about the First World War. We’ll also be hearing something about the Chinese involvement in the European war through the men of the Chinese Labour Corps (the CLC or “Coolie Corps”), the Chinese recruited to help with logistics and clearing the battlefields by the British and French. I’ve blogged on the Coolie Corps before (here, here, here and here). I’ve also blogged about friend and veteran China hack Mark O’Neill who’s grandfather was a missionary in China and worked with the CLC – Mark has a short book on the CLC out this spring (more on that nearer the time).

Inevitably some of the Chinese men died at the Front and needed to be buried and then remembered after the war. The passage below is from the notes advising on how the graves of Chinese should be placed and handled in France issued in 1918. It comes from the superb and beautifully written history of the War Graves Commission and the man behind it Fabian Ware, Empire of the Dead: How One Man’s Vision Led to the Creation of WW1’s War Graves, by David Crane. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

the way to bury the Chinese ideally,

“is on sloping ground with a stream below, or gully down which water always or occasionally passes. The grave should not be parallel to the north, south, east or west. This is especially important to Chinese Mohammedans. It should be about 4ft deep, with the head towards the hill and the feet towards the water. A mound of earth about 2ft high is piled over the grave…Whenever possible the friends of the deceased should be allowed access to the corpse, and should be allowed to handle it, as they like to dress it and show marks of respect.”