White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates

I’ve always loved Chinese pirates and have written about them myself and also wrote a foreword to the great reprint of Aleko Lilus’s 1930s memoir I Sailed with Chinese Pirates, so happy to see this study of Qing pirates, White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates from Wang Wenshang available….

The reign of Emperor Jiaqing (1796-1820 CE) has occupied an awkward position in studies of China’s last dynasty, the Qing. Conveniently marking a watershed between the prosperous eighteenth century and the tragic post-Opium War era, this quarter century has nevertheless been glossed over as an unremarkable interlude separating two well-studied epochs of transformation. White Lotus Rebels and South China Pirates presents a major reassessment of this period by examining how the emperors, bureaucrats, and foreigners responded to the two crises that shaped the transition from the Qianlong to the Jiaqing reign.

Wensheng Wang argues that the dramatic combination of internal uprising and transnational piracy, rather than being a hallmark of inexorable dynastic decline, propelled the Manchu court to reorganize itself through modifications in policymaking and bureaucratic structure. The resulting Jiaqing reforms initiated a process of state retreat that pulled the Qing Empire out of a cycle of aggressive overextension and resistance, and back onto a more sustainable track of development. Although this pragmatic striving for political sustainability was unable to save the dynasty from ultimate collapse, it represented a durable and constructive approach to the compounding problems facing the late Qing regime and helped sustain it for another century.

Detection in Shanghai – The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (1931)

I wrote a short piece the other day regarding the popularity of the BBC’s Sherlock in China for the Los Angeles Review of Books China blog. In the piece I mention the 1931 Shanghai movie The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes – a film, directed by Li Pingqian directed (who starred in it too) that wasn’t pure Conan Doyle by any means (it swapped London for Shanghai as a setting) but featured a lot of pensive thinking and logical deduction. In the 1920s and ‘30s Holmes was reinvented, copied, and adapted in various ways. The movie was a silent, so not sure there was much of that clever Holmes deducting going on. Anyway, for any Sherlockians out there – here’s the film poster from 1931….

The Hall of Uselessness – the most extensive collection of Simon Leys’s essays to be published to date.

Hopefully Simon Leys needs no introduction to China Rhyming regulars and The Hall of Uselessness is major collection of his essays that is, quite frankly, a must have. For me it’s almost the perfect book combining writing on China’s approach to history, the problematics of Zhou En-lai and westerners gullibility around Mao and Maoist myths of history (oh, if only I had a dollar for every one of those I meet!) combined with essays on a number of personal Gods of mine – Orwell, Waugh, Gide, Simenon. Other essays on Cambodia, Hugo as well as feuds with Barthes and Hitchens. Close to perfect reading…say  no more, just go and get a copy…

Simon Leys is a Renaissance man for the era of globalization. A distinguished scholar of classical Chinese art and literature and one of the first Westerners to recognize the appalling toll of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Leys also writes with unfailing intelligence, seriousness, and bite about European art, literature, history, and politics and is an unflinching observer of the way we live now.

The Hall of Uselessness is the most extensive collection of Leys’s essays to be published to date. In it, he addresses subjects ranging from the Chinese attitude to the past to the mysteries of Belgium and Belgitude; offers portraits of André Gide and Zhou Enlai; takes on Roland Barthes and Christopher Hitchens; broods on the Cambodian genocide; reflects on the spell of the sea; and writes with keen appreciation about writers as different as Victor Hugo, Evelyn Waugh, and Georges Simenon.Throughout, The Hall of Uselessness is marked with the deep knowledge, skeptical intelligence, and passionate conviction that have made Simon Leys one of the most powerful essayists of our time.

Adam Minter’s Junkyard Planet Comes to the UK

Adam Minter’s Junkyard Planet is a great read and the culmination of many years research and journalism (combined with a touch of obsession about rubbish). I’ve followed Adam’s writing from Shanghai for many years, where he’s based. I don’t think we ever actually met but anyway…his book tour is bringing him to London and here’s a few dates for your diary if you’re around in London or Cambridge….I’ve always wondered if his favourite book as a child was Stig of the Dump ?? Seems like the ideal present for Adam!

January 16, 2014, 6:30 PM
Young China Watchers hosts “The Trans-Pacific Trash Trade” with Adam Minter, Committee Room 20, House of Commons, Parliament, London, UK
Please contact Young China Watchers directly for registration.

January 17, 2014, 5:00 PM
A Gates Fireside on the Global Recycling Trade, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, Location TBA.

January 20, 2014, 6:30 PM
The Royal Geographic Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London, UK
Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Secret Trash Trade (Open to RGS members and Fellows, only).

More on Junkyard Planet:

When you drop your Diet Coke can or yesterday’s newspaper in the recycling bin, where does it go? Probably halfway around the world, to people and places that clean up what you don’t want and turn it into something you can’t wait to buy. In Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter-veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner-travels deeply into a vast, often hidden, multibillion-dollar industry that’s transforming our economy and environment.

Minter takes us from back-alley Chinese computer recycling operations to high-tech facilities capable of processing a jumbo jet’s worth of recyclable trash every day. Along the way, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters who’ve figured out how to build fortunes from what we throw away: Leonard Fritz, a young boy ‘grubbing’ in Detroit’s city dumps in the 1930s; Johnson Zeng, a former plastics engineer roaming America in search of scrap; and Homer Lai, an unassuming barber turned scrap titan in Qingyuan, China. Junkyard Planet reveals how ‘going green’ usually means making money-and why that’s often the most sustainable choice, even when the recycling methods aren’t pretty.

With unmatched access to and insight on the junk trade, and the explanatory gifts and an eye for detail worthy of a John McPhee or William Langewiesche, Minter traces the export of America’s recyclables and the massive profits that China and other rising nations earn from it. What emerges is an engaging, colorful, and sometimes troubling tale of consumption, innovation, and the ascent of a developing world that recognizes value where Americans don’t. Junkyard Planet reveals that we might need to learn a smarter way to take out the trash.

And more on Stig of the Dump (as it brought back memories of Jackanory)

Stig is a caveman. He lives at the bottom of the old chalk pit close to Barney’s grandparents’ house. Since the chalk pit is no longer used, people throw all their old junk away down there. So it is rather an interesting place to build a den. Barney falls over the edge of the quarry and tumbles down through the roof of Stig’s den. When he looks round, there’s Stig, with his shaggy black hair and bright black eyes. Barney and Stig get on rather well together. They have to manage without language, of course, but that doesn’t seem to stop them. Stig’s den is a brilliant place built out of discarded rubbish. Stig is Barney’s secret friend, not because Barney doesn’t tell anyone, but because no-one really believes that Stig is real. They have a great time, improving Stig’s den, collecting firewood, going hunting, and even catching some burglars who break into Barney’s grandparents’ house. It’s really a collection of short-story adventures. We know that Stig is a caveman, and really Barney hardly seems to give any thought to where Stig has come from until the end of the book. Then, during a very hot, sultry mid-summer’s night, when Barney and his sister Lou can’t sleep, they find themselves transported back in time and out onto the downs. To their surprise, they meet Stig, back with his own people, engaged in the construction of four gigantic standing stones. They spend a magical night camping out with the people of Stig’s tribe, and helping to shift the final stone into position before sunrise. Has Stig found a way to travel backwards and forwards in time, or is it as much a mystery to Stig as it is to Barney and Lou?

Burma’s Architectural History – “historic buildings imperiled by modern world”

This piece in the LA Times about Thant Mint-u, a Burmese architectural preservationist, made me think it worth sticking up these old pics/postcards of glorious Rangoon buildings (which were all included in my early contribution to the growing bookshelf of Burma books from a few years ago)

Dalhousie Street, Rangoon

Government House, Rangoon

The Strand, Rangoon

China Rhyming in Paris 3 – Manet’s Portrait of Emile Zola and Japonisme

Talking of the collection at the Musee d’Orsay China Rhymers might find Edouard Manet’s portrait of the writer Emile Zola of interest. Zola was a massive and early fan of Manet’s and, as a thank you, Manet painted this portrait of the author in 1868. Manet painted Zola in his study and included many of the artifacts and works of art in that room that meant a lot to the author. These interestingly included a Japanese print of a wrestler by Utagawa Kuniaki and it is featured prominently in the portrait. The Far East, which was revolutionising ideas on perspective and colour in European painting, played a central role in the advent of the new style of painting in Europe. A Japanese screen partially displayed on the left of the picture recalls this. the inkwell on Zola’s desk, obviously indicating his occupation, also appears to be Chinese or Asian of some sort, but might not be. Zola had apparently compared Manet’s style to Japanese woodcuts for his use of similar techniques and both Zola and Manet appreciated the Japanese art that was available for viewing in Paris.

China Rhyming in Paris 2 – Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Clowness Cha-U-Kao

Who exactly was The Clowness Cha-U-Kao who featured in Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1895 painting of the same name?  Well, it seems Cha-U-Kao was a dancer and performer at Paris’s Nouveau Cirque and then the Moulin Rouge. Her Japanese sounding name originated from a phonetic transcription of the French ChaHut, a combination of the words for a more acrobatic version of the Can-Can and the French for chaos. It was a dance at which she excelled and the crowd went wild when she came on stage. She brought the skills of the circus to the cabaret and Toulouse-Lautrec obviously loved her.

Here’s a rather saucy shot of Cha-U-Kao and a headdress of possibly Indo-Chinoiserie inspiration

China Rhyming in Paris 1 – Toulouse-Lautrec’s La Danse Mauresque, 1895

A few posts on various Chinoiserie and other Orientalist bits and bobs gleaned from a recent trip to Paris – well, not that recent actually but I’ve not got around to posting for ages.

First off a trip to the Moulin Rouge to watch the Can-Can. The current show on offer features one particular dance number that is a glorious Orientalist mash up featuring Chinoiserie, Indo-Chinoiserie and some Indian inflections too. A complete mess, but great fun. Of course Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was the great artist of the Moulin Rouge, and the Musee d’Orsay in Paris contains his painting La Danse Mauresque (The Moorish Dance) from 1895 which also appears to be an Orientalist mash up with a be-turbaned Indian alongside a traditional Moulin Rouge chorus line girl. The painting was done as a panel for the house of La Goulue (The Glutton) at the Foire du Trone in Paris. La Goulue (actually Louise Webster) was a Can-Can dancer known as the Queen of Montmartre and a great favourite of Toulouse-Lautrec. The Foire du Trone is an annual festival that takes place in the Forest of Vincennes near Paris featuring various acts.

.

La Goulue