Ping-Pong Diplomacy and China

I’m sorry but I’m just not convinced of the importance of ping-pong diplomacy – it’s probably just me. I know everyone likes to talk about it as the “icebreaker” and I’m sure it played a role, but I just feel I’m always being oversold on its importance. Still, Nicholas Griffin’s Ping-Pong Dioplomacy: Ivor Montagu and the Astonishing Story Behind the Game that Changed the World does indulge in this inflation (“astonishing”, “Saved”!!) but it’s immensely readable all the same.

It was one of the most significant developments of the post-war era: China finally abandoning its close relationship with the Soviet Union to begin detente with the USA. Astonishingly, the man who helped make it happen was a British aristocrat, Ivor Montagu, a Soviet spy who knew Stalin and dined with Trotsky. Even more remarkably, the means to this rapprochement was table tennis, a sport loved by both Chairman Mao and Montagu. For years, Montagu had lived a dual life, working to spread communism and also table tennis around the world. Surprisingly, the two strands of his career would come together in an event of global significance.
Nicholas Griffin weaves a compelling story to reveal the background to the famous occasion in 1971, when the USA’s Glenn Cowan, a 19-year-old hippie, befriended China’s world champion Zhuang Zedong, who was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution. Within days, the Americans would be playing the Chinese in front of 18,000 fans in Beijing, with the whole world watching. It was the beginning of a thaw in Sino-US relations that forced the Soviets into a crippling arms race that acted as a catalyst to pressuring them into errors that would draw the Cold War to an end. Sometimes sport truly can have the biggest consequences.

Shanghai RAS – 22/4/14 – Liu Haisu: Shanghai, Paris, Art and Friendship 1926-1937

GRETCHEN LIU

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Liu Haisu: Shanghai, Paris, Art and Friendship 1926-1937

Tuesday 22 April 7:00 for 7:15 PM

RAS Library at the Sino-British College

1195 Fuxing Zhong Lu

The history of art during the Republican era is closely associated with the Shanghai Art Academy. In recent years scholars in China and in the West have researched the history of the Academy, its founder and longtime principal Liu Haisu (1896-1994), as well as its faculty and students, to better understand its role in disseminating Western art theory and practice in China.

 

When Liu Haisu was sent to Europe on a government mission to further his study of Western art and promote a greater understanding of modern Chinese art in Europe he contacted two of the Academy’s former students for advice, Liu Kang (1911-2004) and Chen Ren Hao (1908-1976), who had come to Paris to continue their art studies. Upon arrival Liu Haisu settled into the same accommodation in Nogent-sur-Marne in the eastern suburbs of Paris. There he was introduced to the young writer/translator Fou Lei (1908-1966) who had come to Paris to study the French language and literature and was developing an interest in art through his friendship with Liu Kang and Chen Ren Hao.

 

From 1929 to 1931 this intimate group explored Paris, visiting museums, galleries and artists, and traveled to Switzerland and Belgium. The experiences affected each of them profoundly. Deep friendships were formed that, despite several sharp disagreements and the vicissitudes of time, essentially lasted lifetimes. The lecture draws on the photographs of Liu Kang to illuminate the experiences of Chinese artists in Paris and its impact on Shanghai’s art scene.

Gretchen Liu – A former journalist, book editor and author with a special interest in architecture, visual heritage and the history of travel, Gretchen Liu is the author of a dozen books on Singapore and its history. She is the daughter-in-law of Liu Kang and is working on a book that explores his Shanghai experiences and friendships.

RSVP: to RAS Bookings at: bookings@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn  or just Reply to this email.

  

ENTRANCE CONTRIBUTION: Members 50 RMB  Non-members 70 RMB. Includes a glass of wine or soft drink. Priority for RAS members. Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption.

 

MEMBERSHIP applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.

 

RAS MONOGRAPHS – Series 1 & 2 will be available for sale at this event. 100 rmb each (cash sale only)

 

WEBSITE: www.royalasiaticsociety.org.cn

Baedeker in Port Arthur and Peking

In 1914 the world’s leading travel guides publisher Baedeker published the first edition of their guide to Russia which included chapters on Tehran, Port Arthur and Peking. The Russians still had a base at Port Arthur and the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway was just a couple of years away connecting Moscow to Peking,  so it made sense to have these inclusions. This edition published by Karl Baedeker of Leipzig was nearly 600 pages long and was presumably intended for those both visiting and travelling across Russia to either China or Persia by train.

World Film Locations: Shanghai

The World Film Locations series has added Shanghai to its list with John Berra and Wei Ju’s new book. The book is most interesting to China Rhymers when it talks about old Shanghai’s indigenous movie business and those that recreate old Shanghai – Shanghai Triad, Lust/Caution etc. I’m not overly bothered about Skyfall etc as the reason for these recent films being partly or wholly set in Shanghai seems rather obvious given the cityscape and potential of Chinese eyeballs and ticket sales.

Celebrating Shanghai’s rich cinematic history, the films covered here represent a lengthy time period, from the first Golden Age of Chinese Cinema in the 1930s to the city’s status as an international production hub in 2013. Given the enduring status of Shanghai as the “Paris of the East,” World Film Locations: Shanghai emphasizes the city’s cosmopolitan glamour through locations that are steeped in cinematic exoticism, while also probing the reality behind the image by investigating its backstreets and residential zones. To facilitate this study of Shanghai’s dual identity through reference to film locations, the book includes films from both the commercial and independent sectors, with a balance between images captured by local filmmakers and the visions of Western directors who have also utilized the city for their projects.

With numerous essays that reflect Shanghai’s relationship to film and scene reviews of such iconic titles as Street Angel, Temptress Moon, Kung Fu Hustle, and Skyfall, World Film Locations: Shanghai is essential reading for all scholars of China’s urban culture.

Belvoir Castle’s Chinoiserie wallpaper and “Chinese Rooms”

I’ve just been reading Catherine Bailey’s The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery (a good read by the way – though more about World War One than anything overtly Gothic). The book centres around  Belvoir Castle (the Duke of Rutland’s residence) and notes the castle as being famous for its Chinoiserie rooms (Bailey notes several “Chinese rooms”) and, in particular, the exquisite Chinoiserie wallpaper that covered many other rooms. Belvoir (in Grantham Leicestershire)  has been overhauled quite a bit and seems to do a nice turn in weddings and I’m afraid I don’t have any old shots – but the wallpaper remains Chinoiserie.

The Penguin China Specials: First World War Series

Regular readers will know that the first two books in this great series from Penguin China have already been published and are available on Kindle and, in Asia, in hard copy form. Here are the titles in the rest of the series (including my own coming soon) – they all look fantastic (click on the image to enlarge)…..

Rare ‘China Magazine’ 1860s Photographs of China & Hong Kong

Some photographs of China and Hong Kong from the 1860s, believed to be among the earliest of their kind in existence, came up for auction the other day. The scenes of ordinary Chinese life and Hong Kong streets and harbour are remarkable. The photographs are taken from the China Magazine, which began as a weekly publication on March 7 1868 and continued monthly until it reached its fourth and final volume in 1870.

Here’s a link to a selection of the images in the Daily Mail

The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited – 25 Years Since the Tiananmen Massacre

Louisa Lim’s The People’s Republic of Amnesia is now published. I’ve read and was greatly impressed but am reviewing elsewhere so here’s the blurb….

On June 4, 1989, People’s Liberation Army soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians in Beijing, killing untold hundreds of people. A quarter-century later, this defining event remains buried in China’s modern history, successfully expunged from collective memory. In The People’s Republic of Amnesia, NPR correspondent Louisa Lim charts how the events of June 4th changed China, and how China changed the events of June 4th by rewriting its own history.

Lim reveals new details about those fateful days, including how one of the country’s most senior politicians lost a family member to an army bullet, as well as the inside story of the young soldiers sent to clear Tiananmen Square. She also introduces us to individuals whose lives were transformed by the events of Tiananmen Square, such as a founder of the Tiananmen Mothers, whose son was shot by martial law troops; and one of the most important government officials in the country, who post-Tiananmen became one of its most prominent dissidents. And she examines how June 4th shaped China’s national identity, fostering a generation of young nationalists, who know little and care less about 1989. For the first time, Lim uncovers the details of a brutal crackdown in a second Chinese city that until now has been a near-perfect case study in the state’s ability to rewrite history, excising the most painful episodes. By tracking down eyewitnesses, discovering US diplomatic cables, and combing through official Chinese records, Lim offers the first account of a story that has remained untold for a quarter of a century. The People’s Republic of Amnesia is an original, powerfully gripping, and ultimately unforgettable book about a national tragedy and an unhealed wound.