Year Zero: 1945 – In Asia as well as everywhere

It is gratifying to see Asia’s history being increasingly told as part of major global histories – it hasn’t always been the way of course. Among the best of the new BIG history books that does include a wealth of good detail about Asia is Ian Buruma’s Year Zero: A History of 1945, a great read, though perhaps not the most uplifting account of human treatment of humans! None of us come out of it particularly well. Buruma is, of course, a great writer on China (think The China Lover), Japan (numerous books) and South East Asia and a scholar of the region so his inclusion and detail on China and Japan as well as coverage of the immediate post-war situation in the Dutch East Indies, Indo-China and Malaya, are all interesting.

And I do particularly love Buruma’s description of Tsingtao (Qingdao) in 1945 as, “a place of seedy carpet baggers, gangsters, spies with shifting loyalties and Japanese who still behaved like a master race.” Sounds like perfect fodder for a book to me!!

Comrade Kim Goes Flying – at the HK Film Festival, November 1,2 & 12

It would be highly remiss of me not to plug these screenings of Nick Bonner’s (he of Koryo Tours fame) amazing movie, Comrade Kim Goes Flying, made in North Korea. That Nick got this project through from stupid idea in a bar to final film is a feat of almost unparallelled Juche-like endeavor and he is clearly now the “Dear and Great Film Maker”. If you’re in Hong Kong for the Film Festival don’t miss this amazing piece of movie history….more details of the screenings and booking here

Comrade Kim Goes Flying is a fairytale in more ways than one. This is an unprecedented collaboration between three directors (one British, one Belgian, one North Korean) and countless North Korean colleagues who through belief and sheer force of will brought this Disney-esque tale to the screen. Professional circus performer Han Jong-sim underwent intense acting training to play Kim Yong-mi, a 28 year-old coal miner who gave up her dreams of being an acrobat to toil in the mines. But when she travels to Pyongyang, she’s instantly enchanted by the circus big top, the thrill of the trapeze, and the attentions of hunky acrobat Pak Jang-phil (Pak-Chung-guk). The feel-good movie of the year – for audiences and filmmakers alike!

The Taking of Hong Kong: Charles and Clara Elliot in China Waters

Susannah Hoe’s The Taking of Hong Kong is now available in a kindle edition…..

About the Author

Susanna Hoe is author of amongst other books The Private Life of Old Hong Kong: Western Women in the British Colony 1841-1941. Derek Roebuck has written more than 30 books on law and legal history including Introduction to Law in the Hong Kong SAR.

A Few More L Ron Hubbard China-set Pulps

After my previous post on L Ron Hubbard’s Spy Killer, set in Shanghai and Kalgan, a few more in the Stories From the Golden Age series that also take place in China….

The Green God

China’s City of Tientsin is under siege: its Native Quarter is half in flames and the dead are piling up in its gutters. Worse, the Chinese inhabitants are sure the entire city will fall after their sacred idol—the Green God—also goes missing.

But when Lieutenant Bill Mahone of Naval Intelligence receives an inside tip on the idol’s whereabouts, he becomes convinced the idol is hidden in the grave of one General Tao, and that unless the sacred idol is found and returned to its temple sanctuary soon, the colossal reign of terror will not end.
Yet what seems like a straightforward undercover mission to steal back the idol turns out to be far more than Mahone can handle when he is met by Chinese officers who want nothing more that to send him to join the ranks of General Tao Lo, eight feet underground!

The Red Dragon

Flame-haired Michael Stuart’s career as an officer in the US Marine Corps abruptly ended after a failed attempt to return the Chinese Imperial Dynasty to power in 1930s Asia. Abandoned by his country, he’s unable to find safe passage out of China by land or sea.
Now Stuart, also known as the “The Red Dragon,” has a new occupation; he intervenes in matters for the good of the people. Despite the danger, Stuart agrees to help a beautiful young woman search for a mysterious black chest which her father hid in Manchuria before his murder. Their quest takes them from Peking north to the Great Wall of China and beyond. With enemies coming at him from every corner, Stuart finds he’s playing a most deadly game of hide-and-seek.

Orders is Orders

The Japanese have led a heavily armored assault against the Chinese city of Shunkien. One of the few buildings still standing is the small American consulate, now packed with frightened American refugees. Food is low and deadly Asiatic cholera is starting to run rampant.
Two hundred miles away, the USS Miami drops anchor, but the dilemma is that should the Marines take military action to rush supplies to the consulate, it could force the US into an all-out ill-advised battle with the Japanese–what amounts to an act of war.
Marine Gunnery Sergeant James Mitchell and Private First Class Spivits instead are ordered to conduct a treacherous supply mission facing impossible odds–reach the trapped Americans caught in the crossfire of the invading Japanese forces.

Inky Odds

Bat Conroy of World Press is the best news correspondent covering the Japanese invasion of China. But now it’s his legendary reputation of getting the story first that’s under serious attack. No matter how fast he files his war pieces, Bat ends up being scooped by Perry Lane of International Service, a reporter he’s never seen near the fighting (or anywhere, for that matter).
When the biggest story of the war comes Bat’s way, he’s given an ultimatum: outwit Lane and somehow get his story in first or be blackballed from ever working as a reporter again. Before his boss can fire him, Bat sets out to track down his enterprising competitor, little knowing that the real identity of the mysterious newshound is uncomfortably close to home!

The Trail of the Red Diamonds

Most copies of The Travels of Marco Polo leave out a great deal and are difficult to decipher. Yet when one original manuscript lands in the hands of Lieutenant Jonathan Daly, he’s able to translate the tale well enough to discover the trail to a chest of fabulous red stones buried with the long-dead Emperor of China, Kubla Kahn. An offering to the gods to light the leader’s way to heaven, the glittering stones are worth several million dollars, as they are diamonds.
Recently recovered from a bout of malaria and two bullet holes collected in war-ravaged Gran Chaco, Lieutenant Daly sets out on his treasure travels, ignoring warnings from friends and doctors. He follows Marco Polo’s words straight into a dark maze of betrayal, espionage and death—with more riding on each precious line of text than he ever imagined.

Wind-Gone-Mad

In a tale played out during the last days of pre-World War II China and the rise of Communism, Jim Dahlgren, representative of the Amalgamated Aeronautical Company, has had enough of the fatalistic brand of diplomacy from other nations that claim to want a united China, one that can resist invasion from without and treason within—but which refuses to intervene and prevent it’s demise.
And the damage is just too costly when lives are at stake, especially when a villain known as “The Butcher” is allowed to rise up with fire and sword carving the way on his warpath for complete control of the nation.
When Dahlgren disappears—purportedly to find a mysterious aviator, the man called “Wind-Gone-Mad” who has always fought against the province warlords—he ignites a series of actions which just may spell disaster.

The Devil – With Wings

He lies in wait: a man hunted by many, feared by all and controlled by none . . . if, indeed, he is a man at all. Meet The Devil—With Wings. From Shanghai to Vladivostok, the mere sight of this black-garbed white creature has caused heart failure among the soldiers of the Rising Sun.
Now the brooding specter who stalks the borders and skies of 1930s China has launched a personal invasion against the Japanese. Yet standing in his way is a beautiful and vengeful young woman who believes The Devil murdered her brother. Not only must this solitary avenger clear his name, he must get the woman out of the country alive—if only he can stop her from killing him first.

The Falcon Killer

China’s war ace, a fighter pilot nicknamed “The Falcon Killer (Tzun Kai),” is actually Bill Gaylord, raised in Peking by his American parents. Gaylord lost both of them as a child during the violent Boxer uprising and then saw his foster family slaughtered in wartime. With a past that’s hardened his soul and given him nerves of steel, Gaylord has used his resolve to down more Japanese aircraft than can be counted.
When he’s not hunting down enemy planes, intrigue constantly follows him—stars of Tzun’s rogues gallery include an agent provocateur and a despotic Chinese warlord. Soon enough, events pit Gaylord against a Japanese spy who has caused untold trouble for the Chinese. Gaylord must somehow find and defeat him or risk losing an ancient Chinese kingdom to the land of the rising sun.

Shanghai Pulp – L. Ron Hubbard’s Spy Killer

Wandering around a bookshop the other week I stumbled across a copy of L Ron Hubbard’s Spy Killer, republished in a great fun series from Galaxy Press entitled Stories from the Golden Age. The Golden Age of pulp fiction they mean of course, a genre Hubbard (yea, the weird Scientology guy). Spy Killer was published in the late 1930s and, while it is rather predictable, it is a rather good brief journey through China at the time – a chaotic Shanghai, warlords, Japanese spies, Japanese invaders, beautiful but untrustworthy White Russian women, trustworthy (of course) American women in the Shanghai Settlement and Kurt Reid, bunko sailor in a heap of trouble in old Shanghai. We also get a side trip to Kalgan (now Zhangjiakou) under Japanese control. And, of course, some hefty doses of Yellow Peril thrown in for good measure. So maybe not such a bad read and an hour or two’s fun reading…Hubbard did write a few other China-set pulps but this is the only one with Shanghai included I think.

RAS Shanghai – Eyewitness: Life in Shanghai during Japanese Occupation, Civil War and Establishment of PRC (1949-1951) – 27/10/13

Max Dauthendey – Stuck in the Dutch East Indies in World War One

I’m afraid I don’t know much (anything really) about the German painter and writer Max Dauthendey (1867-1918). However an anecdote (to follow) about him made me laugh the other day and if anyone can tell me anything about his writing I’d be interested. Dauthendey was a major traveller and in 1905-1906 spent time in Asia, including in China. From that period came Lingam: Zwölf asiatische Novellen (Lingam: Twelve Asian Novellas) published in 1909. Apparently it’s little read nowadays but might be interesting – perhaps a little spicy (lingam is a fertility symbol) – if anyone can provide any details? – much appreciated.

Anyway – the anecdote. During the First World War Dauthendey was travelling in the East again and found himself in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia these days) – as Holland was neutral in WW1, so were their colonies in Asia. Dauthendey appears to have been quite inspired by Java and wrote at least one book about the place – Erlebnisse auf Java.

So, as it’s the war he’s marooned in Java and can’t get back to Germany. Meanwhile a British born woman, Nellie Fuchs, is attempting to get the Germans to release her husband Carl, a world renowned cellist. Out of the blue the Germans offer to send Carl to Britain if London would guarantee the safe passage of Dauthendey home from Java. Fuchs, a major cellist (German born but married to an English citizen) admired by, and good friends with, Sir Edward Elgar in exchange for a minor German poet – a good deal surely. But the British didn’t go for it and the Foreign Office didn’t much like Fuchs as he was German-born, whoever he’d married and whoever admired him. Still, the British needed to check out who this Dauthendey the Germans seemed to care about so much was exactly. A locally based diplomat was sent to Java find out about this Duthendey character and duly reported back:

“Duthendey is in Java and is 58. He is accused of being a poet but may be innocent.”

Duthendey was left marooned in Java and died there in the city of Malang in 1918; Fuchs didn’t get back to Britain, and his wife Nellie, till after the armistice in 1919.

Dauthendey

Royal Asiatic Society China Monographs 1 – Lao She in London – “charmingly written, highly engaging and well-informed”

Given the recent reissue of Lao She’s Mr Ma and Son by Penguin China I’m just giving a quick plug to the best companion read, Anne Witchard’s Lao She in London (the first in the Royal Asiatic Society China’s “China Monograph” series) to that great novel of 1920s London by China’s foremost modernist writer. And it just happens to have got a great review in the Literary London Journal and also to be on special offer at Amazon.

Read the Literary London Journal review here

Buy the book at a rather pleasing discount here

Buy Mr Ma and Son here