RAS Shanghai – Betty Grebenschikoff on her Journey from Nazi Germany to Shanghai – 5/11

Betty Grebenschikoff on her book

Once My Name Was Sara

Tuesday 5 November 2013,  7 pm

RAS Library at the Sino-British College

1195 Fuxing Zhong Lu

Betty Grebenschikoff has reached into her past to write a moving memoir of her experiences as a Holocaust refugee in Shanghai.

 

“Once My Name Was Sara” details her family’s flight from Nazi Germany. With wit and humor she describes her early childhood in Berlin and later growing up in Shanghai, the city that became her home. As stateless Jewish refugees, she and her family were interned in the Hongkew ghetto by Japanese authorities during World War II. Illustrating an invincible spirit in the face of overwhelming odds, Grebenschikoff’s memoir is a story of hope and survival.

 

After leaving Shanghai in 1950, Grebenschikoff lived in Australia before coming to America in 1953. She now makes her home in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Ventnor, New Jersey.

 

Currently visiting Shanghai, she will speak to RAS members and friends about her memoir, and her years in the city that inspired it.

RSVP: to RAS Bookings at: bookings@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn

  

ENTRANCE: 30 rmb (RAS members) and 80 rmb (guests). 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

How a Taste for Chinoiserie Got Josephine Baker to Paris

Earlier this year I posted a couple of times on Josephine Baker, the great St. Louis-born dancer who went to Paris in 1925 and became a sensation. I noted that she did use, and seemed to enjoy, some Indo-Chinoiserie motifs and songs as well having previously sung a couple of Broadway Oriental Chinois-style numbers in the hit show Shuffle Along (singing Oriental Blues).

However, it seems though that it just might have been a taste for Chinoiserie that got Josephine to Paris in the first place. According to Judith Mackrell’s new book Flappers: Women of a Dangerous Generation (which, incidentally, has Josephine on the cover) Josephine was first enticed to Paris from America by Caroline Dudley, a well connected American in Paris who thought she would be just perfect for Paris’s 1920s cabarets. Josephine dithered – it was a big step, a major leap into the unknown and away from America. She was working at the Plantation Club in New York, making OK money, building a career. What the hell was France!! One night Caroline Dudley turned up at the Plantation to try and persuade Josephine one last time to take the job in Paris. That night Dudley happened to be wearing a “Chinese style coat, richly embroidered with gold thread.” Baker loved it and asked Dudley if she would give it to her. Dudley seized her chance, handed over the Chinoiserie coat and Josephine agreed to go to Paris!

You can get just Josephine’s story as a kindle edition too – here

Midnight in Peking – The Taiwanese Edition – Out Now

The Taiwanese edition of Midnight in Peking is out now – many thanks to my excellent translator down in Taipei Richard Chen. I do rather like this cover….

Andre Lhote, Wu Guan Zhong and an Outbreak of Chinese Art in London

London seems agog at all things Chinese arty at the moment – more traditional stuff right now thanks to the V&A’s exhibition Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700-1900 (I’ll get along when the initial crowds die down I think). However, do check the very cool swirling dragons on the exhibitions site!! As well as the V&A Super Show we’ve got the release of Phaidon’s new Chinese Art Book – 5,000 years in 300 works.

So, as is customary here at China Rhyming, a far more obscure anecdote on Chinese art. This one concerns the French painter André Lhote. Lhote was born in 1885 in Bordeaux and held his first solo exhibition in 1910 in Paris. Lhote’s style was initially influenced by Gauguin and Cezanne, then later transitioned to Cubism. He was a major influence on one major Chinese artist as a young man who studied with him, Wu Guan Zhong. Wu, in his memoirs (he sadly died in 2010), clearly and fondly remembers details of the time he spent at Lhote’s Studio and was impressed by Lhote’s use of colour paper in his teaching and painting. Wu wrote in his memoir “Lhote was a magician of colour. Learning the use of colour was a very important part of studying at his studio.  It wasn’t just the use of colour; it was giving colour structure.  I also learned composition, especially landscape composition.”

So first two examples of Lhote’s work and then two from Wu Guan Zhong…..

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.