All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
UK readers may be interested in the new Sunday Mirror Book Club which gives you free books!! Including Midnight in Peking in some rather illustrious company…should be more details in this Sunday’s paper…..
As part of the ongoing Isamu Noguchi-Qi Baishi-Beijing 1930 exhibition at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City I’ll be talking about the city Noguchi encountered when he arrived….
When Isamu Noguchi arrived in Peking for the first time in June 1930 he declared “Peking is like Paris.” In China Noguchi was continuing his journey to being a World Citizen and influential Modernist artist. Previously, in New York, Paris and London, Noguchi had learned to appreciate “the value of the moment,” but also became interested in Asian art forms and styles. As a committed Modernist he explicitly rejected the ideology of Realism and in doing so he sought to make use of the artistic styles of ancient traditions. In China he was to study under Qi Baishi, the classical water colorist, calligrapher and woodcutter.
However, Noguchi’s sojourn in Peking came at a time of intense political upheaval in the former Chinese capital. On the eve of the Japanese annexation of Manchuria, Peking was in thrall to rampant warlordism. It was a city on the edge- both in terms of its proximity to Japanese incursions in the north, and rising fears among the city’s population for their future political stability. Peking was a place of vast contrasts- both ancient and modern, imperial and republican, a centre of classical Chinese culture as well as home to an international expatriate group of aesthetes, Modernists and avant-gardists. While Noguchi’s time with Qi Baishi is the focus of this exhibition, the influence of Peking itself, his exposure to its intellectuals and sojourners from Europe, America and Japan was highly influential on his emergent Modernist outlook and later work.
In this presentation writer and historian Paul French (author of Midnight in Peking and The Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking) seeks to explain Peking in 1930, the city itself, the people who inhabited it and their joint effect on Isamu Noguchi and his work.
I’m indebted to Anthony Clayton, one of the editors of the forthcoming collection of essays, Lord of Strange Deaths: The Fiendish World of Sax Rohmer (about which more soon), for introducing me to the 1922 London stage musical Round in 50 at the recent excellent Fu Manchu in London: Limehouse, Lao She and Yellow Peril in the Heart of Empire conference at the University of Westminster. Round in 50 ran at the London Hippodrome and featured some amazing representations (fantastical of course) of China in the Jazz Age. The musical, partly written by Rohmer, was a vehicle for the music hall entertainer George Robey and is a take on Around the World in 80 Days though this time in 50 with Phil Fogg. The play featured an elaborate set for Hong Kong and a “Chinese street” where the travellers are robbed. I would direct anyone interested to this great post on the musical, featuring some pictures of the amazing Chinese set, at the blog Jazz Age Club – well worth a look if you like your stage sets a la Chinois!
I don’t have any images from the show myself but the website has plenty to keep you going – but here’s a shot of Rohmer all got up in a Chinoiserie style for you….
A quick self plug – I’ll be at Books & Co at The Greene Shopping Center in Dayton, Ohio this Friday should you happen to be in the area!
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11; 7 PM
PAUL FRENCH will discuss the paperback edition of his true-crime book, Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China. French, an historian and China expert, has opened the books on a 75-year old unsolved murder of Pamela Werner, a British schoolgirl, and offers a glimpse into the last days of Colonial Peking, delving into Peking’s seedy underworld of crime, drugs, and prostitution.
In the tradition of the true crime classics White Mischief and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Midnight in Peking transforms a front page murder into an absorbing and emotional expose, bringing the last days of old Peking to life.
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The Chinese Film Forum UK is screening the film Golden Gate Girls (Louisa Wei, Hong Kong 2013) as part of a conference on Chinese Cinemas in and outside of China to be held on 11-13 October 2013 at Cornerhouse, will mark the culmination of two years of funded support from the AHRC.
Golden Gate Girls
Louisa Wei, Hong Kong 2013
In Cantonese, English
88 mins
This highly personal documentary chronicles director Louisa Wei’s efforts to reconstruct the life and career of Esther Eng, a Chinese-American director born in San Francisco in the early 1900s. Today, Eng has been virtually forgotten. Wei’s documentary paints a fascinating picture of how her career in filmmaking broke through gender and racial boundaries in Hollywood and Hong Kong, at a time when opportunities for Chinese women in the industry were few and far between.
Writer/director Louisa Wei will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.
Kindly RSVP to: cffuk.mcr@gmail.com
The Chinese Film Forum UK is an AHRC-supported research network based in Manchester that was set up for the research and promotion of transnational Chinese film. The network includes Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Salford, the University of Manchester, Confucius Institute, Chinese Arts Centre and Cornerhouse. More information may be found on our website: www.cffuk.org
A plug for an event of my own this Wednesday in Witchita….
More detials of the event and Watermark Books here
Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French, took the world by storm when it was published last year. With editions published by Penguin US, Penguin UK, Penguin Australia, Penguin China, and Penguin Canada, it was truly a global publishing event. Midnight in Peking is an absolutely riveting true crime story that has received critical acclaim around the globe. It has also been nominated for an Edgar award in the Best Fact Crime category. French, a historian and China expert, has opened the books on a seventy-five-year-old unsolved murder and offers a glimpse into the last days of Colonial Peking.
Peking, January 1937. In the frigid winter air, the ancient Fox Tower—rumored to be home to the seductive fox spirits who steal men’s souls—keeps silent watch. The morning after Russian Orthodox Christmas celebrations, the city awakens to a hangover—and a murder. The mutilated body of British schoolgirl Pamela Werner is found at the base of the Fox Tower, on the edge of the Badlands. A shiver of fear and shock ripples through Peking. With the Japanese already in Manchuria and encircling Peking, the city is on high alert.
Chinese detective Han and visiting British detective Dennis team up to solve the case, battling time and the meddling of their respective bureaucracies. Dennis, a Scotland Yard man, attempts to recreate Pamela’s last days by combing through her diary and questioning her friends. A puzzling picture emerges of a girl who was sometimes a studious schoolgirl and other times a girl on the cusp of womanhood.
Han and Dennis’s investigation pulls them deep into Peking’s seedy underworld of crime, drugs, and prostitution. As the weeks progress and they get no closer to finding the killer, they are pressured to close the case by their superiors, the press, and the public. Dennis returns to Tientsin and Han closes the official investigation. Unsatisfied, Pamela’s father, ETC Werner, takes up the search for justice. What he uncovers is even more devious that Han and Dennis had suspected. Though no justice is served, the remainder of Werner’s life is consumed with the investigation into his daughter’s murder.
Almost seventy-five years after the murder of Pamela Werner, Paul French finally gives the case the resolution it was denied at the time. In the tradition of the true crime classics White Mischief and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Midnight in Paris transforms a front page murder into an absorbing and emotional exposé, bringing the last days of old Peking to life.
Another post on Fu Manchu (well, it is the centenary of the Fu Manchu books this year) – I hadn’t realised quite how much confectionery the old Chinese arch-villain had inspired….and video games and a Chinese take-away in Strabane, Northern Ireland!!
Fu-Man Chew Hormone Gum (??) – a happy smiling Fu…..
Some kinda gummy Fu Man Chew – and a strange sort of Monkey from Journey to the West type Fu Manchu image
Fu Man Chews gumballs
Not forgetting a rather silly video game
And Fu-Man Chew’s Chinese in Strabane