All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
Penguin paperbacks are 78 years old today, so here’s some random China-related Penguin covers across the 78 years….
(come on – you didn’t really think I was going to leave of one of my own did you!!)
Don’t often get new books on Mongolia and its recent past but this one from former US Ambassador Jonathan Addleton, Mongolia and the US, looks interesting….
The author, Jonathan S. Addleton, participated in a number of these developments, first as USAID country director (2001–04) and later as US ambassador (2009–12). The narrative provides personal insights and is based on material that would otherwise be unavailable.
Jonathan S. Addleton served as a US Foreign Service officer in Mongolia twice, first as USAID mission director (2001–04) and then as ambassador (2009–12). Other assignments include development counselor at the US Mission to the European Union in Brussels; USAID mission director in Pakistan and Cambodia; and USAID program officer in Jordan, Kazakhstan, South Africa, and Yemen. He has written a number of articles on Asia as well as two previous books, Undermining the Center (Oxford University Press, 1992) and Some Far and Distant Place (University of Georgia Press, 1997). In 2012, he was awarded the Polar Star, Mongolia’s highest civilian honor for foreign citizens, for his role in strengthening ties between the United States and Mongolia.
“Long before they had diplomatic relations, Mongolia and the United States influenced one another in unusual and unrecognized ways. Now Jonathan Addleton’s inside look at the diplomatic relations between the two countries carries lessons for anyone wishing to learn from the past as a guide to future relations between the great powers of Asia and America.â€
—Jack Weatherford, Author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
“Ambassador Addleton admirably documents contemporary Mongolian relations, together with early contacts in the 1860s and exotic adventures in the twentieth century. His timely, highly readable record of bilateral engagement since 1987 highlights the development of Mongolian democracy and the entwined interests of our two countries.â€
—Alphonse F. La Porta, US Ambassador to Mongolia, 1997–2000
“Hearty thanks to Jonathan Addleton for this lively and illuminating account of the US-Mongolian relationship’s rapid multidimensional development and major contribution to the historical transformation of this remote and fascinating country.â€
—Richard Williams, First US Ambassador to Mongolia
“Mongolia and the United States is must reading for professional diplomats and business people preparing to work in Ulaanbaatar. Well organized and authoritative, Ambassador Addleton’s book will be welcomed by libraries and academic researchers seeking a work that puts all the data on US-Mongolia relations in one place. Lively descriptions of past history lead up to informative treatments of contemporary USAID measures to reform the Mongolian banking system, security cooperation between our military establishments, and Peace Corps people-to-people relationships. A valuable contribution to the literature on a strategic Asian country.â€
— Nicholas Platt, President Emeritus, Asia Society
Jonathan S. Addleton served in Mongolia as USAID mission director (2001–2004) and then as U.S. ambassador (2009–2012). His previous assignments included development counselor at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels; USAID mission director in Pakistan and Cambodia; and USAID program officer in Jordan, Kazakhstan, South Africa, and Yemen. He is the author of Undermining the Center: The Gulf Migration and Pakistan and Some Far and Distant Place. In 2012, he was awarded the Polar Star, Mongolia’s highest civilian honor conferred on foreign citizens, for his role in strengthening ties between the United States and Mongolia.
Having posted yesterday on Agatha Christie’s “Fu-Manchu-esque” The Big Four I thought a variety of covers over the years since its 1927 first publications might be interesting – I’ll start with the first publication UK cover from ’27 and then some other interesting ones…
Agatha Christie’s 1927 novel The Big Four is her only novel that steps outside the country house style genre (or essentially country houses put on the Orient Express or up the Nile) and works within the mysterious super villain genre. It’s a Hercule Poirot book but with a bit more action and daring-do than we’re used to by the fusty old Belgian. It’s an amalgam of four shorter stories Christie wrote for The Sketch. The Big Four are led by Chinese villain Li Chang Yen who bears a remarkable resemblance in description and action to Sax Rohmer’s far better known Fu Manchu. Li Chang Yen is often described as “Fu-Manchu-esque” but in 1927 only three Fu Manchu novels had been published and he was far from becoming the Yellow Peril phenomenon he has since. However, in Fu-Manchu-esque style we do get Limehouse dope dens and dark “Oriental” streets in the heart of the Empire’s capital. We are in, as The Observer review of the time noted, an East End ‘hung with rich Oriental silks’.
Anyway, this cover crossed my screen the other day and looked interesting and does, coming later than 1927 obviously, overtly seem to mimic Fu Manchu to attract readers attention.
Watson’s the pharmacy chain from Hong Kong is now spreading out across mainland China with branches opening all over the place. They’re still in the mineral water business with their trademark stubby green capped bottle. However, I strolled around a Shanghai branch recently and Watson’s Chocolate Soda was conspicuous by its absence. No idea what it tasted like but I like chocolate and I like fizzy drinks so probably pretty good. Anyway, the bottle’s lovely!!! Sadly no branch (yet) back at 327 Kiangse Road (now Jiangxi Road). Perhaps some historically minded Watson’s exec with influence will revive the product as a limited edition with the rather ornate bottles, though I accept the price may have to change – a buck 40 for twelve bottles is pretty good!
I note (thanks to The Guardian who included a picture of her on their site) that this week is the 93rd anniversary of the execution of the legendary spy and femme-fatale Mata Hari. A former dancer in Paris, her exotic and provocative routines brought her fame all over Europe and she became a celebrated courtesan with lovers including military and political figures from France and Germany. This ultimately led to her being charged and convicted as a spy during the Great War, although the Germans had dismissed her as an ineffective agent. She was executed by firing squad on 25th July 1917.
Now there is a slight China Rhyming angle to Mata Hari (Margaretha Geertruida Zelle MacLeod) and she’s popped up a couple of times in recent research thinking about the western notion of the Oriental dragon lady (in Foreign Policy) and an essay on Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu’s images of women (for a forthcoming collection on Rohmer and Fu Manchu – more details to follow when I get a publication date for that collection).Â
I won’t spell out all of Mata Hari’s exciting life (she’s got her own Wikipedia page here) but she did manage to create a create legend about herself as an Asian Godess/femme-fatale. Rohmer himself chose to believe the legend – in a 1932 interview he ruminated on Mata Hari, “who won her way into the secrets of the Allies through her alluring Oriental dancing.†Her described her (as per her own invented legend) as mixed race (her mother was Javanese, her father a Dutch banker in Batavia); manipulated by evil Eastern forces (at 14 her mother placed her with a mystic in an Indian temple to be trained as a dancer); a seducer of men (at 16 she reputedly ensnared Scots nobleman Sir Rudolf McLeod; a murderess (she reputedly murdered a gardener who poisoned one of her sons); and so naturally a spy.
In reality Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, was born in Friesland to white parents who owned a hat shop, though she was a brunette and had darker skin than her parents, leading to rumours of her part-Javanese ancestry. There was no temple at 16 and she met McLeod, a Dutch Colonial Army Captain and only parts Scots, when he advertised in an Amsterdam newspaper for a wife. Her child fell violently ill from complications relating to the treatment of syphilis contracted from his parents – no vengeful gardener in sight. The marriage fell apart, Margaretha returned to Europe and, incorporating elements of traditional Javanese dance she’d seen while living in the Dutch East Indies, became an exotic dancer with her trademark headdresses and be-jewelled dresses.
And so, on the anniversary of her execution, one woman who embraced Orientalism and Chinoiserie (or Dutch East Indies style) and ended up in a lot of trouble….
Looking for a present for that Yellow Peril arch Oriental super villain in your life? Look no further than e-bay….
The tasteful, and not at all sterotypical and racist, Mighty Beanz Fu Manchu toy….get the young’uns off to a good start Yellow Perilling….
the self-adhesive Chinaman moustache is guaranteed to be a hoot at any Yellow Peril fancy dress dinner party you may be called upon to attend….
Until I blogged yesterday about a new re-issue of Pearl S. Buck’s Letter from Peking I hadn’t really realised how many covers past editions of the book have amassed. I’ll put my favourite of the ones I’ve seen first and then a selection of others….
