Shanghai’s Perfume Choices for Summer 1934

Apparently it was…Potter and Moore’s Old English Mitcham Lavender. In its day a classic brand despite the fact that in 2013 thoughts of Mitcham do not perhaps immediately turn to the old lavender fields. However Potter and Moore were famous for their perfumes and aftershaves based on Mitcham lavender which was launched in 1927. It certainly seems to have been the best seller at Suzette’s perfume shop on the Yuen Ming Yuen Road.

Taipei – City of Displacements

Whenever I’ve wanted to have some fun with Xinhua journalists doing profile pieces this is my little recipe – they always insist on asking your university (not too difficult) and your age (always provokes a slight reaction!!), and then what’s your favourite Chinese city? – my answer has always been Taipei – the number of times this answer has been printed? Zero. Anyway, I still maintain that Taipei is my favourite Chinese city for all the reasons you’d expect but the literature on the city is precious little as most, even quite seasoned China Hands, rarely if ever go there – which is a shame.

Anyway, perhaps Joseph Allen’s Taipei: City of Displacements resolves some of those errors by being an entire book about that great city. I hope so…and here’s the details…

This cultural study of public space examines the cityscape of Taipei, Taiwan, in rich descriptive prose. Contemplating a series of seemingly banal subjects – maps, public art, parks – Joseph Allen peels back layers of obscured history to reveal forces that caused cultural objects to be celebrated, despised, destroyed, or transformed as Taipei experienced successive regime changes and waves of displacement. In this thoughtful stroll through the city, we learn to look beyond surface ephemera, moving from the general to the particular, to see sociocultural phenomena in their historical and contemporary contexts.

Joseph R. Allen is professor of Chinese literature and cultural studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

“Through the prism of Taipei’s development, Allen masterfully covers many aspects of visual culture in Taiwan during the past century. The book details cultural debates with insight and draws on many visual forms. Taipei is bound to become a prime source on Taiwan culture.” – Yomi Braester, author of Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract

Dr Sun Yat-sen & Hong Kong: Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum Exhibition Catalogue

for the Sun Yat-sen enthusiasts out there who might not know about this new catalogue from the SYS and Hong Kong exhibition running at the HK Museum of History till October 30th….

The China List – Penguin China’s Special Promotion at HK Book Fair

Apologies for self-promotion but this week Midnight in Peking was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association (UK) “Dagger” for non fiction! Am I happy – you bet. Word also of The China List – Penguin China’s special promotion happening right now in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Book Fair 2013, held from 17-23 July, at Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre. Just get over to the Swindon’s booth…..

China and the Victorian Imagination: Empires Entwined

Ross Forman’s China and the Victorian Imagination is now available….

What happens to our understanding of ‘orientalism’ and imperialism when we consider British-Chinese relations during the nineteenth century, rather than focusing on India, Africa or the Caribbean? This book explores China’s centrality to British imperial aspirations and literary production, underscoring the heterogeneous, interconnected nature of Britain’s formal and informal empire. To British eyes, China promised unlimited economic possibilities, but also posed an ominous threat to global hegemony. Surveying anglophone literary production about China across high and low cultures, as well as across time, space and genres, this book demonstrates how important location was to the production, circulation and reception of received ideas about China and the Chinese. In this account, treaty ports matter more than opium. Ross Forman challenges our preconceptions about British imperialism, reconceptualizes anglophone literary production in the global and local contexts, and excavates the little-known Victorian history so germane to contemporary debates about China’s ‘rise’.

The Royal Hotel up on Range Road – all mod-cons

Shanghai’s old Royal Hotel is not one of the best known of the city’s former establishments. But it’s interesting all the same. Off the beaten track a bit up on Range Road (Wujin Road) on the northern borders of Hongkou it was something of a resort hotel I believe – weekends maybe or somewhat secretive assignations perhaps, Shanghai’s own Brighton for couples wanting a little privacy not too far from home or family! Anyway, in the 1930s The Royal seems fairly decent with private bathrooms, hot water and central heating. Signor Velicogna, the manager, appears to have been Italian, hence the restaurant and the veranda sounds nice – the hotel would probably have had views of the Range Road rifle range, some open land and across Chinese Paoshan (now Baoshan) as well as the Pantheon Theatre round the corner. Not quite so charming had you been staying there in the summer of 1937 as the area was occupied by British troops defending the Settlement from Japanese incursion. Further along the road was also the Municipal Isolation Hospital for foreigners with contagious diseases and, one assumes, the rather noisy Anglo-Chinese School. Very close was the Japanese YMCA for Shanghai.

I’m out of Shanghai right now but if any exploring inclined Shanghailander would like to go along and try and find the old 209 Range Road and see if anything’s still there I’d appreciate it?

The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory

An interesting new book, and long overdue really, on the Birth of Chinese Feminism…also an interview here on Shanghaiist with the authors….

Churchill’s Little Chinoiserie Moment in his Bunker

OK, so this is one of those occasional (actually quite regular) obscure China Rhyming posts – this time about the possibility that Churchill sat around the bunker in Whitehall throughout the Blitz being cleverer than Hitler in a silk Chinoiserie embroidered robe. Well, it’s an image conjured in the novel Orders from Berlin by Simon Tolkein (a great summer read by the way) which concerns Nazi spies in high places in Churchill’s bunker and Mi5. At one point Churchill is described considering how to defeat the Nazi’s clothed only in a red (I think) silk robe ornamented with Chinese dragons and other motifs. Can this be true!! Did Chinoiserie comfort and beauty help us defeat fascism?

Well, a quick google search reveals that Churchill did indeed wear silk robes. Churchill’s Private Secretary recalled him in the bunker in a blue silk robe of “heavily brocaded silk and snakeskin slippers”. Additionally George McKee Elsey, an aide to Harry Truman, recalled Churchill staying at the White House in 1945 in a silk robe. A few other wartime diplomats recall the silk robes too but not the specific Chinese-ness of them. Still, I like to think that Winnie plotted the defeat of Der Fuhrer shrouded in a bit of Chinoiserie as the bombs fell on London….sadly I don’t think of a photo exists of the great man draped in his silk chinois finery…and can you imagine that arse Adolf in a Chinoiserie robe!!