Embarquement pour la Chine – Christine Leang

I am hoping that Christine Leang can find an English language publisher for her new book as many of the people profiled have a wider appeal historically than just to the French – Roderick Egal, the leader of Shanghai’s Free French Resistance, for instance….so here’s hoping a bright publisher will pick up the translation rights for Embarquement pour la China…

Monseigneur Favier, Auguste Boppe, le Consul Béchamp, Edith Mankiewicz, le Docteur Bussière, Roderick Egal, George Soulié de Morant… Des noms qui sont tombés dans l’oubli. Tous, pourtant, ont eu une histoire exceptionnelle. Ils ont foulé de leurs pieds la terre de Chine, à une époque où celle-ci n’était accessible qu’après des mois d’une longue traversée en bateau. Certains de ces personnages se sont même croisés ; d’autres ont fait face à leurs homologues locaux, parfois des hôtes, parfois des ennemis. De ce passage en Chine, tous en ont vu leur destin profondément transformés.
Des premiers missionnaires jésuites aux derniers diplomates, en passant par ces hommes qui ont bâti les concessions françaises, et ceux et celles qui sont allés chercher l’exil dans cette contrée lointaine, Embarquement pour la Chine nous invite à un voyage au cÅ“ur de l’Empire du Milieu, à travers les histoires et les destinées de ces Français qui ont découvert la Chine entre les années 1740 et 1950.

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Juillet 1980. Issue de la diaspora chinoise au Cambodge fuyant le régime khmer rouge, Christine Leang naît dans un camp de réfugiés à la frontière thaïlandaise. Dès lors, c’est toute sa vie qui sera empreinte de destinées historiques. Février 2005. Christine Leang quitte Paris, où sa famille et elle ont trouvé refuge, et vient s’installer seule à Shanghai, étape incontournable de sa quête sur ses origines. En découvrant l’expérience des Français qui vécurent en Chine aux siècles précédents, elle fait un tout autre voyage, qui lui apporte un nouvel éclairage sur ses propres interrogations.

And some Ginger Griffin covers too…

Still talking Ann Bridge…As we’ve had some Peking Picnic covers time to slip in a few variations of The Ginger Griffin too…As the blurbs say: “This was Ann Bridge’s second novel, published in 1934. It combines romance and adventure and is set in the days when expatriates and diplomats enjoyed privileged and cosseted lives in the Far East.”

Talking of Peking Picnic…

Talking of Ann Bridge’s 1932 Peking Picnic in yesterdays post (which is actually about 1920s Peking life), it is a book that has had a lot of covers over its long life as a China classic….

1950s Casablanca Real Estate Prices? – ‘like Shanghai in the Old Days’

Old China Hands will be more than familiar with the work of Ann Bridge (formerly Lady Mary Ann Dolling Sanders O’Malley). In 1913 Bridge married Owen St. Clair O’Malley, a British diplomat who was posted to Peking in 1925 for a couple of years. Out of this came Bridge’s classic novels of Peking ex-pat life, Peking Picnic and The Ginger Griffin (which if you haven’t read them you really should). Bridge moved around eastern Europe and later to Portugal. Knowing her China novels well I recently decided to try and read Julia Probyn novels, written later in the 1950s through to her death in 1973. Julia is a well-heeled spy and they are, so far, quite good fun (there’s eight of them in total).

One interesting thing about Bridge’s novels is that China remains a point of reference for her, if not a setting. They also show that that generation that had known China between the wars did regularly reference it when confronted with contemporary events. In the first Julia Probyn novel, A Lighthearted Quest (alternatively sometimes The Lighthearted Quest) our heroine travels briefly to Casablanca sometime a few years after the war. Casablanca is, she is informed by a local banker, going through a real estate boom – she is told, “land values in this place keep soaring like in Shanghai in the old days’.

When in the post-war period people looked around for a massive property boom to compare to they thought instantly of Shanghai in the inter-war period when property prices did indeed boom incredibly. Of course some would say that a few years hence from now we may well be using the same comparison, only to a later Shanghai property boom and resultant crash!!

A Little More on PG Wodehouse and China

After watching the BBC drama the other night Wodehouse in Exile (about PG Wodehouse’s problems in occupied France and his contentious broadcasts for the Germans – Orwell, rightly dubbed him more idiot than traitor) I thought perhaps another post on Wodehouse and China was in order. I posted before about Wodehouse’s China links (and his satirical novel Clarence which see a Chinese army invade Wales) – his dad was a judge in Hong Kong before he was born and Wodehouse himself first worked for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC) and was slated for a Far East posting had his literary career not taken of. This time it might be worth mentioning that Wodehouse did feel drawn occasionally to romantic notions of China – he grew up in a house stuffed with Chinese curios and momentoes of his parents years in Hong Kong – and The Rose of China was one such outpouring.

Around 1919 Wodehouse was in America (his wife was of that extraction) supposedly relaxing but he was persuaded to start working with Guy Bolton on a musical based on Samuel Shipman’s play East is West. This became The Rose of China and they roped in the conductor of the Ritz Hotel’s orchestra Armand Vecsey to provide the score. Wodehouse himself provided the lyrics for at least two songs in the show – Broken Blossoms and Bunny Dear. The show premiered on Broadway in 1920 with Bolton being credited with the book, Vecsey with the music and Wodehouse with the lyrics. It was, unfortunately, a failure and lasted only 47 performances before the three act musical set  in “The garden of Tsao Ling, Tommy Tilford’s bungalow and the Terrace outside the bungalow” was darkened forever. Still, a certain couple of characters called Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves rather took of and Wodehouse could forget his China failure.

Midnight in Peking Chinese Edition Now in the Shops Across the PRC

The Chinese language edition of Midnight in Peking is now in the shops and online in China for the stunningly low price of just RMB35 (actually priced at the high end of the China book market!). My translator was a very cool guy who really diligently worked to try and keep the style and sense of place. It’s going to be interesting to see what Chinese readers think…and below the details for my Chinese readers from Beijing Youth…

英国历史学家还原老北平悬疑罪案 

荣获2013“爱伦•坡奖最佳犯罪实录奖”

这一切居然是真的!

 

“帕梅拉•沃纳的尸体现在就躺在北京的二环路下，那里曾经是英国公墓。在过去的70多年里，她就一如她生前一样——孤单地待在那里。

狐狸塔至今仍俯瞰着盔甲厂胡同，俯瞰着曾经一度混杂不堪的北平黑市。它俯瞰着鞑靼城墙，俯瞰着1937年那个寒冷的早上帕梅拉尸体被发现的地方。现在，只有上了年纪的老北京还记得狐狸塔，而狐狸精也只会出现在老人家的故事里。还有谁记得有外国姑娘在城墙下被分尸的悲惨命运呢？”

 

《午夜北平》(MIDNIGHT IN PEKING)是一本献给帕梅拉的书。

1937年1月，日本全面侵华前夕，年轻的英籍少女——英国外交官19岁的女儿帕梅拉在北平被谋杀，残忍至极的凶杀现场震惊了整个北平。中英警方随即展开调查，但因随后战乱延绵和双方当局的阻挠，案件的侦破不断被搁置，最后竟不了了之，凶手逍遥法外，直到如今。

“我第一次读到帕梅拉•沃纳的故事是在美国记者埃德加•斯诺的传记里。这位记者的畅销著作《红星照耀中国》在上世纪30年代将毛泽东推向了全世界。当时有一条脚注说埃德加的妻子海伦在帕梅拉遭到分解的尸体被发现后很是紧张。因为他们家离案发地点很近，而且海伦••••••福斯特•斯诺也经常晚上骑车回家。这条脚注还提到了狐狸精‘情欲魅惑’的说法，还有帕梅拉的父亲作为英国前外交官的身份以及案子最后一直未能查明凶手的结果。”

75年后，英国人保罗•法兰奇对这个偶然邂逅的故事无法忘怀。“对我来说，是在一个寒冷的冬日，在英国图书馆的报纸存档里意外看到一张帕梅拉的照片时才终于决定一定要把这个故事讲出来。”

保罗•法兰奇出生于伦敦，1986年到复旦大学学习一年中文后，在中国生活了二十年。他是中国问题分析师和评论家，著有《镜里看中国：从鸦片战争到毛泽东时代的驻华外国记者》、《卡尔•克劳——神奇的中国通：一位美国人在上海的生活和冒险》、《北韩：偏执的半岛的现代史》《旧上海的A到Z》。

他开始为之辗转中外，翻阅所有案卷，走访案发地点和相关人员。“一桩让当时北平中外社区都谣言四起议论纷纷的案子，在这座已经被日军包围、岌岌可危的城市里投下了巨大的恐慌，帕梅拉案对无数人来说是个预兆，预示着一座面临灭顶之灾的城市中即将爆发的狂躁。”最终，伴随着骇人罪案被揭密的，还有一个业已消失的古城、一个终结的时代——颓废的北平、冷酷的洋人、古老的城墙、被淡忘的地名、东郊民巷领馆区……

“从头到尾我都觉得帕梅拉••沃纳不应被人忘记，而且不管多晚，都一定要还她一个公平。”在保罗•法兰奇看来，“这一切居然都是真的!”是这个悲剧最骇人的力量和最终极的意义所在。

2013年3月《午夜北平》出版。4月，保罗•法兰奇因为它被美国侦探作家协会（WMA）授予“埃德加•爱伦•坡最佳犯罪实录奖”。

创立于1946年该奖，系以美国前总统林肯和著名音乐家萧伯纳最为激赏的世界侦探小说开山鼻祖埃德加•爱伦•坡（Edgar Allen Poe）的名字命名。自创设以来，备受推崇。全世界的侦探小说作家莫不以获得此奖为荣。该奖亦被誉“世界侦探小说领域的奥斯卡奖”，几乎所有荣获最佳小说奖的作品，最后都被成功改编成电影或电视剧集，尽享赞誉。

据悉，《午夜北平》的电视改编权已被英国Kudos Film and Television公司购下，相关剧集将于9月在中国开拍。其中帕梅拉的父亲，前英国外交官、著名汉学家爱德华•沃纳一角，已确定将由《哈利•波特》中邓不利多校长的饰演者出演，而其中最主要的中国人角色，北平公安局东南分局侦探队韩世清队长，则署意香港演员黄秋生。

                      文/本报记者吴菲

Tom Ford Goes to China for his Smellies – inspired by flowers and, eerr, whores

Tom Ford has several new scents out using China and the Orient as a motif – Fleur de Chine and Shanghai Lily (the prostitute in Shanghai Express, or perhaps a brand of Chinese cervical cap, but who’s caring?), both in the Atelier d’Orient collection.

 Fleur de Chine ~ “Dramatic. Smouldering. Seductive. Tom Ford’s Fleur de chine eau de parfum is an unequivocally romantic and haunting floral fragrance touched with a reverence for the great scents of the past. Precious asian flowers, including hualan flower and star magnolia, are arranged in a bouquet of rare beauty for a scent that lingers on.”

Shanghai Lily ~ “Opulent. Tantalising. Elegant. Tom Ford’s Shanghai Lily eau de parfum is a floral oriental scent that transports the senses into a world of rare and opulent ingredients from the historic silk road. Warm spices, elegant florals and addictive notes of vanilla and frankincense create a hazy reverie of glamour and temptation.”

And the real Shanghai Lily (we never miss a chance for a Dietrich pic here!)…

The Singapore-Hendon Nexus – courtesy of a London Pro

Regular readers will know that I like to find strange comparisons in literature where famous writers compare places in China to rather mundane locations elsewhere – there’s a ton them here with links from previously. Here’s a Singapore related one…

To Beg I am Ashamed was supposedly the memoir of a London prostitute by Sheila Cousins published in 1938 (though some say it was ghost written by Graham Greene). Towards the end of the book the central character is whisked of to Malaya by a client and notes of Singapore:

‘For Singapore, when you get to know it, is merely Hendon Central with the sea round’

eerrr, OK….this of course seems a bit silly now, but then in the 1930s perhaps not so much on reflection (climate aside obviously).

Singapore in the 1930s

Hendon – not overly dismilar to a lot of the architecture Singapore had from the British around the that time…