Fleming’s Thrilling Cities Reissued

Fantastic to see Ian Fleming’s (yes, the Bond guy, and brother of China explorer Peter) Thrilling Cities reissued. It’s been hard to find except in second hand stores for years and, if the store knew the value of it, expensive. But now it’s back as a Vintage Classic. Why should China Rhyming readers care? Surely it’s the elder Fleming brother, Peter, we care about? And usually yes, but in this case the cities that thrilled Fleming include Hong Kong and Macao. Fleming’s tour of Hong Kong in 1963 was courtesy of The Sunday Times correspondent Richard Hughes, a man so cool he became the model for Dikko Henderson in You Only Live Twice and “Old Craw” in John Le Carre’s superb novel of Hong Kong, The Honourable Schoolboy. Still Fleming only stayed three days. He moved on to Macao and then Tokyo though, if I recall correctly, Fleming basically thought Macao a seedy dump infested by gangsters, wastrels and Catholics! Below the lovely original cover…

Meridian’s Book Launch & Talk on Lao She in London by Dr Anne Witchard 17th April

An event organised by the Meridian Society in London coming up on Wednesday, 17 April, a talk by Anne Witchard on the famous Chinese novelist and playwright, Lao She, particularly focusing on his years on London and her book (in the Royal Asiatic Society Shanghai’s China Monographs series) Lao She in London.

The talk is at SOAS is preceded by a book launch at the famous bookshop, Arthur Probsthain’s at 41 Great Russell Street), from 5.30 – 6 pm.

Date: Wednesday, 17th April
Book Launch: 5.30pm-6pm, Arthur Probsthain Bookshop
Talk: 6.30pm-8pm, Room B102, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Univeristy of London, Russell Square

Lao She is revered as one of China’s great modern writers. His life and work have been the subject of volumes of critique, analysis and study. However, the four years the young aspiring writer spent in London between 1924 and 1929 have largely been overlooked. Anne Witchard, a specialist in the modernist milieu of London between the wars, reveals Lao She’s encounter with British high modernism and literature from Dickens to Conrad to Joyce.

Free entry for Meridian, SACU and SOAS CSSA members
£5 entry to talk for non-members
To book a place, please reply your name and membership status to us.
Our Email: themeridiansociety@gmail.com

Chinese “Houses”, “Pavillions” and London’s Pleasure Gardens

A rather lovely book out recently and just reviewed in the London Review of Books, David Coke’s Vauxhall Gardens: A History, tells the story of the great pleasure gardens of 18th century London – Vauxhall as well as Ranelagh, Marylebone and others where all manner of fun and mischief was got up to. I’d known of the Chinese pavilions at Vauxhall (below) but didn’t know of the Chinese “House” at Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea (also below). So worth a couple of pictures I think…

The Chinese Pavillions and Boxes at Vauxhall Gardens

The exterior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens, the “Chinese House”, and part of the grounds; engraving by Thomas Bowles, 1754.

And the book itself…

From their early beginnings in the Restoration until the final closure in Queen Victoria’s reign, Vauxhall Gardens developed from a rural tavern and place of assignation into a dream-world filled with visual arts and music, and finally into a commercial site of mass entertainment. A social magnet for Londoners and tourists, they also became a dynamic centre for the arts in Britain. By the eighteenth century, when the Gardens were owned and managed by Jonathan Tyers – friend of Handel, Hogarth and Fielding – they were crucial to the cultural and fashionable life of the country, patronized by all levels of society, from royal dukes to penurious servants. In the first book on the subject for over fifty years, Alan Borg and David E. Coke reveal the teeming life, the spectacular art and the ever-present music of Vauxhall in fascinating detail. In the nineteenth century the Gardens remained a popular attraction, but faced increasing competition from new forms of entertainment such as the circus and the music hall and, with the arrival of the railway, the seaside. Nevertheless, they remained a prominent feature of London life right up to their closure in 1859. Borg and Coke’s historical exposition of the entire history of the foremost pleasure garden of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century London makes a major contribution to the study of London entertainments, art, music, sculpture, class and ideology, and puts into a very particular context an unusual combination of subjects. It reveals how Vauxhall linked high and popular culture in ways that look forward to the manner in which both art and entertainment have evolved in modern times.

New UK Paperback Edition of Midnight in Peking

Apologies for a few self-promotional posts for a week or so but new UK and US paperback editions of Midnight in Peking are appearing and I’ll be doing some events and talks in both the UK and US in April and May. First off, the new UK paperback edition priced at a lovely GBP5.99….I really love this cover (the designer specialises in covers for all those Victorian era crime novels that are really popular at the moment but the style also works well for cold, dark 1937 Peking I think) and so do the booksellers apparently, which is good news.

The Woman Before Wallis: Prince Edward, the Parisian Courtesan, and the Perfect Murder

A little of topic today but I got asked to blurb this book some time back when it was in proof stages and it really is a new angle on an old story – i.e. Edward VIII and Andrew Rose’s The Woman Before Wallis. It’s called The Prince, the Princess and the Perfect Murder in the UK by the way. Absolutely no China angle (unless you fast forward to Wallis Simpson and remember that when Edward VIII was in this earlier mess Wallis was sojourning in shanghai and Peking in her “lotus years”).

From the glittering dance halls of Paris during World War I to the maisons de rendezvous, luxurious châteaus in the French countryside, The Woman Before Wallis recounts the untold story of Prince Edward’s tempestuous affair with a Parisian courtesan and the scandalous aftermath that has remained secret until now.

Prince Edward was the future King of England when he famously abdicated his crown over his love for the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. But two decades earlier, he was an inexperienced young man, stationed behind the lines during World War I, socializing with the elite aristocracy of Europe while fellow soldiers were being shelled in the trenches. Gradually, the awkward young man, who was desperate to see action, became involved in a very different sort of action—when his path crossed with the queen of the Paris demimonde.

Marguerite Alibert was a beautiful but tough Parisian who had fought her way up from street gamine to a woman haut de gamme, possibly the highest-ranking courtesan in Paris. She entertained some of the richest and most powerful men in the world—from princes to pashas. When the inexperienced Prince Edward was introduced to the alluring Marguerite, he was instantly smitten. After their tumultuous love affair ended, Edward thought he was free of Marguerite, but he was wrong. Several years later, Marguerite murdered her husband—a wealthy Egyptian playboy—by shooting him three times in the back at the Savoy Hotel in London. When Marguerite stood trial for murder, Edward was at risk of having his affair and behavior during the war exposed. What happened next was kept from the public for decades, uncovered thanks to exceptional access to unpublished documents held in the Royal Archives and private collections in England and France.

Andrew Rose is a historian and barrister who practiced law in London for twenty years and was a judge until 2008. His first book, Stinie: Murder on the Common, was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Nonfiction Award by the Crime Writers’ Association. He divides his time between London and France.

Where’s Peter Pan on the Avenue Joffre?

I’ve posted before about the Peter Pan Shop on Avenue Joffre (now Huai Hai Road) in Frenchtown that remained for many decades in so many young Shanghailanders minds as the most wonderful toy shop in Shanghai. It was run by two lovely White Russian Jewish ladies. But I’ve posted again as someone told me a nice anecdote about the shop the other day…

Chinese sales people from toy companies, publishers and curio dealers would turn up at the store looking to sell their wares into the store….they would invariably ask to speak to Mr Pan! JM Barrie’s mischievous little boy who never ages but can fly was rather unknown to them sadly!

Beijing RAS – The Badlands – a book launch with Paul French – Beijing Bookworm 13/4/13

An event I’m doing for the newly found (and congratulations and welcome) Beijing Royal Asiatic Society at the Beijing Bookworm on Saturday night, should you happen to be in the capital….

Saturday, April 13 7:30pm
The Badlands – a book launch with Paul French and RAS Beijing

40/50rmb

The Badlands, a warren of narrow hutongs in the eastern district of pre-communist Peking, had its heyday in the 1930s. Home to the city’s drifters, misfits and the odd bohemian, it was a place of opium dens, divebars, brothels, flophouses and cabarets, and was infamous for its ability to satisfy every human desire from the exotically entertaining to the criminally depraved. Paul French’s latest The Badlands – is a series of vignettes of eight non-Chinese residents of the precinct – White Russians, Americans and Europeans. Join us as French brings the Badlands vividly back to life, providing a short but potent account of a place and a way of life until now largely forgotten, but here rendered unforgettable.

Small God, Big City – Earth God Shrines in Urban Hong Kong

Michael Wolf, of the excellent Hong Kong Corner Houses book, has just published a book of earth god shrines in Hong Kong…

Following the success of Hong Kong Corner Houses (2011), German photographer Michael Wolf continues with his collaboration with Hong Kong University Press to produce Small God, Big City. Michael again uses his creative eye to draw attention to overlooked objects in the visually rich urban environment of Hong Kong. This time, the object is the Earth God shrine, found commonly by the doorways of shops and homes throughout Hong Kong.

Through his visually stimulating and thought- provoking photographs, Michael challenges our sensitivity to seemingly familiar everyday things. An interpretative text for the photographs is authored by two familiar names: Lee Ho Yin and Lynne DiStefano, who are well-known academics and practitioners of heritage conservation in Hong Kong. The text leads readers to a better understanding of the topic and the meaning behind Michael’s photographs of Earth God shrines in urban Hong Kong. The topic of this book is timely, given the vulnerability of traditional beliefs and practices in an increasingly urbanised Hong Kong. It is hoped that Small God, Big City will provoke deeper thoughts on who we are and what we believe in, in this modern world.