The Hudec Memorial Hall – 1 (exterior)

Later this year the Shanghai architect Laszlo Hudec’s old house on Panyu Road (formerly Columbia Road) will open to the public as the Hudec Memorial Hall. This is great news and there’s more details here. So I don’t know what’s in the house now or what will be exhibited. Hudec was obviously important – over 100, mostly excellent, buildings in Shanghai including the Park Hotel and a few that have been torn down too (35 are gone now out of the total 100). Apparently the Hungarians are responsible for this restoration – good on them. Anyway, as I can’t see inside yet I thought I’d repost some photos taken in 2010 when (with Duncan Hewitt and Bill Savadove) I spent a brisk spring morning crawling over the building which at the time was in a desperate state of repair and looked like it might go. A migrant worker family were (sort of) looking after it but it was a bit knackered. Amazingly it’s been saved though the once lovely gardens (see first picture below) have gone to some 1950s blocks and a particularly ugly concrete block of a hotel slap bang in front of it. So, anyway, what the house and gardens once looked like and then a bunch of photos from 2010 and back with more in June hopefully when we get a look inside.

I’ll post the outside today and the old inside tomorrow…there’ll also be more photos on my tumblr overspill site at http://chinarhyming.tumblr.com/

The Myth of Wu Tao Tzu – Sven Lindqvist

Lindqvist has long been one of the more interesting of the crop of modern travel writers covering the East and this book, The Myth of Wu Tao Tzu, is no exception so I thought it worth mentioning here as it’s recently been reprinted by Granta. It’s a fascinating meditation on the meaning of art and its link/separateness from the wider world. I have shared Lindqvist’s experience of feeling almost able to step into a piece of Tang Dynasty art. A couple of years ago I visited the National Palace Museum Digital exhibition at Taipei’s Huashan 1914 Creative Park where several works, similar to Wu Tao Tzu, were reproduced on plasma screens with touch screen technology allowing you to zoom in and out – the effect was to amplify the experience Lindqvist experienced of being able to step into a world through a work of art (I blogged about that here). However, of course, ultimately reality intrudes….

‘During the Tang dynasty, the Chinese artist Wu Tao-tzu was one day standing looking at a mural he had just completed. Suddenly, he clapped his hands and the temple gate opened. He went into his work and the gates closed behind him.’ Thus begins Sven Lindqvist’s profound meditation on art and its relationship with life, first published in 1967, and a classic in his home country – it has never been out of print. As a young man, Sven Lindqvist was fascinated by the myth of Wu Tao-tzu, and by the possibility of entering a work of art and making it a way of life. He was drawn to artists and writers who shared this vision, especially Hermann Hesse, in his novel Glass Bead Game. Partly inspired by Hesse’s work, Lindqvist lived in China for two years, learning classical calligraphy from a master teacher. There he was drawn deeper into the idea of a life of artistic perfectionism and retreat from the world. But when he left China for India and then Afghanistan, and saw the grotesque effects of poverty and extreme inequality, Lindqvist suffered a crisis of confidence and started to question his ideas about complete immersion in art at the expense of a proper engagement with life. The Myth of Wu Tao-tzu takes us on a fascinating journey through a young man’s moral awakening and his grappling with profound questions of aesthetics. It contains the bracing moral anger, and poetic, intensely atmospheric travel writing Lindqvist’s readers have come to love.

Darwent Revisited: Shanghai now and then

Sorry, but I found out about this a little too late to publicise, but you can follow it up and hopefully at some point it will come to Shanghai in some form. Jamie Carstairs from the Visualising China project at Bristol University created an installation of photos old and new, just exhibited in Bristol over Chinese New Year, around the Revd. CE Darwent’s 1904 Shanghai Handbook for Travellers and Residents.

More details here and here with photographic examples of Darwent and Carstairs’s work

Chinese Politicians Doing Celebrity Endorsements – 1890s style

These days Chinese politicians don’t get much involved in celebrity endorsements, even when they retire (they don’t really need the money it seems!!). But in times past they have – or at least their image was positive enough to be seen as good for endorsing a product other than authoritarian government. Li Hung Chang (or Hongzhang if you prefer) was by far the most internationally recognisable statesmen of late Qing China and the western media was fascinated by the so-called Self Strengthening Movement, which he championed. Li was also a bit of a traveller – he went to Russia, England and America among other countries in the late 1890s. His American visit excited enough attention that the New York Sunday Journal decided to use his image for a bit of publicity. Whether he was paid for his endorsement or not I don’t know – I suspect not, like Dickens he probably just got ripped off by the Americans. Oh how the tables have turned in turned in terms of IP theft of celebrity images!

Midnight in Peking up for an Edgar

Apologies, a self promoting post I’m afraid. However, Midnight in Peking has been nominated for an Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award that “honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television, published or produced in 2012.” Apparently it’s the 204th anniversary of the birth of Poe this year – I have no idea if 204 is auspicious or not.

I’ve been nominated in the rather oddly titled ‘Best Fact Crime’ category…and here’s the competition:

BEST FACT CRIME 2012

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French (Penguin Group USA – Penguin Books)
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King (HarperCollins Publishers – Harper)
More Forensics and Fiction: Crime Writers’ Morbidly Curious Questions Expertly Answered by D.P. Lyle, MD (Medallion Press)
Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre (Crown Publishers)
The People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo – and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up by Richard Lloyd Parry (Farrar Straus & Giroux Originals)

They’re announced on May 2nd so we’ll see if a trophy is forthcoming – if not prepare for one of those “it was great simply to be nominated” blog posts

You can see all the categories and nominees here

Coming Down Alert – The Last Vestiges of Jukong Road

Jukong Road and Jukong Alley (often spelt Ju Kong) were once legendary names in Shanghai. Consider this enticing description from 1936’s Shanghai: High Lights, Low Lights and Tael Lights, the wonderfully irreverent guide book to the city’s seemier side by Maurine Karns and Pat Patterson:

Just the other side of the Settlement gate, and in the Chinese late-closing area, is Jukong Alley, scene of the Venus Cabaret, already described. Here are probably the greatest collection of honky-tonk cafes ever assembled on one street. Most of them are Russian, some are Japanese, all of them something extra special in what the Well Dressed Man is avoiding this season. That is, outside of the Venus, and an especially choice resort, called the Red Rose, quite popular with the Russians.

Just beyond the Settlement boundaries (and with dubious police control), in the so-called Northern External Roads was Jukong Road (now Zhongxing Road). It has seen a lot of redevelopment since 1936. First the Japanese bombed the hell out of the area around the Shanghai Railway Station and destroyed many of the buildings. Since then of course that area of Hongkew up past the old Paoshan Road (Baoshan Road) and the new look railway station has been further redeveloped with blocks of flats and some rather ugly cement block buuldings. The street, now widened and shortened is rather nondescript with drab 1950s workers blocks, 1990s wanna-be middle class compounds and non-architecture architecture of the grey block variety.

However, it was once vibrant. As well as the nightclubs drawn to the illegality of the area there were some legitimate and well known businesses – I’ve blogged before about The Teddy Bakery for instance. There was also quite a lot of traditional low level lilong residences on the street and some did survive both the war and the initial waves of Shanghai’s “redevelopment”. However, a stroll along the street today (which is now truncated at the eastern end (towards Sichuan Road North, which has still has some nicely restored properties in the vicinity, and no longer crossed by the railway line as it used to be – though the site of the old Tiantong Railway Station is commemorated with a plaque) reveals that the few remaining older residences are mostly now slated for demolition. Once these go Jukong Road will be completely obliterated effectively except for a few, still quite charming lanes (as shown in the third picture below).

 a block facing Zhongxing Road coming down…

A larger lane that is also in the process of demolition…

One of just a handful of the smaller lanes left that appear safe for now.

The Red Lantern, Nazimova and the Boxer Rebellion

A gorgeous new book and DVD has been published around the 1919 Alla Nazimova/Noah Beery film The Red Lantern (which included Anna May Wong’s screen debut when she was just 14, though she’s uncredited and you have to look hard). Apparently only one print remains in existence and it’s been cleaned up for this DVD release. the story is good old fashioned Yellow Peril Chinoiserie of the highest order – in China, a half-Chinese, half white woman falls in love with a missionary’s son. When he rejects her for an American girl, she joins the Boxers in order to avenge herself on the white race. The film was a sexy shocker at the time – all that Orientalism combined with the oh so Russian Nazimova (about who rumours swirled of her sexuality). The book includes essays on the boxers, western interpretations of 1900 and the traditions of “yellow face” and white actors playing Chinese. Lovely bit of packaging too.

Available from Amazon or direct from the publishers

“Presenting The Greatest Actress of the Day, NAZIMOVA, The Star of a Thousand Moods.” (Auckland Star, 24 August 1920)

The Red Lantern tells the story of a Eurasian, Joan of Arc-like heroine, set against the background of China’s 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The film was an instant success, thanks to an unprecedented advertising campaign and the star qualities of diva Alla Nazimova. Both aspects are extensively discussed in this publication.

In the book, essays sketch the historical outline of the Boxer Rebellion, while special features on the DVD include early cinematic actualities that evoke the way in which the Boxer Rebellion was portrayed in the Western media around the turn of the century, true to the myth of the ‘Yellow Peril’. Popular photo and theatre plays of the day thrived on Oriental stereotypes and relied heavily upon exotic set designs and costumes. Famous actors of European descent, wearing ‘yellow face’ makeup explored the exciting dangers of interracial love.

Extras on the DVD tentatively reconstruct a Chinese programme from the time of the film’s premiere and show how ‘authentic’ portrayals of Chinese life were combined with cartoons and Oriental musical fantasies. Many contemporary film reviewers saw The Red Lantern as a film marked with the “stamp of historical and ethnological authenticity”, thanks to Nazimova’s mastery of the art of metamorphosis. The different emotions that Nazimova’s face and eyes could express became legendary in trade magazines and were documented in newsreels, included in the extras, which were shown in cinemas all over the world.

And finally…the Best Pulps from the Second Half of 2012

A lot of flying as ever in 2012, and a lot of hospital visiting too I’m afraid, so let’s not forget some of the more memorable pulps and series as I ploughed last year. Like many people, apparently, I do most of my pulp reading on Kindle (other e-book formats are available!) and, again apparently like most people, I do find I’m buying a lot to try and then ditching the dross and keeping with the good stuff. So this is not an exhaustive list but a sample of the one’s I thought worth a go…

The Broken Shore – Peter Temple – the Australian crime writer Temple has been a major new find for me in 2012. Broken Shore is a fantastically written Aussie noir in suburban Victoria and I promise if you like him you’ll head back to the bookshop or internet and get everything else he’s done. I’ve gone on to read the Jack Irish series starting with Bad Debts which is more traditional and less literary than Broken Shore, but still good and Melbourne-based – apparently they’ve made them into a TV show with Guy Pearce, which sounds all right by me.

Blue Angel, White Shadow – Charlson Ong – Ong is the outright champion of dark noir in the Philippines. See my longer review here.

Live by Night – Dennis Lehane – Lehane’s long reaching story of one American criminal and his rise and fall. Follows on nicely from his previous The Given Day which was also excellent

The Expats – Chris Pavone – a bit of a phenomenon this one with a massive marketing camapign and all that 20p on Amazon stuff, but a decent enough thriller about American ex-pats in Luxembourg and Paris.

Mumbaistan – Piyush Jha – discovered this on a trip to Mumbai at Christmas and not sure how you get it outside of going to Bombay and buying it – however Jha, a Bollywood script writer, has created a great sense of the sprawling and (for non-Indians) almost impossible to decipher Indian gangster-class in three novellas.

Anthony Horowitz did a fantastic job with Sherlock Holmes in The House of Silk. Great to see an active Watson and the Baker Street Irregulars too. A nice mix of classic Holmes style with issues in Victorian London too nasty and depraved for Conan Doyle to have ever touched on openly.

Spade and Archer – Joe Gores – what did Sam Spade get up to before Dashiel Hammett created him! Nice sense of 1920s San Francisco and a good read for any Hammett fans who love The Maltese Falcon etc.

Kiss Me Quick – Danny Miller – the first in what is expected to become a series about Vincent Treadwell a detective working in 1960s Brighton. This, the first, harks back to the classic crime-ridden Brighton of the 1930s – Sabini’s, razor gangs, race track crime etc etc. Not bad but you’d do best to read Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock if, by some horrendous accident of history you have not already.

The Shadow of the Serpent – David Ashton – the first in what could turn out to be an interesting series of darkly Gothic Edinburgh (Leith technically) set novels featuring the rather uptight but deasd hard and determined Inspector McLevy. They’re set in the city in the 1880s and, this one at least, is a Jack the Ripper like hunt through the bowels of the old town.

Deadlight – Graham Hurley – I’m working my way through Hurley’s DCI Joe Faraday novels set in and around Portsmouth. I’m a fan and have enjoyed each one and I’ve got a few to go yet – the latest Happy Days is out now and I just read Blood and Honey which takes in drugs, violence and illegal immigrants on…the Isle of Wight!

Glasgow times – I’ve also got to keep plugging Gordon Ferris’s Brodie series set in just post-War Glasgow – tough and gritty and nice descriptions of the city and the West of Scotland, the second came out this year, Bitter Water. Then, just in time for Christmas, the third, Pilgrim Soul appeared – the best of the lot so far.

Lynda La Plante’s Anna Travis series keeps on being gripping – Blood Line was a great missing person case with side trips to Cornwall and druggy surf culture.

And David Downing’s Berlin stations series featuring the American journalist John Russell now moves beyond wartime Berlin to war-torn post-war Berlin pre-division. Still going strong as a character and series I reckon, Lehrter Station was a good read