Monsieur Big-Hat – Melville Jacoby in Chungking 1940

I blogged briefly this summer about a new biography by Bill Lascher of the great American journalist in China Melville Jacoby. Jacoby certainly deserves a full biography though I mentioned him briefly in my history of foreign journalists in China (Through the Looking Glass). While preparing the full bio Lascher has now uploaded a a short story Jacoby wrote depicting what happened when an American correspondent and a French diplomat met during an air raid in Chungking in June, 1940. It’s a pretty vivid description of what the raids were like and it includes a couple great photos Jacoby took during one of them. It’s called Monsieur Big-Hat and all for just GBP1.28 on amazon.co.uk or also on amazon.com. Well worth the money…

It’s June, 1940, World War II is well underway, and bombs are falling on Chungking, the wartime capital of the Republic of China. In a crowded bunker carved beneath the city, an American correspondent watches while a French diplomat, clutching a ticket home after five years away, makes a fateful decision that underscores dark news arriving from Paris.

Unpublished for 72 years, this short story was originally written in 1940 by Melville Jacoby. Jacoby worked for many years as a foreign correspondent in China and endured hundreds of air raids while working in Chungking (now known as Chongqing). Later Time Magazine’s Far East bureau chief, Jacoby survived a harrowing escape from the Philippines during World War II, only to became the magazine’s first reporter to die on duty after a freak airfield accident in Australia in 1942 took his life when he was just 25 years old.

Primarily a journalist, Jacoby’s dabblings in fiction were never published. Clearly informed by Jacoby’s own experiences during the outset of the war, “Monsieur Big-Hat” presents the very real wartime anxiety felt by the Chinese and westerners in 1940.

Shanghai – Worrying Future for 102 Canton Road

the other day I mentioned the uncertain and (given the destruction of architectural heritage without a second thought in Shanghai for years now) concerns over the future of the old Race Club building (later Shanghai library, later still Shanghai Museum of Modern Art) on Nanjing West Road (formerly Bubbling Well road).

Now another lovely building faces an uncertain and equally worrying future – Wang Xiaofei, the CEO of South Beauty Group (restaurants all over Shanghai), has confirmed that the group has sold the Lan Club, a beautiful four storey corner building at 102 Guangdong Road (formerly Canton Road).

The club is now gone and there is no news as to what any new owners might want to do – three corners of the Canton Road junction are old buildings though the south east corner was torn down ages ago ruining the perspective.

8/12/12 – London – China in Britain: Myths and Realities Conference – Aesthetics

Last chance to sign up for this excellent conference at the University of Westminster…good line up of speakers and topics…rsvp anne@translatingchina.info

Jason Pym’s Great Artwork for Badlands

As you probably know I have a small Penguin Special e-book out (in Australia only I’m afraid till next March/April in the UK/US) called Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking (e-book here and limited edition hardback here) – it’s a collection of short stories based on minor characters that appeared flickeringly in Midnight in Peking – the prostitutes Marie and Peggy, their pimp Saxsen, the brothel madams Brana and Rosie, a Badlands dancer Lilian, the drug dealer Joe Knauf and the mercurial chameleon “King of the Badlands” Shura.

In Australia, China and Hong Kong it’s available as a lovely limited edition hardback too – illustrated by Jason Pym – who did a wonderful map of the old Badlands (from my extremely scrappy back of envelope scribbles!) and illustrations through the text – they’re included in both hardback and e-book and look great – you can see some of his illustrations at his own blog here.

The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational – Second Edition

As it’s been a while since the first edition I think it worth noting that Nick Robins’s The Corporation that Changed the World, an excellent history of the East India Company, is getting a second edition this December…and a new cover (below)

The English East India Company was the mother of the modern multinational. Its trading empire encircled the globe, importing Asian luxuries such as spices, textiles and teas. But it also conquered much of India with its private army and broke open China’s markets with opium. The Company’s practices shocked its contemporaries and still reverberate today.

The Corporation That Changed the World is the first book to reveal the Company’s enduring legacy as a corporation. This expanded edition explores how the four forces of scale, technology, finance and regulation drove its spectacular rise and fall. For decades, the Company was simply too big to fail, and stock market bubbles, famines, drug-running and even duels between rival executives are to be found in this new account.

For Robins, the Company’s story provides vital lessons on both the role of corporations in world history and the steps required to make global business accountable today.

Nick Robins has more than 20 years experience in the policy and practical realities of corporate accountability. A historian by training, he currently works on sustainable and responsible investment in London, and has written on the East India Company for the Financial Times, New Statesman and Resurgence.

The Port Arthur Restaurant, Mott Street, New York City

The Port Arthur Restaurant was established in 1897 and operated on New York’s Mott Street for more than 85 years. Chu Gam Fai, the original owner, selected the name obviously after what is now Lushun and would have been a much more familiar name back then. The restaurant was located on the second and third floors of 7-9 Mott Street. The entrance was an awning ornate pagoda-style and the Chinese pagoda-style balcony would eventually become a desirable location to watch the bustle of the Lower East Side from.

The Port Arthur was the first Chinese restaurant in NYC’s Chinatown to obtain a liquor license with the upper floor dining rooms reserved for private parties and banquets, – mostly used by local Chinese for weddings  and family ceremonial dinners. The lower floor was for smaller groups of customers or after hour slummers wanting a little Chinatown chic. The furnishings were inlaid pearl mahogany tables, teakwood chairs, ornate wood carved panels, windscreens, lanterns, chandeliers and a baby grand piano.

Beijing Bookworm – Beijing Postcards – Looking for the Master Plan – Thursday, November 22

Beijing Postcards – Looking for the Master Plan

Have you ever wondered why Beijing’s founders decided to place the capitol on the Huabei plain? (Was it the sandstorms or the lack of water?) Or where the first ring road is?

“Looking for the Master Plan” is a crash course in Beijing’s urban development.

Through this talk you will get a clear understanding of how Beijing became the city it is today. Using their own collection of archival maps of Beijing, Beijing Postcards has created a visual presentation tracing the development of the Northern capital from a maze of hutong alleyways to a megacity with over 20 million inhabitants.

My First Trip to China: Scholars, Diplomats and Journalists Reflect on their First Encounters with China

This book, My First Trip to China, has been out for a while I think but now has a wider Asian distribution via Hong Kong University Press – all you Old China Hands who read this blog may find it of some interest…