The Launch of London Fictions (but there’s always a China link in there somewhere!) – 24/4/13, Hackney

What looks like a lovely book is London Fictions – a book of essays celebrating the depiction of London in fiction, from Children of the Ghetto and Child of the Jago to NW and Capital. It is a book about East End boys and West End girls, bed-sit land and dockland, the homeless and the homesick, immigrants and emigrants. Edited by Andrew Whitehead and Jerry White, London Fictions includes essays by Courttia Newland, Philippa Thomas, Lisa Gee, John Lucas, Cathi Unsworth, Ken Worpole, Angela John, and Sanchita Islam. Additionally there’s an essay on Limehouse and the old London Chinatown by Anne Witchard, who, as regular readers know, wrote Lao She in London for the RAS Shanghai-HKUP China Monograph series I edit. So we’re plugging her.

More details on the book below and if you’re in London on April 24th there’s a launch event at Broadway Book down on Broadway Market in Hackney

London Fictions is a book about London, real and imagined. Two dozen contemporary writers, from Cathi Unsworth to Courttia Newland, reflect on some of the novelists and the novels that have helped define the modern city, from George Gissing to Zadie Smith, Hangover Square to Brick Lane. It is a book about East End boys and West End girls, bed-sit land and dockland, the homeless and the homesick, immigrants and emigrants. All human life is here high-minded Hampstead and boozy Fitzrovia, the Jewish East End, intellectual Bloomsbury and Chinese Limehouse, Black London, Asian London, Irish London, Gay London…

Shanghai Lady Ad for London Assurance

Travelling today again so here’s a hastily posted old Shanghai ad for the London Assurance Company…

Midnight in Peking at the Chopsticks Club – London 23/4/13

Should you happen to be in London I’ll be talking on Midnight in Peking to the good folk of the Chopsticks Club, a UK networking organisation for people interested in China.

Non-members can apparently attend – but there is a form (here) and a charge for dinner, at the Imperial China on Lisle Street in Chinatown.

Shanghai Ladies Ad with Hatamen Cigarettes

Travelling today and so a little pressed for time and in the air…anyway, here’s a nice old Shanghai ad for Hatamen cigarettes….

The China – Japan Rapid Expresses

Today a poster issued by Japan’s NYK shipping line (the Japan Mail) for the Japan-China Rapid Express boat – printed as a double page colour map with vertical lines showing the east and west bound schedule. Black and white photographic illustrations, 11 pages with text presented on 22 panels and published in August 1934.

Will a new craze for historic houses help protect China’s cultural heritage – or do just the opposite?

Well “craze” might be a bit strong…but this story and pics/video on the Asia Society’s ChinaFile site is interesting…

When, in 1996, art historian Nancy Berliner purchased a late Qing dynasty merchants’ house from Huangcun, a village in Anhui province, it was just one ordinary house among thousands like it in the picturesque Huizhou region of China. It took Berliner seven years to oversee the meticulous process of dismantling and shipping the house, called Yin Yu Tang, and then re-erecting it at the Peabody Essex museum in Salem, Massachusetts. A decade has passed since it was opened to the American public in 2003. Now the crown jewel of the museum, it is widely considered in both the United States and China to be a rare successful example of preserving a historic building by moving it from the spot where it first stood. But today a growing interest in collecting traditional architecture in China has thrown a spotlight on the practice called yidi baohu, “preservation through relocation.”

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