RAS Shanghai Book Club – The Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking

Obviously, I think this an excellent choice for any book club…

RAS SHANGHAI BOOK CLUB

Saturday 6th April 2013 at 4:00 pm

T8 Restaurant

Xintiandi, North Block, Lane 181 Taicang Lu, near Madang Lu, 2/F

太仓路181号, 新天地北里, 近马当路

 This is a special RAS Book Club Event-

PAUL FRENCH will discuss his new book:

  The Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking

Published by: Penguin, 7 Jan 2013, 84 pages

BADLANDS is an evocative account by Paul French, author of the acclaimed Midnight in Peking, of the infamous nightlife district of pre-communist Beijing.

Through portraits of eight White Russians, Americans and Europeans who lived and worked in the Badlands in the 1920s and ’30s, Paul French brings the area and its era vividly to life. A small warren of narrow hutongs, the Badlands sat just inside the eastern flank of the Tartar Wall, which at that time enclosed the old Imperial City of Peking.

The Badland’s habitués were a mix of the good, the bad and the poor unfortunates, among them the fiery brothel madams Brana Shazker and Rosie Gerbert; the pimp Saxsen, who had no regard for the women he exploited; the young prostitutes Marie and Peggy, whose dreadful working lives drove them into separate pits of madness and addiction. There was the cabaret dancer Tatiana Korovina, a White Russian girl who did not succumb to the vice of the district but instead married, had a family, and eventually left China to lead a long and happy life. There was the American Joe Knauf, who dealt violence and fear as well as drugs, and finally the enigmatic Shura Giraldi, of indeterminate sex, who was to some a charmer and to others a master criminal, but to everyone the uncrowned King of the Badlands.

In depicting this colourful cast of characters, Paul French was assisted by readers of the extraordinary Midnight in Peking, who contacted him from around the globe. As the family and acquaintances of people he’d written about in that book, they had stories and recollections to add to French’s own research. The result is a short but potent account of a time and a place until now largely forgotten, but here rendered unforgettable.

Born in London and educated there and in Glasgow, Paul French has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. He is a widely published analyst and commentator on China and has written a number of books, including a history of foreign correspondents in China and a biography of the legendary Shanghai adman, journalist and adventurer Carl Crow.

His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and will be made into an international miniseries by Kudos Film and Television, the UK creators of Spooks and Life on Mars.

‘Picturing China’ in Beijing – until April 7th

Only a few days left to catch this exhibition in Beijing I’m afraid (I really must sharpen my pencil in terms of giving more notice of things!!). There is a display of interesting photos display at the J.W. Marriott in Beijing, organised by the British Embassy.The exhibition, ‘Picturing China 1870-1950: Photographs from British collections’, or until 7th April.

More here from the Visualising China blog

For those interested in China photography and archiving Robert Bickers, the man behind the Visualising China project is speaking at the Translating China: Britain in China – Archiving conference on April 27th at the University of Westminster.

How woud the Catholic Review have reported it?

Well, the Catholics got a new Pope. And, the Chinese decided to not really report it all….Wonder how the old Catholic Review would have reported it all to Shanghailanders? Here’s their old letter head – based down on Rue Consulate (now Jingling Road) in the French Concession.

London – April/May – Thursday Night Salons: Contemporary Chinese Art and Culture

A new series of events (sorry, I’m a bit late plugging the first one) in London – Thursday Night Salons: Contemporary Chinese Art and Culture – look interesting. Not least because there’s a good dose of Taiwanese culture to counter the tsunami of PRC-related stuff around (good and, very often, bad). Anything that raises awareness of Taiwan is all right with me. Anyway, these sessions are aimed at aca’s and wanna-be aca’s but I think anyone can go along and I’m sure that they accept that some of us who aren’t academics do know the odd thing or two.

so here’s what they got:

April 4 – Chen Pin-Chuan on a critical history of Taiwanese documentary and some stuff on the Taiwanese avant garde in the 1980s/90s

April 18th – Chou Yu-ling on the films of Chen Chieh-Jen (Taiwanese) and Hou Hsiao-hsien (Taiwanese too)

May 2nd – Emily Williams on the 1976 Huxian Peasant Painting Exhibition and the influence of Mexican Modernism on Chinese art (admittedly that’s a bit out there, but interesting)

May 16th – Ros Holmes on the Pillars of Fat stuff and Rachel Marsden on the changing nature of Chinese contemporary art

To find to more send an email to thursdaynightsalon@gmail.com

Old Filth Returns – Jane Gardam’s Last Friends

Just quickly to note to everyone who likes Jane Gardam’s recreations of 1960s Hong Kong in Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat – Old Filth QC is back, in Last Friends, to battle his rival, the nasty little Veneering one more time…(and if that means nothing to you then go back to Old Filth and start at the start of the trilogy)…

RAS Shanghai – Badlands – Book Club Special Event – 6/4/13

I’m doing a Book Club for the Royal Asiatic Society’s Shanghai branch on my new Badlands e-book and limited edition hardback….if you’re in Shanghai….

Saturday 6th April 2013 at 4:00 pm

T8 Restaurant

Xintiandi, North Block, Lane 181 Taicang Lu, near Madang Lu, 2/F

 This is a special RAS Book Club Event

PAUL FRENCH will discuss his new book:

  The Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking

Published by: Penguin, 7 Jan 2013, 84 pages

   

BADLANDS is an evocative account by Paul French, author of the acclaimed Midnight in Peking, of the infamous nightlife district of pre-communist Beijing.

Through portraits of eight White Russians, Americans and Europeans who lived and worked in the Badlands in the 1920s and ’30s, Paul French brings the area and its era vividly to life. A small warren of narrow hutongs, the Badlands sat just inside the eastern flank of the Tartar Wall, which at that time enclosed the old Imperial City of Peking.

The Badland’s habitués were a mix of the good, the bad and the poor unfortunates, among them the fiery brothel madams Brana Shazker and Rosie Gerbert; the pimp Saxsen, who had no regard for the women he exploited; the young prostitutes Marie and Peggy, whose dreadful working lives drove them into separate pits of madness and addiction. There was the cabaret dancer Tatiana Korovina, a White Russian girl who did not succumb to the vice of the district but instead married, had a family, and eventually left China to lead a long and happy life. There was the American Joe Knauf, who dealt violence and fear as well as drugs, and finally the enigmatic Shura Giraldi, of indeterminate sex, who was to some a charmer and to others a master criminal, but to everyone the uncrowned King of the Badlands.

In depicting this colourful cast of characters, Paul French was assisted by readers of the extraordinary Midnight in Peking, who contacted him from around the globe. As the family and acquaintances of people he’d written about in that book, they had stories and recollections to add to French’s own research. The result is a short but potent account of a time and a place until now largely forgotten, but here rendered unforgettable.

Born in London and educated there and in Glasgow, Paul French has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. He is a widely published analyst and commentator on China and has written a number of books, including a history of foreign correspondents in China and a biography of the legendary Shanghai adman, journalist and adventurer Carl Crow.

His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and will be made into an international miniseries by Kudos Film and Television, the UK creators of Spooks and Life on Mars.

Red Racisms: Racism in Communist and Post-Communist Contexts

Amongst contemporary China studies, it seems to me, there is a big gap when it comes to studies of racism in China. Not quite sure why this is? Anyway, this relatively new book – Ian Law’s Red Racism – is interesting and, though China is just one component among many communist regimes, it is instructive in terms of how to think about the origins of racism, its development and practise in contemporary Chinese society. China, like most other Marxist-Leninist regimes, effectively claimed to have ended racism by the mere fact of its triumph. Since then, 1949 in China’s case obviously, it’s been an official programme of straightforward denial that there is any racism either towards outsiders or ethnic minorities within the country (taking the country to mean what Beijing thinks it means and so including Tibet here).

There are a lot of issues regarding treatment of minorities in other Communist countries that will sound familiar to anyone with a passing acquaintance with the PRC – the language of “modernising” minorities and bringing “development” to them, ending “primitivism” and “feudal practises” as well as that particularly hoary old chestnut that rings down from the British Empire to Lhasa today – bringing “civilisation”. The Chinese communist lexicon is almost identical to the wider Communist lexicon globally. What all this adds up to of curse is racism, structural racism and oppression. It doesn’t help that many of the long-lasting Round Eye Gang of sympathisers – the useful idiots – have perpetuated the myths of the Chinese state on race by claiming that China was racism free or that the relentless push to urbanism in China disregards any minority’s intrinsic or traditional links with land. So many issues and many raised in this book.

It is to be hoped that someone may take on this subject in more depth and concentrate on China….

Racism in the Soviet Union and in other Communist contexts has frequently been denied and ignored. This is the first book to provide an analysis of racism and racialization in Communist and post-Communist contexts. It opens up debates about both the relationship between racism and communism and the racial logics at work, how they have come into being and how they have changed in the contemporary world. This is a major advancement in our understanding of processes of global racialization and this book includes new analysis and evidence on the battle to challenge the racist underground in the Russian Federation, the postwar experiences of the Roma in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, new Afro-Cuban movements and on Tibetan struggles against Chinese domination.

Ian Law is Professor of Racism and Ethnicity Studies in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds and founding Director of the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, UK. His major books include Ethnicity and Education in England and Europe (with S. Swann), Racism and Ethnicity, Racism, Postcolonialism and Europe (edited with Huggan), Institutional Racism in Higher Education (edited with Turney and Phillips), Race in the News, Racism, Ethnicity and Social Policy, Local Government and Thatcherism (with Butcher, Leach and Mullard) and The Local Politics of Race (with Ben-Tovim, Gabriel, and Stredder).

Beware HongKong Foot!

As the weather starts to take a turn for the better but remains damp beware HongKong Foot, a rather nasty version of what is more commonly known these days as Athlete’s Foot. HongKong Foot was a major problem for Shanghailanders in the humid damp climate of the treaty port and the newspapers of the inter-war years are full of adverts for various potions, powders and creams (“unctions” might be a more contemporary term). Aunt’s Ointment was certainly among the most heavily advertised in the 1930s (this ad is from the North-China Daily News in 1934)