Royal Asiatic Society Shanghai – Sir Robert Hart, Maritime Customs, and the Beginning of Korea’s “Chinese Decade”, 1880-1888 – 26/6/12

RAS LECTURE

Tuesday 26th June 2012 at 7.00pm

The Tavern, Radisson Blu Plaza Xingguo Hotel 78 Xing Guo Road, Shanghai

兴国宾馆上海市兴国路78号

PROFESSOR WAYNE PATTERSON

ON

Sir Robert Hart, Maritime Customs, and the Beginning of Korea’s “Chinese Decade”, 1880-1888.

When discussing Korea’s “Chinese Decade”, roughly defined as the dozen or so years prior to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, most of the attention is focused on the heavy-handed activities of Yuan Shikai in Seoul. Less well known is that part of this Chinese effort to bind Korea more closely to China involved the absorption of Korea’s newly-formed Maritime Customs Service and the key roles played by Sir Robert Hart, Li Hongzhang, Henry F. Merrill, and Paul Georg von Mollendorff. Using the recently-discovered correspondence of the first commissioner of customs in Pusan, this talk will discuss some heretofore unknown aspects of this attempted takeover by China, and is based on the author’s recently-published book, In the Service of His Korean Majesty: William Nelson Lovatt, the Pusan Customs, and Sino-Korean Relations, 1876-1888 (Berkeley: University of California Institute of East Asian Studies Korea Monograph Series 35, 2012).

Wayne Patterson received his undergraduate degree in history from Swarthmore College and his graduate degrees in both history and international relations from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author or editor of thirteen books, and has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, the University of Hawaii-Manoa, the University of South Carolina, the University of Maryland, the University of Kansas, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of California-Berkeley, and abroad at Yonsei University, Ewha University, Korea University, and the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He is currently professor of modern East Asian history at St. Norbert College in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Entrance: RMB 30.00 (RAS members) and RMB 80.00 (non-members). Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption, prior to the RAS Lecture. Membership applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.  Members will have priority booking until 24 June 2012. 

To RSVP:  Please “Reply” to this email or write to

RAS Bookings at: bookings@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn

Chungking Under Bombing 1942

Some stills from a 1942 United News newsreel on the bombing of Chungking in 1942 – the second or third year the Chinese capital had suffered aerial bombing.You can see the newsreel here. Of course (plug, plug) if you’re interested in wartime Chungking then you should see the Carl Crow War Diaries I edited a couple of years ago of his 1940 trip up the Burma Road and several months spent under the Blitz in Chungking.

Bombs drop across the city…

Cleaning up the city after the bombings…

the Soong sisters inspect the bomb damage…

normal life continues with the incredible uphill sedan chair carriers still working…

the streets of Chungking….1942

South China Sea Shenanigans…Pirates old and new

Thanks to the Twitterverse arguing about Chinese claims to various islands in the South China Sea I discovered re tweets and re-tweets that an old essay of mine on South China Sea pirates both old and new in the Asia Literary Review is now posted online…

London’s Chinois Fans

Talking of the Museum of London the other day (Chinoiserie elevators would you believe) I was rather hoping to show you an image of a fan they have from the Imperial Restaurant in London that dates back to about 1900-05 – a lovely object, a good bit of advertising and one of London’s most famous old Chinese eateries. However, I don’t have that image but I did find this…

A gorgeous fan from about 1727 and made in London by William Werndly who’s shop, The Golden Fan, was in Leicester Square. Its ivory sticks and chinois motif would have made it expensive, much more expensive than the cheaper Chinese fans then being imported into England from China by entrepreneurial merchants. How great would it have looked waved around by a beautiful woman at the theatre or the pleasure gardens??

More details here…

Latest update on The Poseidon Project

Regular readers will know I mentioned the Poseidon Project previously as they were trying to raise money to finish this excellent looking documentary on a sunken British sub in China – more below. Just to let you know you can still donate to the project and there are several videos about HMS Poseidon online too at Vimeo to look at.

THE POSEIDON PROJECT
On June the 9th 1931, one of Britain’s most advanced submarines collided with a cargo ship off the coast of China. Half of the crew escaped in the first few seconds, but the rest of the men sank 40 metres down to the bottom of the sea, entombed in their boat. Three hours later, six sailors surfaced, barely conscious and bitterly cold, as their comrades watched on in amazement. They were the first men ever to escape alive from a sunken submarine using a proto-scuba device.
Beijing-based journalist and part-time scuba instructor Steven Schwankert was looking for interesting wrecks to dive in northern China when he found HMS Poseidon on a list of unexplored dive sites. His private obsession with bringing wreck diving to China became a public and personally high-risk mission to uncover a secret history of political intrigue that took him half way across the world in search of evidence.
Their story hit newspaper headlines worldwide and went on to inspire a feature film, released later that year. Their miraculous escape changed marine safety forever, leading to a revolution in submarine design and a big leap forward in our understanding of decompression sickness. But their names, and their submarine, gradually sank into obscurity.
Steven Schwankert’s six-year search for the submarine revealed a story that was far more complicated than he had first expected, challenging official accounts of the escape, and uncovering the truth behind the forgotten wreck.
www.poseidonprojectfilm.com

Out Now in My Asian Arguments Series – Thailand’s Hidden Workforce

The latest book in the series, Asian Arguments, that I edit for Zed Books is now available in paperback. It’s an interesting study of a little known group of migratory women workers moving from Burma to Northern Thailand’s manufacturing areas…

Thailand’s Hidden Workforce: Burmese Migrant Women Factory Workers – Asian Arguments

Ruth Pearson and Kyoko Kusakabe

Millions of Burmese women migrate into Thailand each year to form the basis of the Thai agricultural and manufacturing workforce. Un-documented and unregulated, this army of migrant workers constitutes the ultimate “disposable” labour force, enduring grueling working conditions and much aggression from the Thai police and immigration authorities. This insightful book ventures into a part of the global economy rarely witnessed by Western observers. Based on unique empirical research, it provides the reader with a gendered account of the role of women migrant workers in Thailand’s factories and interrogates the ways in which they strategize about their families and their futures.

‘The authors give a voice to a part of Thailand’s workforce invisible to many Thais, and to consumers across Asia and around the world who buy the cheap goods they produce. That voice is authentic, and paired with sound analysis of the issues raised.’
Chris Hogg, correspondent BBC Asia, Shanghai

‘The labels on your clothes do not say ‘Made by Burmese migrant women in Thailand’, but once you have read this book you will carry that information with you. Many thanks to the authors for exposing these conditions.’
Jackie Pollock, director, MAP Foundation, Thailand

‘This book reveals the hidden face of Thailand’s industrial and migration policies by giving visibility and voice to Burmese female migrants employed in the country’s ready-made garment and knitwear factories. The authors shine the spotlight, not only on the women’s work experiences on the factory floor, but also on the way they juggle care responsibilities for their children. It is a compelling story about ordinary women making hard decisions under precarious conditions as they live transborder lives.’
Professor Brenda Yeoh, National University of Singapore

About the Authors:

Ruth Pearson is Professor of International Development at the University of Leeds, UK. She has undertaken research on women’s work in the global economy, focusing recently on migrant workers and gendered globalisation, and has carried out empirical work in Latin America, including Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia and Cuba, as well as in Thailand and Europe. She has a particular interest in the intersections of women’s productive and reproductive roles and their implications for understanding globalisation and crisis in the contemporary economy.

Kyoko Kusakabe is Associate Professor of Gender and Development Studies in the School of Environment, Resources and Development at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. Her research interests are centred on gendered mobility and migration in the Greater Mekong Subregion and the effect of regional economic integration on women’s work and employment. She has undertaken empirical work in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia and has a special interest in women and transborder trade.

Danwei’s Model Workers 2012

Every year Danwei lists the best blogs, commentaries and podcasts about China in all its aspects – this year’s list of Model Workers is quite extensive and I post here both to show off that China Rhyming was included and  because if you’re looking at this blog then you probably want more China sources….click here

An Audio Stroll Round Old Peking with PRI’s The World

Back no a very cold and blustery March day earlier this year I went for a stroll around the scenes of Midnight in Peking in various parts of old Peking with Mary Kay Magistad of PRI’s The World…here’s the show she put together now online…