Coming Down Alert – Shaanxi and Nanchang

Back in January 2010 I noted the imminent demise of the building on the corner of Shaanxi Road and Nanchang Road (Avenue Roi Albert and Route Dolfus) in the former French Concession. That building has now gone as part of the blanding of the area around the old Xiang Yang Market, now some rather uninteresting tower block offices and the disjointed line 10 bit of the Shaanxi Lu subway station. Let these photos serve notice on the officials, estate agents and naive foreigners in Shanghai who keep telling me that there won’t be any more destruction on the former French Concession – the vandalism goes on pretty much unabated.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the building when it was first being cleared out but was still structurally intact and perfectly suited to restoration and refit

and here’s the empty gap that exists now the building has gone forever….

Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America’s Imperial Dream

Books on Roosevelt’s Asia-Pacific policy keep on coming – perhaps given the recent imperial adventures of the USA they are finding it instructutive to look back on an earlier time of overseas engagement. Roosevelt of course was deeply involved in the Philippines – what’s interesting about anything on the American occupation of the islands is how many American judges, administrators, consuls, businessmen, whores and gangsters wound up making the jump from Manila to Shanghai in the first years of the twentieth century. They crop uo again and again in Manila and then in Shanghai. So, Gregg Jones’s Honor in the Dust – blurb below as usual.

Enjoying a Taxi Dance

Today, here’s a shot of some American GIs out on the town in Shanghai enjoying a taxi dance!

Chengdu Lit Fest 2012 – Sneak Preview

The Chengdu Bookworm’s Literary Festival has announced its programme – lots of goodies – Carol Birch, Justin Hill, Derek Sandhaus, Jonathan Fenby, Tim Flannery, eerrr ME and plenty of others – here’s the full programme.

“…don’t be surprised if Midnight in Peking turns out to be this year’s Suspicions of Mr Whicher”

Hey, it’s not me that said it!! The Getting Away with Murder newsletter in the UK got an advance copy of Midnight in Peking (out in the UK end of May) and that’s what they said – and I’m not going to argue. Of course I enjoyed Kate Summerscale’s true crime The Suspicions of Mr Whicher as much as anyone so it’s a good compliment. I’m also very happy that the Penguin press release for the UK says, “Imagine the period detail of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher combined with the tension of The Killing, and you’re getting close.” Having just stayed up very late on several nights to get to the end The Killing (the Danish version of course) I’ll take that as a compliment too. Maybe I’ll treat myself to one of those Sarah Lund Danish jumpers!!

I’m pleased they liked the special Midnight in Peking newspaper wrapping paper too – it is pretty cool!

A Bridge over the Soochow Creek – 1880s

Not exactly Sure where this bridge was – some where around where the Sichuan Road Bridge is today I think. I think this because of the water tower in the background which was on what is now Jiangxi Road (formerly Kiangse Road) where you can still see many older buildings originally erected by the Shanghai Water Department. Kiangse Road was also, of curse, Shanghai’s “Line”, a street of upper end bordellos and the madams of those bordellos (mostly American women) were known as the “Water Tower Women”. This picture is circa 1880 so you can see that the bridges are still largely wooden and the buildings lining the banks of Soochow Creek still comprador in style. Nice to see there’s a rickshaw waiting on the other side, around where now of course you can see the marvelous old General Post Office building.

My Dragon’s Harder Than the Economist’s Dragon

OK – so it’s a dragon throw down – the Economist magazine (home to barmy right wing nuts for hundreds of years) has decided to launch a China blog apparently. And they’ve seemingly chosen a dragon as their logo – more scarily I think they’re going to call it ‘Enter the Dragon’!!

But I don’t care – my Midnight in Peking dragon was first, is cooler, espouses liberal values, supports the NHS and the Welfare State, hates David Cameron and could beat the living shit out of any Economist dragon should one ever venture onto my dragon’s manor!! The only other dragon I’m willing to accept is His Majesty’s superb fighting Chinese Dragon Temeraire from the great fun novels of battling dragons by Naomi Novik – in fact I think I might contact her to see if a) we can get our dragons together to go over and beat up the Economist‘s mutt and b) mate our dragons to create a truly super fighting dragon (I’m not quite sure how to do this though as dragon mating is new to me and neither my dragon nor Temeraire appear to have willys!! Of course, it goes without saying that the Economist right wing dragon has no balls!)

The Economist’s dragon – kind of skinny and weedy looking – it’s face displays a touch of dragon constipation I feel

Temeraire – His Majesty’s Fighting Dragon and a serious piece of dragon you wouldn’t mess with

And behold – the mighty Midnight in Peking dragon – mess with this boy at your peril!

BLF 2012 Tickets now on sale – Monday February 6th

Tickets go on sale today at the Beijing Bookworm for the Beijing International Literary Festival – click here for the programme. Tickets are only available here at The Bookworm and they are unable to take reservations.

I’d recommend the following:

This year The Opposite House will be hosting three very special events as part of BLF. Tickets available at The Bookworm.