Kuala Lumpur and Penang, 1933

I recently came across a series of old photographs of Malaya from 1933. I found them in a flea market and don’t have any details of who they originally came from though appear to be taken by a group of visiting Germans.

Anyway, here they are:

The Snake Temple in Penang in November 1933 – A German in a piff helmet obviously engaging with the locals

A mosque in Kuala Lumpur

A palanquin in KL

A procession in Kuala Lumpur

More of the procession

and, finally, a little bit more

Alma Quon and her Joy Belles

A few weeks ago I mentioned the Museum of Chinese-Australian History in Melbourne – I liked much of it but the experience was marred, for me anyway, by the presence of a politically charged (and with politics not to my liking) exhibit sponsored by the ardently pro-Beijing and Communist Party funded Confucius Institute. Sad the museum and the local government took Beijing’s soft power cash for an otherwise excellent little museum.

The exhibit on the history of Chinese-Australian life is good though and one picture particularly charmed me immensely and has stuck in my mind – a photograph of Alma Quon and her Joy Belles (below) – they are simply fantastic! Sadly I don’t know much about them except that obviously they were the brainchild of Alma (on the drums below) and her sister Lorna. The rest of the band were European but check their cool Chinese themed costumes and the great typeface o Alma’s drum – CALL HAW2504!

Apparently in the mid-1950s Alma and her gang were busy ladies playing RSLs, bowling and golf clubs across the State of Victoria as well as being regulars at the dances held by the Young Chinese League. Alma had, I think, been in an early band during the 1940s called The Melody Makers before she set up her own group. I believe that several of the women musicians were in fact German refugees/immigrants and a couple may have passed through Shanghai during the late 1930s/war.

If anyone else knows anything about Alma Quon and Her Joy Belles do please let me know?

Dawn Smith, Molly Worrall, Gladys Torrens, Alma Quon (on drums), Valma Frecker, Moya Brown, Lotte Rehn, Gay Funston, Lorna Quon

The Sino-French University, Peking

Up along Beiheyan Dajie is the old buildings of the Sino-French University which was built around 1920. It’s probably one of the best western inspired structures left in the city that you can gain access too (given that the old Legations are largely impenetrable) though it’s hard to ever get pictures of it as a line of buses are pretty much always parked outside it blocking the view.

The old front gate

The front gate with the impressive structure rising behind – nice the original window frames remain – though that’s probably just a budget oversight!

I’d love to show you the full length of the building which shows it off well – though of course there HAS to be a wall around it – the buses seem to be there permanently

the upper floors and roof are impressively modernist

North Korean Cinema in Shanghai – Sunday January 8th

An evening of North Korean cinematic delight at The Apartment in Shanghai on Sunday January 8th, 2012

Simon Cockerell, General Manager of Koryo Tours will be presenting an evening of North Korean cinematic delight at The Apartment in Shanghai on Sunday January 8th. The DPRK as it is officially known has been all over the news of late so if you’ve been wondering what all the fuss is about then why not go along and experience a snippet of this fascinating country through two very different, and very interesting films as well as some short clips of North Korean TV propaganda commonly seen in the country but very rarely in the outside world.

Simon will be on hand to present the films and answer any questions about them and about the experience of visiting North Korea, and he hopes to see you there!

Place: The Apartment – 3/F, 47 Yongfu Lu, near Fuxing Xi Lu永福路47号3楼, 近复兴西路

Tel: (021) 6437 9478

Date: Sunday 8th January

Time: Please arrive by 18:00, seating is limited and the first film will start at 18:30

Cost: No cover charge (Free!), and there will be happy hour pricing on drinks (2 for 1) and burgers

Here are the films that will be shown:

Our Flavour (2003) – A DPRK rom-com (!) about the struggles to match-make in the modern world. The film is very notable for its reasonably honest portrayal of wealth disparity in different Pyongyang families as well as addressing the dangers of foreign cultural influence on Koreans who spend too much time with tourists! Two families are brought together through romance but are their differences too much to bear? One is a worldly bunch who use their relative wealth to buy imported goods, use foreign words, and look outside for inspiration. The other family favours the Korean ‘flavour’ in everything, can they reconcile their different ways? Or can a western-influenced tour guide and a kimchi specialist never really understand each other?

Crossing the Line (2005) – Third documentary produced by Koryo Tours, this documentary tells the previously untold story of James Joseph Dresnok, an American who has spent the last five decades living in Pyongyang, North Korea. In 1961 Dresnok, a young solder in the US army at the time, deserted his post on the southern side of the DMZ which separates North and South Korea to this day, he simply walked across the largest minefield in the world and disappeared into the arms of the communist enemy. Over 40 years later a western film crew tracked him down. We hear Dresnok’s story in his own words as well as the stories of the other American soldiers who traded the west for life behind the bamboo curtain in the 1960s, the bizarre stories of their wives and children still living in North Korea and what happened when the only other surviving American defector in North Korea was offered the chance to leave while the film was in production. Stories like this come around once in a lifetime and Dresnok’s tale is about the most fascinating and unlikely tale to come out of the secretive and enigmatic Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in
a long time

Fat China Makes the Choice ‘Outstanding Academic Titles of 2011’ List

Every year, in its January issue, Choice, the magazine most North American colleges use to select books, chooses a selection of the books reviewed in the last year as “Outstanding Academic Titles”. The selection covers around 10% of the roughly 7,000 books reviewed annually. Well, Fat China: How Expanding Waistlines are Changing a Nation (paperback here; Kindle here; and, for you library guys, hardback here) by myself and Matthew Crabbe made the “Outstanding” list.

Nice one

PS: here’s a piece from NPR on food consumption and Fat China

Something to Ponder on New Year’s Day: Did the Irish Get to China First?

I’m confused. And it’s on the 1st of January! Have we all made a terrible mistake? All the time we’ve been thinking that the great explorer to China was an Italian (a Venetian to be precise) called Marco Polo. Of course maybe he came and didn’t see as much as he claimed and maybe he didn’t come at all, but everyone (or so I thought) agreed that he was Italian. But then I found that in Germany there is a chain of clothing stores – loads of them and very popular – that began in Sweden apparently called Marco O’Polo. Could it be that the Germans, usually such precise people, know something the rest of us don’t – was Marco really from the Emerald Isle and a famed member of the well known O’Polo clan??

To be honest I can’t work out if this is a mistake, a joke, a Swedish/German play on words (if such things exist) or just plain daft. The very thought that Marco could have been Irish is too much to bear for this Englishman – I’ll never hear the last of it!!

Shanghai Power has the Answer to Your Tired-Cross Problem

“More than 25 percent of heritage sites in China are in “poor” and “relatively poor” condition…”

…and the rest shout the Greek chorus off-stage led by me!

Though, as I commented the other day, Wen Jiabao’s comments about the poor state of heritage and preservation in China were a classic example of too little, too late, they have at least allowed, for a brief moment I would expect, Xinhua to vent a little. So according to a small article in the China Daily, “More than 25 percent of heritage sites in China are in “poor” and “relatively poor” condition”. More extremely conservative statistics about the disaster that is heritage and preservation in China in the article.

The BBC has some more reporting on the report from the State Administration for Cultural Heritage (a ministry that can truly be said to be unfit for purpose!!).