Who’s Afraid of China? Reviews

I’m happy that the publisher tells me that the first two books in my Asian Arguments series for Zed Books are selling well. The series aims to raise subjects and issues of current interest in a readable and well researched form but sticking to around a manageable 60,000 words and stripping out the academese and using real English rather than the elongated and largely unnecessary verbiage that has become a rather sad motif for academic writing these days. Yea, yea, I know “aca-bashing” – but they do deserve it in general I’m afraid.

So I’m happy that Kerry Brown’s Ballot Box China: Grassroots Democracy in the Final Major One-Party State is selling well and getting good reviews. Our second book, Michael Barr’s Who’s Afraid of China: The Challenge of Chinese Soft Power has also sold well, was picked out as notable on the Sinica podcast and just been well reviewed in the Times Higher Educational Supplement.

Shanghai Jimmy’s Up and Running

I’ve had the rather nice chore of having to eat me tea in the new (ish) Jimmy’s Kitchen in Shanghai,located inside the old Jingiang Hotel (formerly Victor Sassoon’s Cathay building). All has gone pretty well the times I’ve eaten there – good food, better than average service, a nice welcome and generally I like the place.If you’re a serious foodie don’t pay attention to me – I liked the food but then I liked school dinners and my definition of a great meal is either fish and chips on the seafront or a bowl of noodles in a hutong.

Anyway, as noted before on this blog, Jimmy’s has a long history in Shanghai and then Hong Kong, so for the interested not in Shanghai I’ll just note that the Jimmy’s folk have put some historical details upon their website here.

Talking of Flit – Carol Alcott on Station XMHA 8pm Daily – Tune In

In 1940 Carrol Alcott was THE Shanghailander to listen to on the radio – he may have been slightly overweight in real life (see the picture of him and bio in my book Through the Looking Glass – China’s Foreign Journalists From the Opium Wars to Mao). He nightly antagonised the Japanese about their aggression in China (and they tried to assassinate him several times for his trouble). If you want to read more about XMHA radio as well – Shanghai’s leading English language station – try Michael Kysko’s recently published book American Radio in China.

That Alcott’s show was sponsored by the great brand of FLIT was humorous in that Alcott would liken the Japanese aggressors to annoying flies in need of eradication…driving the Japanese propaganda goons to new heights of distraction and rage.

Shanghai’s Leading Brand of Insecticide in 1940? Flit of course

Flit was phenomenally successfully at selling itself in Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s – a truly successful global brand actually that had been launched in 1923. It had good distribution in China as it was a product of the Standard Oil Company of New York (SOCONY) who had been successful with their oil products in China (and if you haven’t read Alice Tisdale Hobart’s brilliant novel about the SOCONY men of China Oil for the Lamps of China then you really should). Incidentally, the mad insects were originally the creation of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss). This ad ran in the North-China Daily News.

Swindon of Hong Kong Holiday Book Choices…and other locations in the SAR You Could Choose to Go

The venerable Swindon Book Company of Hong Kong has issued its annual 100 best books for Christmas – all are discounted up till the 25th of December. Midnight in Peking is on the list – under fiction, but never mind! Of course there are many other excellent titles, but those authors will have to get their own blogs!!

Meanwhile,and talking of Hong Kong (and in the interests of fairness) I would also like to point out that I am also proud to be solidly at No.3 on the Dymocks charts in the SAR (trailing Steve Jobs but beating Haruki Murakami – make of that what you will!). And rather wonderfully, I’m holding solidly at No.2 at Bookazine (that bloody Steve Jobs again!!)

While if you’re escaping Hong Kong as the winter and the holiday season kicks in both Relay and Page One at the airport can sell you a copy or three. So no excuses really.

Frances Wood on China Before Chinnery in London – 24/11/11

If you happen to be in London this Thursday you could certainly do worse than pop along to Asia House and hear Frances Wood speak on China Before Chinnery. I assume you can also see Asia House’s Chinnery exhibition (as mentioned previously) while you’re there. Details below and booking details here.

Chinnery was the first serious British artist to live and work in China. Dr Wood will explore earlier depictions of China including illustrations produced in Europe from books written by 17th century Jesuits, sketches by William Alexander, a brilliant young artist attached to the British Embassy to China (1792-4), and 19th century ‘export paintings’ produced in Canton for East India Company men.

Dr Frances Wood is Head of the Chinese Section at the British Library and author of numerous successful books on China including The Forbidden City, The First Emperor of China, China’s First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors and The Diamond Sutra: The Story of the World’s Earliest Dated Printed Book.

It’s Getting Colder…Time to Stock up on Coal

Now the delivery of coal in Shanghai was a regular thing and very necessary to keep all those boilers going when, as now, the winter chills swept over the city. It’s not the most glamorous of businesses and usually employs the least glamorous of people (I find it hard to believe that I am actually old enough to remember the coal man with his cart and horse delivering bags of coal to my grandparents in Tottenham!! Blimey!!). However, respect to Hongay Coal (‘The Best Anthracite in the Far East’ – and who am I to argue!) who took some effort to produce this great modernist ad for coal delivery – what images, what typography, what thought – and all for the bags of black stuff. They’d have got my order right enough.

Shanghai Municipal Gaol – Then and Now

The Shanghai Municipal Gaol, or Ward Road Goal (Ward Road is now Changyang Road), dates back to 1903. It’s still a prison of course – Tilanqiao Nick – and you can wander around it, on the outside at least, and see the decent modernist structure from the front (Kunming Road side) or the back (the Changyang Road side – and where you can see the long visitors queues of several days of the week). The basic structure of the gaol we see today was finished about 1935 – there’s been some modern adjustments to the western side of the prison but not that much else has changed. Inside is a juvenile block (not sure that’s still in use), a hospital, an administration block, workshops, a kitchen and laundry block, and an execution chamber (not sure they still do executions here either), all surrounded by a thick, five metre tall wall with guard-towers. Anyway there’s a longer history here.

So here’s the gaol in the 1930s – complete with Sikh guard (they don’t use Sikhs anymore needless to say!) and the words Shanghai Municipal Gaol etched on the stone work above the entrance. That’s been scrubbed off since as you can see from the pictures of the same spot today below. If anyone’s been inside I’d love to know what’s there and what’s not?