Posted: October 15th, 2011 | No Comments »
I’ve featured the great Maurice Collis in (or is it ‘on’?) this blog before – see here – and recently just came across an old Penguin version of his book She Was a Queen. This is a 1943 Penguin though Collis’s book was originally published in 1937. It’s not one of Collis’s best and certainly no Foreign Mud or Siamese White, but still of interest being the story of a 13th century Burmese Queen. Collis knew his Burma – Burma Trials is a good book and still reads well – that descends into blood rivalries and nasty feuds.
Interestingly Penguin were putting a lot of ads in their book in 1943 – Allen Lane was trying anything to drum up some cash during the war – so I’ve included a couple of interesing ones. Not sure what the logic was for Penguin? You’ve bought a book on a 13th century Burmese queen now what you should buy – shaving foam? a Mars Bar? who knows!
Posted: October 14th, 2011 | No Comments »
OK, so Leslie Chang’s Factory Girls is beating me out of the top spot at Pudong Airport but here’s the good news for non-philistines, even though the Anne Hathaway boring flick tie in book of David Nicholl’s One Day is beating me out in Hong Kong the chart is divided into fiction and non-fiction making me, yes me alone, the best selling non-fiction book in Hong Kong this week. Take that Hathaway!!
Posted: October 14th, 2011 | No Comments »
Strolling through Bloomsbury the other week I passed a second hand bookshop with a table of, admittedly rather battered, Penguins. Still, all priced at an honest Queen’s pound per book, and well worth it for the covers alone. This one is Ernest Braham’s The Wallet of Kai Lung. Though published in 1936 by Penguin in the early of their iconic paperbacks, Braham’s book dates back to 1900 and had been reprinted by other publishers pretty much consistently since then. It was a very popular book – a collection of fantasy stories told by Kai Lung, an itinerant Chinese story teller. It’s a little hackneyed for a modern audience to be honest and I didn’t get very far into it before basically giving up and just enjoying the cover but apparently some thought Manchester-born Braham’s comedic work as good as Jerome K Jerome (who’s secretary Braham was for a time) and, apparently, Orwell liked him. Braham is perhaps best remembered today for coining the term, supposedly said by all Chinese sagely, ‘may you live in interesting times’, which of course nobody in China has ever actually said.
Posted: October 13th, 2011 | No Comments »
Excellent to see Midnight in Peking sitting nicely at No.2 in the Dymocks book sales chart in Hong Kong. What discerning and tasteful readers the patrons of Dymocks Hong Kong (and any derogatory comments I may have ever made regarding the Special Administrative Region and its growing pointlessness I now obviously take back completely!! Long Live Xiang Gang!!)
But damn that Anne Hathaway! – putting on a crap accent but looking lovely in the movie of One Day and giving Nicholls a second bite at the cherry! Should I be annoyed – pipped from the top by simpering romantic date flicks!!My Pamela could have given Hathaway the kicking of her life I can assure you!
Posted: October 13th, 2011 | No Comments »
As regular readers will know China Rhyming likes to support Shanghai’s young photographers and street photography in the city (particularly when it catalogues social change and the destruction of architecture) and so…tonight (Thursday 13th)
DADABar is hosting the 9th edition of Shanghai Photographer Night tonight, a group exhibition featuring work by Lei Gong, Patrick Wack, Chad Ingraham, Eric Leleu, and Matthieu Belin.
It’ll be an evening of portraits, with the five photographers employing varying approaches to capture subjects like children at Burning Man, Chinese women in their domiciles, and artists working at 696 Weihai Lu in Shanghai.
Judging by work from the photographers’ personal websites, there’s a good chance you’ll see some significant and beautiful images tonight at DADA. Who knows, you might even get some ideas for your next profile pic.
9th Shanghai Photographer Night // FREE // Tonight, 8pm-late // DADA // 115 Xingfu Lu, near Fahuazhen Lu (幸ç¦è·¯115å·, 近法åŽé•‡è·¯) // Closest Metro stop: Shanghai Jiaotong University Station, Line 10
Posted: October 13th, 2011 | 1 Comment »
The Midnight in Peking juggernaut (OK, maybe just a large lorry with slightly flat tyres) rolls into Soochow (or Suzhou as some now like to call it) on Sunday October 16th where I’ll be talking about the book, Pamela Werner and how tosolve 75 year old murders to the good folk of the Royal Asiatic Society’s Suzhou branch at the lovely Suzhou Bookworm.
Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 4pm
A hideous murder in Peking. A lovely British expat found dead. An unsolved mystery for more than seventy years. Paul French visits the Royal Asiatic Society of Suzhou to talk about his new novel, “Midnight in Peking”. French pieces together the evidence from this real-life conundrum to write historical fiction that China author Jonathan Fenby says, “Keeps the reader enthralled to the end.” Sunday, October 16, 2011, 4pm.  The Suzhou Bookworm, Gunxiu Fang 77, Shi Quan Jie. 30rmb for students; 50 rmb for members; 70 rmb for non-members. Includes one glass of wine or beer. For more information, contact Bill Dodson at 135 0613 6662.
Inside the Suzhou Bookworm
Posted: October 12th, 2011 | 2 Comments »
One last plug for my Midnight in Peking web site (and if you believe that you’ll believe anything). I feel I should really plug this for any Peking residents reading and anyone likely to visit Peking anytime soon. We’ve included a walking tour with audio on the Midnight in Peking web site. Just click here and you can download a guided commentary to your ipod or mp3 device, listen online, print off the guide to read as you walk and also print of a map of the route (though the recording helps you out with directions too).
The walk takes you from Pamela’s old hutong, Armour Factory Alley, to the Fox Tower, along the Tartar Wall, into the former Badlands area and Soochow Hutong, up into the Legation Quarter and eventually to Chienmen. The commentary covers both the general history of these areas of Peking and their relevance to the book and the characters in Midnight in Peking. I’ve structured it so that, as far as possible, you never need interact with the nasty brutishness that is modern Peking and also avoid the worst of the ridiculous traffic the city serves up.
Got to be worth a couple of hours one weekend, surely!
Posted: October 11th, 2011 | No Comments »
While I’m plugging interesting bits that are found on my Midnight in Peking website I should note that Michael Aldrich, the great historian of Peking and author of the essential book The Search for a Vanishing Beijing, was kind enough to write a short history of the Fox Tower (now the Dongbienmen Tower), the superstitions surrounding fox spirits in Peking and around the Tower and the area around that corner of the old tartar wall. Michael knows more than just about anybody about this stuff and actually this information on the Fox Tower was originally meant for his The Search for a Vanishing Beijing book but got cut due to size limitations. When I first started researching Pamela Werner’s murder and wanted to know more about the Fox Tower, fox spirits and that part of Beijing, Michael was the only person who immediately knew what I was talking about!
The Search for a Vanishing Beijing by the way is now available in both paperback and (a very reasonably priced) Kindle edition
To see images of the Fox Tower and read Michael’s essay on the area click here
