Penguin Specials on China from the 1930s

I’m currently reading Jeremy Lewis’s biography of the fonder of Penguin, Allen Lane – Penguin Special. Interesting to note that almost from the start of the great list of Penguin Specials in the late 1930s were a couple of books on China. So let’s name them:

Edgar Mowrer’s Mowrer in China was published in 1938. Mowrer was a well known globe trotting American journalist in the 1930s and had started out covering the First World War and then got to know both Rome and Berlin in the 1920s/1930s. More about Mowrer here. Below Mowrer’s classic Penguin cover and an excerpt from the book:

“… the repeated bombings were almost as successfully murderous as those witnessed at Canton. From the garden of the Baptist Centre in Kaifeng I watched a particularly brutal attack. A little nervous for the ‘planes passed almost over us, yet determined to see and photograph, we stood out and watched six Japanese aircraft in two formations of three, fly first over the city from east to west and then return, at each passage dropping a number of hundred pound bombs of the kind considered less harmful. At one instant I saw six falling from a single ‘plane, one under the other like a string of beads.

They missed us by nearly a quarter of a mile. While the murderers roared away into the east, we hurried to the stricken area near the East Gate. The bombs had fallen into the poorest quarter where the coolies were nearly all absent or at work. The number of women and children killed and maimed was nearly a hundred. I counted several bodiless heads of babies. From piles of rubble came faint groans. A woman sat speechless beside the prostrate figure of her dead husband, in her arms a baby missing from the waist down. The Japanese airplanes that did the killing were manufactured in the United States.”

A book I know less about is JMD Pringle’s China Struggles for Unity published in 1939. Here’s the publishers blurb:

Unlike Japan, which awoke quickly to the new industrialism of the West, China was content to glide peacefully along, ignoring the rest of the world, pursuing the wisdom of her philosophers and artists. But by the turn of the century (1900) as the devastating effect of foreign imperialism began to make itself felt, a new national spirit awoke…….

The Mystery of Markham Road Junction

Below is a picture snapped illicitly in the Shanghai Railway Museum. It is of the Markham Road Junction. That is what it is – you can read the sign on the junction box. Markham Road was in Shanghai’s International Settlement and is now Huai’an Road. Markham Road is on most maps of Shanghai pre-1949 and is a small road running from Suzhou Creek (Soochow Creek). It is usually described as a ‘cut-through’ or ‘short-cut’ to Gordon Road.I have seen records of some wealthy Chinese living on the street and several Chinese Christian missionary workers too.

There was a bridge across Soochow Creek at the end of the street called the Markham Road Bridge, which took you out of the Settlement into the Chinese-controlled districts of Zhabei (Chapei) and Baoshan (Paoshan) across the Creek. Trams ran along the street, indeed they crossed Soochow Creek at the Markham Road Bridge. In 1932 American Marines were drafted in to protect the Markham Road Bridge during the First Shanghai War. On October 14, 1937 a Japanese bomb hit a tram in Markham Road killing all the passengers. Markham Road became a frontline in the battle to defend the Settlement against the Japanese with sandbags and barbed wire across the road and British soldiers from the Durham Light Infantry posted on sentry duty.

But here’s the mystery. On no map I have or have ever seen is there a railway line shown as being on or near Markham Road, so what’s this junction box and railway line doing there? I can’t find a picture of Markham Road with a railway line on it and though I’ve seen pictures of the sandbags at the bridge in both 1932 and after 1937 but none show a rail line (you can see a shot of Markham Road in 1937 sandbagged here from the Karl Kengelbacher archive). John Markham was a well connected British diplomat of the nineteenth century and roads were named after him in Bombay, Toronto and several other places in Canada, could this possibly be one of those by mistake?

Anyone know anything? I’m stumped!!

Running the Show: Governors of the British Empire 1857-1912

Stephanie Williams’ Running the Show: Governors of the British Empire 1857-1912 may appear a wee bit specialist and I haven’t had a chance to read it yet but Williams has been entertaining in the past

As usual no formal review but the publishers blurb below

From Sierra Leone to Fiji, Australia to Sri Lanka, Running the Show is a vivid portrait of empire and of men from another age, who formed so much of the world we live in today.

Running the Show is the story of ordinary men, who in their way, were heroes. Made up of episodes from the lives of governors serving around the British Empire, it presents a kaleidoscope of people, places and events – and stories of how, for better or worse, attempts were made to bring order to often chaotic situations.

Drawing on an astonishing cache of Colonial Office dispatches, private letters, diaries and memoirs, governors recall their strange experiences, parade their eccentricities and complain about dysentery as they plan new towns, build railways, create assemblies, draft laws, negotiate with tribesmen, set up schools and hospitals, and introduce sanitation systems in the farthest reaching corners of the world.

The Queen’s Royal Regiment and The East Surrey Regiment in China

A bit of military history today. I had cause recently to be digging around on the role of the East Surrey Regiment in China – they have at times up to the Second World War guarded the British Legation in Peking. Turns out the Surreys have a pretty good website with a bunch of photos recalling their times and exploits in both China and Hong Kong including some personal memoirs by veterans of the regiments. The site’s definitiely worth a browse for the maps, photos and recollections.

Click here

The Band and Drums, 1st Bn, The Queen’s Royal Regiment, China 1934

Grand Hotel de Pekin…Then and Now

Had cause to go into the old Grand Hotel de Pekin recently, which now sits in a row with the newer Beijing Hotel on the corner of Chang’an and Wangfujing (formerly Morrison Street). Very posh and a nice restoration done a while back by the Raffles people on the exterior and lobby. Anyway, inspired me to dig out a picture of the original structure.

then…

and now…

Visualising China

All these posts of Robert Bickers, his new book and China tour recently put me in a mood to note a project he is involved in called Visualising China. It’s an incredible and growing archive of photographs of old China being built out of Bristol University by Jamie Carstairs, the Digitisation Officer (a bit of a William Gibson type job title that!!). A much over-worked term but this certainly looks like becoming a treasure trove.

Check it out – and I think they’re always looking for more photos if anyone has any they can offer them.

Robert Bickers in Peking – Tuesday 24th

Just a quickie for all those resident in the capital – Robert Bickers will be at the Bookworm talking about his excellent new book (see previous posts), well worth a listen – details as follows:

The Scramble for China – Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire

Tuesday May 24 – 7.30pm

The Scramble for China is an epic, dynamic account of a century of Sino-foreign interactions, confrontation and confusion. Told from both the Western and Chinese point-of-view, Robert Bickers’ book examines how events such as the opium wars or the Boxer uprising have impacted upon China’s relations with the world. Robert Bickers is the author of the highly-acclaimed Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai. He has written extensively on Chinese history and is currently Professor of History at the University of Bristol.

Chinese Art in London…But Don’t Expect to Bump into the Artist

Talking of the exhibition of Mao posters at Westminster University reminded me that if you are in London anytime soon there’s actually quite a lot of art to see – The Lisson Grove Gallery in Bell Street is holding its largest ever exhibition and it’s all of Ai Weiwei’s work. The exhibition will remain on display until July 16 with little fear of the Metropolitan Police shutting it down. The gallery, at 29 and 52-54 Bell Street, is open from 10am to 6pm Mondays to Fridays, and from 11am to 5pm on Sundays. For more information, see www.lissongallery.com.

Of course while in London you could pop over to Somerset House where, until June 26th, they’re exhibiting Circle of Animals, a series of sculptures of zodiac animals heads throughout the magnificent courtyard of the building. The artist – Ai Weiwei. They are rather striking comprising 12 bronze animal heads, re-creations of the traditional Chinese zodiac sculptures which once adorned the fountain of the Yuanming Yuan (Summer Palace) in Beijing. The installation is part of an International Tour which started in New York.

I am fascinated by making public art. ‘Public’ does not just refer to the museum public; it’s for people passing by and using communal spaces. I think the public deserve the best. In the past, only a pope or an emperor had access to the artworks they commissioned. I want my work to be accessible to everyone. As Yuanming Yuan was being built, Somerset House was being constructed and for me this means that the Courtyard is the perfect setting for Circle of Animals.
Ai Weiwei, 2011

Of course you don’t need me to tell you that Ai Weiwei disappeared at the beginning of April after being arrested by Chinese authorities as he tried to board a plane to Hong Kong on business. His whereabouts remain unknown and no formal charges have yet been brought against him.