Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue (Graywolf press), translated by Link King….
May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.
Soon a Taiwanese woman – who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name – is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the “something” is.Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honour, the Golden Tripod Award. Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.
What do you give a man who was Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council for 7 years (1913-1920), serving throughout the tricky years of World War I. Edward Charles Pearce went to Shanghai in the 1880s as a tea taster rising to become a partner in Messrs Ilbert & Co. He then served on the Municipal Council for which he was give a bunch of honours including being granted the Freedom of Shanghai (which I think was a rare honour) and was awarded the Chinese government’s medal – the 4th Class Order of Chiaho.
And he was awarded this lovely Arts & Crafts gold & silver Casket from “The Ratepayers of the International Settlement of Shanghai to Edward Charles Pearce Esquire 27th March 1918”.
Talking Her Lotus Year, 1920s China & some thoughts on the state of the “China book” market now with Alec Ash on the China Books Review podcast (courtesy of The Wire China & the Asia Society NYC) ….
Twitter/X just got too nasty, horrible and depressing for me so i’m well out of it and away from the nutters, tankies and fascists. But I’m now enjoying my experience and interactions on books, history, old China photos etc at Bluesky – @chinarhyming.bsky.social
I’ll be zooming on Wallis Simpson, 1920s China, swinging Shanghai, colonial Hong King, bombarded Shamian & warlord surrounded but ever eternal Peking with Frances Wood for the Royal Asiatic Beijing – December 11 7pm – details: rasbj.glueup.cn/event/45887/
Just a moment to plug the audio book version of Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson. It’s available now on Audible (at a great discount) and other audio stores. The book is read brilliantly by Laurel Lefkow. So, if you’re planning a lot of driving around this holiday season maybe 10 hours of Laurel, Wallis and 1920s China might make the journey a little easier!
