Of course all the later rumours pushed about in the 1930s by British Intelligence looking to subvert the relationship with Edward VIII said Wallis went to China chasing men, gambling, smoking opium, to learn erotic techniques! In fact she went to Hong Kong to try and reconcile with her troubled first husband Win Spencer, commander of the USS Pampanga (below), one of a couple of ships (old rust buckets seized in the Spanish-American War) that formed the US Navy’s South China Patrol patrolling between Hong Kong and Canton. He was an abusive drunk, and eventually she left him and headed to Shanghai seeking a divorce….
When Hu Yaobang died in April 1989, throngs of mourners converged on the Martyrs’ Monument in Tiananmen Square to pay their respects. Following Hu’s 1987 ouster by party elders, Chinese propaganda officials had sought to tarnish his reputation and dim his memory, yet his death galvanized the nascent pro-democracy student movement, setting off the dramatic demonstrations that culminated in the Tiananmen massacre.The Conscience of the Party is the comprehensive, authoritative biography of the Chinese Communist Party’s most avid reformer and its general secretary for a key stretch of the 1980s.
A supremely intelligent leader with an exceptional populist touch, Hu Yaobang was tapped early by Mao Zedong as a capable party hand. But Hu’s principled ideas made him powerful enemies, and during the Cultural Revolution he was purged, brutally beaten, and consigned to forced labor. After Mao’s death, Hu rose again as an ally of Deng Xiaoping, eventually securing the party’s top position. In that role, he pioneered many of the economic reforms subsequently attributed to Deng. But Hu also pursued political reforms with equal vigor, pushing for more freedom of expression, the end of lifetime tenure for CCP leaders, and the dismantling of Mao’s personality cult. Alarmed by Hu’s growing popularity and increasingly radical agenda, Deng had him purged again in 1987.
Historian and former intelligence analyst Robert L. Suettinger meticulously reconstructs Hu’s life, providing the kind of eye-opening account that remains impossible in China under state censorship. Hu Yaobang, a decent man operating in a system that did not always reward decency, suffered for his principles but inspired millions in the process.
One of the many lost spots of old Beijing that Wallis knew well is the US Marine Guard Swimming Pool that was once in the former American Legation at the western end of the Legation Quarter adjacent to Qianmen. The brick built pool was a welcome break from the summer heat for the sizeable Marine detachment & the American Colony in Peking. Wallis, as a single woman was especially welcome as a rather rare breed in 1925 Peking, as well as being acquainted with Captain Louis Little, the popular head of the Marine Guard at the time.
Chinese white metal presentation cup, engraved ‘Shanghai paper hunt club, 26th December 1913, won by SBM Bremner on Court Courier’ above a bamboo shaped stem and spreading circular base…
The good people at Bookazine in Hong Kong – half a dozen stores including a fantastic new one at Tai Kwun, and a great online presence are offering a pre-order on signed copies of my new book Her Lotus Year for HK$240 – click here for more details…
In December 1924 Wallis passed through Tientsin (Tianjin) and stayed at the Astor House Hotel (which of course still stands and is open for business) – she had to travel by coastal steamer from Shanghai as bandit & warlord fighting meant the trains were barely running, the Peiho River icing up it was so cold, Tianjin was in the grip of a typhoid epidemic. The city was in chaos as the sick flooded in, a problem exacerbated by warlord tensions across north China, political tensions were high ahead of an expected peace summit between Sun Yat-sen and the northern warlords. Ocean liners out of Tientsin to Hong Kong or back to rhe US via Japan were packed as people sought to leave northern China. Yet Wallis, 28 years old, went to the train station and bought a ticket to Peking, a city surrounded by warlord troops due to bandit attacks along the line, and a cold 2 days journey due to bandits ripping up track and attacking trains. American citizens were advised not to travel. Why then did she go to Tianjin and then on to Peking? Her Lotus Year is out November 14 2024….
New Macau Closer magazine out – available from Livraria Portuguesa in Macao (& online) – loads of great articles (& my regular column on Macao in popular culture)….
