I recently found time to closely read Rachel Meller’s family memoir of the Shanghai Jewish refugees, The Box with a Sunflower Clasp. Every new book on the Jewish ghetto gives you a few more slithers of information you didn’t know before. For me, particularly, in Meller’s book it was the Lion Book Shop.
The Lion Book Shop was a second hand bookshop and circulating library (allowing everyone to borrow books at a very low cost, partly because the owner bought in cheaply pirated copies of many books to keep costs down) run by a German Jewish refugee, Bruno Loewenberg. I think it opened in 1938. The shop and library was in a multi-tenancy house at 328 Moulmein Road (Maoming Road North) in the International Settlement/corner of Bubbling Well Road.
In 1943 Loewenberg had to close the Moulmein location and moved to several new locations in the heart of the ghetto – 605 Tongshan Road (Tangshan Road) and 52 Chusan Road (Zhoushan Road). Loewenberg survived the war and made it to America – his whole incredible story is one of the major narratives in The Box with a Sunflower Clasp.
Embroidery Wishes, a collection of 47 tipped in woodcuts or wood engravings self published by Alfred Koehn a German diplomat and botany enthusiast in Peking in WW2. He had previouisly been posted to Tokyo. In Peking, he established a hutong residence and his own publishing house, “The Lotus Court”. He wrote and printed a number of books on the two countries. he also published The Year of the Pig in 1947 – a guide to the complex beliefs enshrined in the traditional Chinese calendar, listing auspicious and inauspicious activities for each day of the year, as well as important weather forecasts. Also included is a catalogue of “commonly accepted superstitions”: the twitching of the right eye in the late evening foreshadows a new business opportunity, while the chatter of a magpie in the early morning brings wealth, happiness, and plenty to eat and drink.
Sorry to be so late posting this but a few days left to catch this exhibition…
Qipao (aka Cheongsam) is at once a fashionable symbol and a symbol of fashions in Chinese culture. Its popularity peaked in mid-20th century Hong Kong, where celebrities paraded everywhere in trendy outfits, exuding graceful beauty. An enduring and significant part of Chinese cultural legacy, the craft of cheongsam making had been inscribed onto the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of China. Up to this day, qipaos are frequently featured in our movies.
The ‘Cinderella and Her Qipao’ exhibition is a part of the 2023 Hong Kong Pop Culture Festival and a continuation of our 2017 programme ‘The Stars, the Silver Screen and the Qipao’. Garments from a glorious selection of films that span different eras of Hong Kong filmmaking will be displayed in the new exhibition, recreating the cultural landscapes of the past with qipaos worn on screen by iconic actresses such as Li Lihua, Hsia Moon, Maggie Cheung and Brigitte Lin.
Seminars will be presented as part of the programme and before each seminar will be a screening of the reference film Cinderella and Her Little Angels (1959) which serves as a perfect example of the successful crossover between fashion design and musical film. Actor Peter Chen Ho plays a tailor in the film and the many outfits made by his character—designed by Koo Yik-chun, the founder of Johnson Tailors—are delectable treats for the eyes. Koo’s renowned shop even appears in the film, offering the audience a glimpse of the fashion industry’s glorious glamour.
A new ChinaRhyming Substack for May Day – When Blaxploitation went to Hong Kong and Macao, BBC Radio 4’s The Invention of China, some handy advice to would-be China book writers, those Wild Swans, some unique photos of wartime Chongqing… Click here…
My bimonthly column for Macau Closer (that appears in English, Portuguese and Chinese handily) this March-April looks back at when Hollywood’s Blaxploitation genre took a side trip to Hong Kong and Macao (in league with the Shaw Brothers) in Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975) with Tamara Dobson and Ni Tien teaming up to take on bad-ass Macao casino boss played by Stella Stevens. If you’re in Macao then you can pick up a copy at the marvellous Livraria Portuguesa at 16 rua de São Domingos. Otherwise you can zoom in on this jpg hopefully.
I’ve blogged before on the famous Cathay Restaurant, also known as just The Chinese Restaurant that used to be on Glasshouse Street and was once famous courtesy of the lights in Piccadilly Circus. It was one of London’s oldest and longest running Chinese restaurants (well into the 1970s at least) – use the search box on the home page and just put “Glasshouse” in. Sadly the original building was demolished a few years ago.
Many thanks to ChinaRhyming reader Allan Carter, whose parents knew the establishment’s owners, who sent me an original card from the restaurant….. here the restaurant claims to be the oldest (very debatable) and has the logo – “Where West Eats East” and midnight opening hours!
