All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
Mid-19th century naïve oil on board of Victoria City, Hong Kong Harbour. Unknown artist but clearly got back to England and was sold through Cronshaw’s of Blackburn (who I don’t think are in business anymore)…
A very rare copy of Island Stories (1905) subtitled, Extracts From The Papers of Mr John Westwood, Mariner of London and Shanghai, with Original illustrations From Descriptions Supplied By The Author. The book was printed and published by The North-China Herald. The book is mostly reminisicences of travel to the South Seas.
John Alekna’s (Assistant Professor of History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at Peking University) Seeking News, Making China – Information, Technology, and the Emergence of Mass Society (Stanford University Press)….
Contemporary developments in communications technologies have overturned key aspects of the global political system and transformed the media landscape. Yet interlocking technological, informational, and political revolutions have occurred many times in the past. In China, radio first arrived in the winter of 1922-23, bursting into a world where communication was slow, disjointed, or non-existent. Less than ten percent of the population ever read newspapers. Just fifty years later, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, news broadcasts reached hundreds of millions of people instantaneously, every day. How did Chinese citizens experience the rapid changes in information practices and political organization that occurred in this period? What was it like to live through a news revolution?
John Alekna traces the history of news in twentieth-century China to demonstrate how large structural changes in technology and politics were heard and felt. Scrutinizing the flow of news can reveal much about society and politics—illustrating who has power and why, and uncovering the connections between different regions, peoples, and social classes. Taking an innovative, holistic view of information practices, Alekna weaves together both rural and urban history to tell the story of the rise of mass society through the lens of communication techniques and technology, showing how the news revolution fundamentally reordered the political geography of China.
Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps cap badge circa 1931-46. Die-cast brass crowned pair of facing dragons.
I welcome any addition to the rather understudied Macao bookshelf. Of course I’m fascinated by Macao and have been for decades – I’ve written about it in my short study on the Jewish refugees who, mostly moving on from an initial sanctuary in Shanghai, reached Macao thinking it might be aroute to safety in the US or UK. See Strangers on the Praia. Next year I’ll also add to my Destination…. series (Destination Shanghai and Destination Peking) with Destination Macao.
So Peter Rose’s The Good War of Consul Reeves, a novelisation of the life and Macao experiences of the wartime British consul in Macao, John Reeves, is most welcome…
Months before the start of the Pacific War in 1941, John Reeves – his career and marriage failing – is posted as British consul to the tiny Portuguese colony of Macao in southern China.
The Japanese soon declare war on the West with their attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong. But because Portugal is neutral, Macao is left alone and becomes a tiny island of neutrality, an Asian Casablanca surrounded by Japanese-occupied China.
Reeves, a lonely and awkward man, finds himself the only senior representative of the Allies within a radius of thousands of miles. He runs spy rings, collects intelligence, smuggles people to freedom, takes care of refugees and is threatened with assassination – and The Good War of Consul Reeves tells his story.
Always nice to come across items from Yamanaka and Co. This is a copy of a book – Ancient Masks – . published by Yamanaka in London in 1913 and sold through their London showroom at #127 New Bond Street (which I have blogged about before – with photos). The book was presumably to accompany an exhibition/sale.
Sadajiro Yamanaka was a well-known Japanese dealer in Peking in the early twentieth century, who had a beautiful courtyard home-cum-showroom on Ma Hsien Hutong (Maxian Hutong). The family business also had a showroom on New Bond Street, run by Sadajiro’s son.
PS: there is a chapter on Yamanaka and his family business in Chang Qing and Huang Shan’s The Great Plunder
A propaganda poster designed by RE Goode for the gunboats of the USA Navy Yangtze River Patrol (the “Yangpat”). The poster depicts the USS Oahu onthe Yangtze River. The text reads:
“Powerful light draft naval vessels protect American lives, alleviating distress and assisting commerce on the upper Yangtze River. These gunboats penetrate regions over 1300 miles from the sea in a land where transportation and communication is primitive.”
The Oahu was one of six new gunboats launched in 1926 patrolling the river and tributaries from Shanghai to Chungking. She was sunk in battle during WWII in Manila Bay in 1942.
This book examines the history of the military comfort women system in China. It aims to give readers a deeper insight into the origin, establishment, and operations of comfort stations, as well as tell the sufferings of comfort women, many of whom were coerced into service. It does so by providing historical evidence gathered over 25 years of field studies from 172 comfort stations which were operated in Shanghai, which once had the largest number of military comfort stations, during the Japanese occupation.
Contents: