The Useful Idiots around these days always like to say the western media gets it all wrong on China. It’s usually a question of interpretation, but sometimes they do drop a clanger – as in 1924 when they declared a very much alive (well, suffering from liver cancer, but still with us) Dr Sun Yat-sen dead. Hard to say exactly where it started – probably an over zealous stringer in Shanghai or Hong Kong. This has happened before, famously during the 1900 Boxer Uprising when the New York and London Times newspapers declared all foreigners in Peking slaughtered – they weren’t – that was a Hong Kong stringer (the whole story is in my history of the foreign press corps in China up to 1949, Through the Looking Glass – Hong Kong University Press).
Anyway, the Sun Yat-sen is dead story flashed round the world on May 15, 1924…thre story is invariably sourced as out of Hong Kong…Here, a rather uncharitable obit from the Melbourne Argus….
And here a somewhat odd piece on the same day from The Morning Press of Pennsylvania that dredges up poor old Puyi and Wanrong (or Henry and Elizabeth in thir assumed English names)…
Reuters got on the case and contacted Eugene Chen in Shanghai who insisted that Dr. Sun was perfectly well after an indisposition.
In actual fact Sun was to live for another eight months or so and died in May 1925
This book delves into the lives of three Scottish private traders—George Smith of Bombay, George Smith of Canton, and George Smith of Madras—and uses them as lenses through which to explore the inner workings of Britain’s imperial expansion and global network of trade, revealing how an unstable credit system and a financial crisis ultimately led to greater British intervention in India and China.
Foregrounding the entangled history of China and the Philippines, Guingona brings to life an array of understudied, but influential characters, such as Filipino jazz musicians, magnetic Chinese swimmers, expert Filipino marksmen, leading Chinese educators, Philippine-Chinese bankers, Filipina Carnival Queens, and many others. Through archival research in multiple languages, this innovative study advances a more nuanced reading of world history, reframing our understanding of the first half of the twentieth century by bringing interactions between Asian people to the fore and minimizing the role of those who historically dominated global history narratives. Through methodologically distinct case studies, Guingona presents a critique of Eurocentric approaches to world/global history, shedding light on the interconnected history of China and the Philippines in a transformative period. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
Commander Ralph Binney (1888-1944), Royal Navy, was an active watercolourist specialising in painting ships (invariably battleships) and harbours/ports. Binney joined the navy in 1903 and served tghrough World War One. There’s more on Binney’s naval career here. In 1929 he obviously visited Hong Kong and painted this scene of Aberdeen Harbour…
The latest in my occasional series of old Shanghai signage (use the search box and type ‘signage’ if you want to see other examples). Here a Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) injunction not to turn right…
For Portuguese readers – Quando o noir chegou a Macau – my bimonthly column for Macao’s Paragrafo (the arts & lit supplement to Macao’s Ponto Final newspaper) – on 1953’s Tony Curtis/Joanne Dru Macao-set noir, Forbidden…. click here…
