Shanghai’s Lyceum Theatre, 1865 Playbill

A host of amdram with many long forgotten plays and Shanghai amdram groups (The Shanghai Rangers) – nice to see some ballet on the programme too….

A Sunqua Series of Social Studies….

A series of paintings that recently came up for auction attributed to Canton artist Sunqua (Chinese, c.1830-1870). Sometimes referred to in western writing as ‘the Chinese Hogarth’ and you can see why from these social studies below….

Chinarhyming on Substack

I’m going to start gradually migrating content from this blog to my substack as Notes & then launching a new newsletter in March with more in-depth articles on old China, new books as well as film/TV/audio info too – please subscribe – https://substack.com/@paulfrench1?r=4ire&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=edit-profile

The Hong Kong Heritage Podcast with Paul French on Harry Franck’s Roving Through Southern China (China Revisited Books #4)

The ”Hong Kong Heritage” podcast (click here) with Annemarie Evans: Best-selling author Paul French tells of vagabonding Harry A. Franck in southern China.

Harry A. Franck was an American traveller and writer – vagabonding, roving and roaming his way across large chunks of the world. Best-selling author Paul French joins me to talk about Franck’s book “Roving Through Southern China” – which was published in 1925 – and tells of Hong Kong in the immediate aftermath of the tumultuous Seamen’s Strike of 1922; of Macau and the Portuguese military unrest; and on to Canton – where new roads, housing, shops and businesses reflect a modernizing world.

Paul French has annotated and abridged four books by writers and missionaries to southern China from the 1880s to 1920s in a collection called “China Revisited” published by Blacksmith Books

The Ultimate China Bookshelf Returns, Coirtesy of the Sinica Substack….

The Ultimate China Bookshelf is back!! Courtesy of Kaiser Kuo’s new Sinica substack (which is full of other great China content too – take a look) – #44 Lu Xun’s The Real Story of Ah-Q – and fear not Kaiser will be archiving the previous 43 books on his substack in case you missed any or are new to the Ultimate China Bookshelf…

Destination HKIA…..

Monocle books by Gate 61, Terminal 1, Hong Kong International Airport…..

Mandarin in a fur-banded hat and coat thumbing the point of an arrow, c.1820

Chinese School, Circa 1820, a bust-length portrait study of a Mandarin in a fur-banded hat and coat thumbing the point of an arrow, watercolour and body colour.

The Hudec Residence, Shanghai – What is it’s Future?

I recently heard that the Hudec House on Shanghai’s Panyu Lu closed on February 4 2024. It is the former home of the Hungarian architect Laszlo Hudec. Here a series of photos of the house from 2010 pre-restoration & being housesat by an old couple who let me (and Duncan Hewitt and Bill Savadove) in…