I recently wrote a new foreword for Chinese readers to an upcoming Chinese translation of Carl Crow’s Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom(1940), I think this is the first edition in Chinese amazingly (the war rather stopped an initial translation at the time even though 400 Million Customershad been a success in translation – here)…. It’s out later this year in China from Beijing’s Post Wave Publishing Company (also known in English as Ginkgo Book)…
So just to remind you, if you haven’t read it used copies abound on the internet and there’s a fine reprint from Earnshaw Books still available (with an intro in English by me!)….
Who did kill British diplomat Augustus Raymond Margary on the remote China-Burma frontier in 1875? It could have been agents of the Burmese king, eager to stop the British from undermining his own country’s trade with China, or local Chinese, scared that Margary was spearheading a British invasion from Burma. Some suspected a plot going right back to the xenophobic Chinese governor, Cen Yuying, or perhaps Margary had simply run foul of bandits – and how was a tribute envoy of Burmese elephants involved? Against a background of colonial arrogance and cultural incomprehension, A Murder in Yunnan unpicks the complex tangle of official reports, rumor, suspicions and unreliable newspaper rants clouding the facts behind Margary’s killing – an event which brought Britain and China to the brink of war.
In 2024 I wrote a long read for the South China Morning Post on submarines in 1920s Hong Kong waters. In the 1920s, the pirates of the South China coast faced a new threat to their livelihood of smuggling, kidnapping and hijacking, one that gave them significant pause for thought – anti-piracy submarines. Britain’s Royal Navy, overstuffed with ships, crews and submarines after World War I, wondered what it might do with its new sleek, silent, torpedo-laden vessels. The whole article is here. I mentioned in that article that the six L-class submarines of the 4th Submarine Flotilla – L1, L3, L4, L7, L9 (which famously sunk in 1923 in Victoria Harbour during a typhoon) and L15 – were largely towed from Portsmouth to Hong Kong by Royal Navy Submarine Depot Ships.
So, my thanks to Kitty Lam for sending me photos of HMS Titania which was a Submarine Depot Ship that escorted the L-class subs to Hong Kong from Gibraltar in February 1920, arriving in April via Port Said, Suez, Ismailia, Aden, Colombo, Penang and Singapore. Titania‘s ship’s log records that she weighed anchor and secured to Storm Signal Buoy at Gap Rock Light at 10.17 a.m. on 14 April 1920. Here, courtesy of Kitty, are some photos of Titania with the submarines…
A new documentary on the travails of Jifeng Bookstore (季风书园) originally founded in 1997 in Shanghai by Yan Bofei. The bookstore’s name, meaning “monsoon”, refers to “the seasonal prevailing wind, changing according to the climate in an endless way, [which] resembles the fate of modern China”. The government initially offered some support to Jifeng but that all fell away after 2014 and Jifeng, having established itself as a chain, ended up with just one location in Shanghai Library subway station. Then, following government pressure, the landlord turned on Jifeng too. It was too much – Yan closed the store and moved to the United States.
Jifeng Bookstore reopened as JF Books on September 1, 2024 on Washington DC’s Dupont Circle. They very graciously asked me to speak there at their newly inaugurated “JF Salon” in November that year when I was in America to launch my Wallis Simpson in China book, her Lotus Year. And what a great crowd turned out, bought books and supported me and Jifeng. Since then the DC store has gone from strength to strength with so many speakers, people discovering it, and as a node for anyone interested in China – mainland students in the US, those Americans studying China, old hacks back in town, former businesspeople, diplomats or those who’ve just started to find China interesting and want a great selection of English and Chinese language books. And long may their success continue…
Belated congratulations to Miss M Ballingall and Mr RM Ballingall for winning the 1940 Mixed Foursomes and Mrs C McLean and and Mr JC Dickson for winning the trophy the following year, 1941 – obviously there was not to be a 1942 competition!
The Balingall’s, a family with English and Indian (colonial tea planter) roots, lived in Shanghai and were interned by the Japanese as civilian internees between 1943 and 1945 during the Second World War. They were repatriated to England in October 1945. Not sure about the Maclean’s – there were both merchants and missionaries around with that surname. JC Dickson seems to have been around in Shanghai since at least the late 1880s with the Municipal Police.
‘We’re following the travels of Emily “Mickey” Hahn in 1930s China. Mickey Hahn was a writer, an adventurer, and a professional rule breaker whose wanderlust took her from the American Midwest to Europe and Africa and finally to China, all before she turned 30.
By the time she got to China, she had already established herself as an up-and-coming literary voice and one of the New Yorker’s earliest star writers. In her career, she published 54 books and over 200 articles, but her most famous book is China to Me, a memoir of the years that we’re going to talk about in this episode.
She partied with poets (and her pet gibbon) at Shanghai soirees. Wrote biographies while dodging bombs in wartime Chongqing, and did her best to keep herself and her family alive in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong. Along the way, she became famous (some might add “notorious”) for her affairs, including with Chinese writer Sinmay Zau (Shao Xunmei 邵洵美) and the head of British intelligence in Hong Kong, Charles Boxer.
Mickey lived through some of China’s most tumultuous moments. While many foreigners experienced these events, Mickey gave her readers an unvarnished look at what was happening, with a style all her own.
We’ll explore Mickey’s life, travels, and adventures, and we’ll also discuss how to follow in her footsteps today through the modern cities of Chongqing, Hong Kong, and especially Shanghai.’
Grace Lau’s Chinese portrait studio has been on a memorable journey through Hastings, Southampton, London, and Eastbourne – finishing this year in St Leonards on Sea. This exhibition shows a selection of the portraits captured en route in Hastings and St Leonards on Sea. The portrait studio was made of ‘mock’ traditional Chinese furniture, with a decorative backdrop and accessories. Those featured were asked to pose in a similar manner to Victorian studio portraits, juxtaposing their modern items.
Through this project I am making an oblique comment on Imperialist visions of the ‘exotic’ Chinese and, by reversing roles, I have become the Imperialist photographer documenting my exotic subjects in the South of England.’ (Grace Lau 2006)
These rich, many layered, opulent portraits made by a Chinese-born feminist photographer are a monument to place, race, people, and the passing of time; they are also a direct political comment on the uses of photography as propaganda.
This project was funded by Arts Council England and supported by John Hansard Gallery.
About the Artist
Born in London of Chinese parentage, Grace Lau is a practicing photographer, artist, writer, and lecturer. She has an MA in Photography & Culture from UAL. She has exhibited widely, including at the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, Turner Contemporary Margate, Photo Fusion London, and Aberystwyth Art Centre. Her work is in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Modern, Sarah and David Kowitz, and the Asia Culture Centre in South Korea. She won first prize at the fourth Global SinoPhoto Awards in 2024. Her work will be included in the forthcoming Tate Britain exhibition The Eighties: Photographing Britain, from 21 November 2025.
