All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
A Fette-Li Chinese rug, c.1920s. I wrote about the Fette-Li Rug Co for the South China Morning Post last year (click here). Their rugs in good condition are pretty rare now (moths, wear & tear, not valued much in China for a long time) so good to see new ones not seen before.
Out this week – Wang Xiaobo’s (trans: Yan Yan) Golden Age. A bestselling novel from the 90’s in its first full English translation. A satire of the Cultural Revolution –
Twenty-one year old Wang Er, stationed in a remote mountain commune, spends his days herding oxen, napping and dreaming of losing his virginity. His dreams come true in the shape of the beautiful doctor Cheng Qinyang. So begins the riotously funny story of their illicit love affair, the Party officials who enjoy their forced confessions a little too much, and Wang’s life under the Communist regime: his misadventures as a biology lecturer in a Beijing university, and his entanglements with family, friends and lovers. Golden Age is an explosive, subversive, wild and hilarious satire, featuring one of literature’s great protagonists, a sensation when it was published in the 1990s and beloved today.
My monthly author Q&A for the China-Britain Business Council’s Focus magazine this April is with Philip Snow, author of China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord (Yale University Press) – big book, big subject – click here
An interesting bit of trench art (any decorative item made by military personnel, prisoners of war, or civilians where the manufacture is directly linked to armed conflict or its consequences) from the sailors of HMS Durban apparently done while in Hong Kong. HMS Durban was a stalwart of the Royal Navy China Station serving as part of the fleet throughout the 1920s and also into the 1930s until 19389 before being drployed around the Dutch East Indies, Singapore and then Africa. Odd perhaps too that the trench art is bronze horse shoes – not usually an itegral part of a battle ship’s equipment. Anyway here they are listed as being made while Durban was in Hong Kong at some point in the 1920s…
What’s little, red and was waved about a lot once upon a time? “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung” was everywhere during the Cultural Revolution, waved enthusiastically more than it was read closely, perhaps, but still utterly essential. The Little Red Book is the latest, book #16, on The China Project’s Ultimate China Bookshelf…click here
I didn’t know the V&A in London owned one of Madame Chiang’s (Soong Mei-ling) qipaos. Though, it’s not currently on display it was made for and worn by Madame Chiang. More details are on their website here, but it appears to be derived from Taiwan , 1970-1983 (she was pictured wwaring this dress in 1983). The V&A apparenrly got it with the help of Gwendolyn Chien, the wife of the Taiwan Representative to the UK.
During her sojourn in England in the late 1920s – a time when she made five movies of which we still remember Piccadilly and less so The Flame of Love, The Road to Dishonour and Hai-Tang. Far, far less remembered is a strange film called Elstree Calling (1930), basically a bunch of variety skits (a chorus line, some blackface minstrels, a Russian dance troupe, a Highland singer, a bit of light opera, a Fred & Ginger-type ballroom dance duo, a magician, a Shakespeare performer all included). There are some comedic links (apparently directed by Alfred Hitchcock). In amongst all this mess is a bizarre spoof of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew featuring a motorbike and sidecar riding Petruchio who encounters a Barbarella-style Anna May Wong (38 years earlier than Jane Fonda!) throwing custard pies and spoting cod-Chinese. All quite odd and here on Youtube if you want to see it all. But here’s some stills…
