All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
In case you’re not near a bookshop that is stocking my new China Revisited series of historical reprints on Hong Kong, Macao and Southern China, or like amazon, then they’re on bookstore.org too (supporting independent bookstores globally)…
Harry Hervey – Where Strange Gods Call
Constance Gordon Cumming – Wanderings in China
James Zimmerman’s excellently research & fun Peking Express tells the story in-depth of the Lincheng Outrage in 1923. I was happy to blurb….
In May 1923, when Shanghai publisher and reporter John Benjamin Powell bought a first-class ticket for the Peking Express, he pictured an idyllic overnight journey on a brand-new train of unprecedented luxury—exactly what the advertisements promised. Seeing his fellow passengers, including mysterious Italian lawyer Giuseppe Musso, a confidante of Mussolini and lawyer for the opium trade, and American heiress Lucy Aldrich, sister-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., he knew it would be an unforgettable trip.
Charismatic bandit leader and populist rabble rouser Sun Mei-yao had also taken notice of the new train from Shanghai to Peking. On the night of Powell’s trip of a lifetime, Sun launched his plan to make a brazen political statement: he and a thousand fellow bandits descended on the train, capturing dozens of hostages.
Aided by local proxy authorities, the humiliated Peking government soon furiously gave chase. At the bandits’ mountain stronghold, a five-week siege began.
Brilliantly written, with new and original research, The Peking Express tells the incredible true story of a clash that shocked the world—becoming so celebrated it inspired several Hollywood movies—and set the course for China’s two-decade civil war.
The Athanaeum was published between 1828 and 1921 after which it was incorporated into its younger competitor, the Nation. The Athanaeum is also a private members club on Pall Mall founded around the same time. Here below a review of ETC Werner’s China of the Chinese from August 1919. As well as being reviewed in The Athanaeum, Werner was also a member of the Club (though I don’t think he could have visited more than a few times as he rarely furloughed to England and not at all (I think) after he retired around 1914. Still he was accepted and was proposed by no less a figure than the author Rider Haggard who he had known as a young man at Scoone’s crammer school for the Foreign Service on Garrick Street, near Covent Garden. Both enjoyed their studies, both had an early interest in spirtualism but then Haggard went into business in Africa (and eventually obviously novel writing) and Werner into the diplomatic service in China. Yet they obviously remained friends….
The review “BR” is none other than Bertrand Russell, who was of course fascinated by China and reading up on the subject in 1919 before departing to give his series of lectures there (and in Japan) in 1920 (where it is quite possible he would have met Werner – though I have no evidence they ever did meet) eventually writing his own book, The Problem of China, published in 1922.
Werner
Just how ‘liberating’ was the ‘liberation’? Jack Belden travelled to the newly ‘liberated’ villages of China as the Nationalists retreated and the Communists advanced in the late 1940s…a highly pivotal moment for China…click here to read…
My occasional round up of what’s new in Chinese writing in translation for the China-Britain Business Council’s Focus magazine…. click here
From a new Penguin reprint of Lao She’s Mr Ma and Son, to Dorothy Tse’s excellent Owlish, here’s what to read this month to understand China better…
I found this book in an art bookshop in London – Chinese Creeds and Customs Vol III by VR Burkhardt (who worked at the British Embassy in Peking between 1913-1923). The bookwas published in 1958 by the South China Morning Post. It includes some information on the Fox Tower (Dongbienmen) which interested me as obviosuly it is a key location in my book Midnight in Peking. It also intersted me as recently a blogger accused me of inventing the Fox Tower! A slightly odd accusation as the book includes a map of Peking from the 1930s identifying the Fox Tower, which is also referred to in numerous books from Juliet Bredon back in the day to Michael Aldrich more recently.
Burkhardt knew Peking very well and even sketched the Tower for his book.
Brian Sze-hang Kwok’s Fading Neon Lights celebrates what is now an endangered species in Hong Kong…
Suspended above us with intricate patterns and flamboyant colours, the neon signs of Hong Kong easily guide us to local businesses, Chinese restaurants, bars, and department stores. Apart from marketing and advertising, these neon signs actually convey much more — and mean much more to those who view the signs as a part of their home.
This book documents Hong Kong’s neon signs whilst taking on a historical, socio-cultural, and contextual study of visual culture around the city. It explores the inter-related components of neon signs, including each sign’s unique visual aesthetic and design, the history of craftsmanship and training, and how the streetscape relates to Hong Kong’s consumer culture. With an underlying theme of photographic conservation and an array of vibrant images, the author brings the everyday signage of Hong Kong to life.
