Travelers, Trains, and Tartary: China Literary Journeys To Inspire Your Next Adventure

A fun round up of some classic China travel writing from Jeremiah Jenne in The Beijinger magazine…click here to read

The Standard Meridian Points of Acupuncture – published by the Foreign Languages Press, Beijing

Dan Ben-Canaan’s Tombstone Histories & Jewish Harbin

Harbin historian Dan Ben-Canaan’s latest book Tombstone Histories (Earnshaw Books), tales of daily Jewish life in Harbin…The gold standard on Harbin Jewish history….

Video – Adventures Browsing the Library – How to Find Your Next Book Project

A talk for Hong Kong University Library given March 2023 about my work, the stories I find and how libraries, particularly HKUL, have been so crucial to that process. At youtube here

Book #12 on The China Project’s Ultimate China Bookshelf – Wang Shuo’s Playing for Thrills…

It’s book #12 on The China Project’s Ultimate China Bookshelf & we’re hitting up Beijing’s liumang (“hooligan”) literature & its greatest exponent, Wang Shuo who was Playing for Thrills in 1989… click here to read…

Black Girl from Pyongyang: In Search of My Identity

The amazing autobiography of Monica Macias, Black Girl From Pyongyang….

In 1979, aged only seven, Monica Macias was transplanted from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea. She was sent by her father Francisco, the first president of post-Independence Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung.

Within months, her father was executed in a military coup; her mother became unreachable. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises.

After university, she went in search of her roots, passing through Beijing, Seoul, Madrid, Guinea, New York and finally London – forced at every step to reckon with damning perceptions of her adoptive homeland. Optimistic yet unflinching, Monica’s astonishing and unique story challenges us to see the world through different eyes.

The Economist Drum Tower Podcast on Beijing’s Hutongs

A great summation of the endagered species that is Beijing’s hutongs way back when, back then, recently, & now from David Rennie of The Economist’s Drum Tower podcast with Matthew Xinyu Hu (& a little Jiang Wen in the background too)….click here to listen

The Festival of Judo, Royal Albert Hall, January 1956

On the 28th of January 1956 the Royal Albert Hall in London hosted a Festival of Judo, organised by the London Judo Society…. W/P Sgt Mary Hobbs looks like a copper not to cross!

Eric Dominy (1918-1992) was a founding member of the London Judo Society and wrote several books on martial arts. Then Corporal George Chew was apparenlty a founder of the RAF Judo Club or Kübukwai was founded in 1941 in Blackpool.