Had a long and wide ranging conversation with Haig Balian, the Beijing-based host of The Point podcast from casting old China set dramas to remembering sojourners in old Peking. Haig then divided the podcast iinto two:
Episode 1 – talking about my BBC Radio 3 docu-drama Peking Noir (which you can download here)….click here to listen to podcast
Episode 2 – talking about my new collection of essays Destination Peking (which you can order from Blacksmith Books here)…click here to listen to the podcast.
The early years of the PRC were often hard – 605 million people, as major cross-Strait crisis that nearly led to war, major difficulties in getting accurate news and data out of the country and, it seems, food shortages. The newspapers reported this eye-witness account of 1955 Shanghai by one of the last Russian emigres (White Russians) to leave the city.
Delighted to write a piece for SupChina remembering John le Carre and looking at what we can learn about contemporary China from his Asian magnus opus The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)…
From 1931 to 1945, as Japanese imperialism developed and spread throughout China, three regions experienced life under occupation: the puppet state of Manchukuo, East China, and North China. Each did so in a distinct manner, but making sense of experiences and decisions made during this crucial period has been an elusive goal for historians.
Despite the enduring importance of the occupation to world history and historical memory in East Asia, Translating the Occupation is the first English-language volume to provide such a diverse selection of important primary sources from this period for both scholars and students.
Contributors from six different countries have translated sources from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean on a wide range of subjects, focusing on writers who have long been considered problematic or outright traitorous. Each text is accompanied by a short essay to contextualize the translation and explain its significance.
This volume offers a practical, accessible sourcebook from which to challenge standard narratives. The texts have been carefully selected to deepen our understanding of the myriad tensions, transformations, and continuities in Chinese wartime society. Translating the Occupation reasserts the centrality of the occupation to twentieth-century Chinese history and opens the door further to much-needed analysis.
The BBC’s Writers Room website has uploaded the script by myself and Sarah Wooley of Peking Noir for anyone interested to download and have a look at….click here
Photographer-explorer Earl Brink produced various travelogue movies travelling to Austria, Nepal, Ireland and Tibet. This particular film, Pageant of the Orient, was a mix of his films on Japan and the Philippines with various stops he made inbetween.
