Below a drawing that was included in the 1920s edition of Cassells Illustrated History of England – it was entitled ‘The War in China – the Fighting at Tientsin’ – it refers to the arrival of the Eight Powers Allied Aermy in1900 in Tientsin to march to Peking to relieve the Siege of the Legations. Eventually of course this did happen, the Boxers were beaten and then Peking viciously looted and burned by the foreign troops. The eight powers by the way were Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Great Britain and the United States. You can see representatives of most of these armies in the illustration, though, strangely for a British publication, it seems to show the Yanks getting stuck more than the Brits! A swift bit of research shows that a large number of historical illustrations covering lots of different historical moments in different parts of the world in Cassells were illustrated by ‘HMP’, as was this. No idea who HMP was in real life though I’m afraid – it’s a very stylised Tientsin so we can assume HMP wasn’t actually recording anything he saw!
Sometimes you have to wonder whether Shanghailanders, despite getting pretty rich, were all that smart. Certainly if, as was the case (see ad below), that the Shanghai Telephone Company was forced to place adverts in the newspapers instructing their subscribers not to start dialling the number until the dial tone kicked in (those of you old enough to remember pre-fibre optical telephone systems will recall that it did used to take a few second between picking up the phone and the dial tone being heard). Clearly premature dialling was causing problems for someone!
Over quite a long time I’ve had a few brief chats with Shanghai-resident artist Christina Shmigel about her planned Cabinet of Curiosities. It’s taken her five years – though I have no idea if that is really quick or really long in terms of the manufacture of cabinets of curiosities? Anyway, now we get a chance to see it, and I for one, am rather excited. Details below the pic:
A Foreigner’s Cabinet of Chinese Curiosities
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
3:00–6:00
(Or by appointment 135 6435 0132)
696 Wei Hai Lu
Jing An District (near Maoming Lu)
Bldg. 11 Room 409
Compartmentalized into the 67 drawers of a massive Traditional Chinese Medicine Cabinet, as into the pockets of memory, resides a collection of those most ordinary things – pink plastic string, blue plumbing hose, a White Cat washing soap bottle, the booths of sellers of auspicious phone numbers, dormer windows, bamboo scaffolding – that give Shanghai the particular character it has at this time in history. Several small books expanding on the subjects and themes of the objects are also housed in the drawers.
Five years in the making, the Cabinet of Curiosities is an attempt to preserve and catalogue (in an entirely idiosyncratic way) the experience of coming to know a culture through its material possessions. Following the traditions of the European “wunderkammers†and Ming & Qing Dynasty curio boxes, the cabinet invites the viewer to ponder the world with awe and wonder.
The cabinet begins is US tour with an exhibition at the Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, MO, opening Jan 21, 2011. www.brunodavidgallery.com
Work on Number 2 the Bund has been ongoing for some time – it’s now the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Of course No.2 The Bund is the original home of the Shanghai Club and the famous Long Bar. Indeed the Long Bar is back and I’ll check it out soon as I get a chance. The new Long Bar is an impressive 110 ft long, built to the original specifications of the 1911 bar.
But, so a source informs me, no return of The Shanghai Club. Instead we’ve got the Waldorf Astoria Club. Apparently the hotel wanted to name the newly reopened spot the Shanghai Club but local commie officials said no, emphatically no. Seems the Shanghai Club is still considered a demeaning old institution too far for the local Commies.
So here’s what I suggest. They can officially call it the Waldorf Astoria Club, but so what. Nobody in their right mind and with a smidgen of historical knowledge wants to be a member of the Waldorf Astoria Club in Shanghai. So when anyone mentions it just refer to it as the Shanghai Club and eventually that will become its name, whatever the Commie Little Napoleon’s demand is hung up on the sign outside.
I’ve commented on the role of the French Gaullists, the Free French and the Vichyites in Shanghai before (see here). Roderick Egal, a Frenchtown vintner, was the man who tried to organise the Free French in Shanghai but was arrested and sent to Indo-China. Sad to say, the majority of Frenchtown’s residents were right wing as hell and unrepentant Vichyites. No real resistance movement emerged while Egal and other Gaullists largely ended up in Hong Kong fighting with the British.
Anyway, Shanghai based journalist Veronique Saunier (who is, as you might have guessed, a Frenchie) has dug around and written up the amazing story of Roderick Egal and if there’s one single resident of the former French Concession that deserves to be remembered then it is Egal. The article is in French, but even my schoolboy, gazing out the window and not paying much attention, French could struggle through. If I get a moment I might try and translate if I think it will get Egal’s name to more people.
Click here to get a Google translate which is a bit rough to say the least but might help non-French readers
The Shanghai Power Company had a slogan – ‘RDR: Reliability, Dependability and Responsibility’. That was their trio of service. This advert, that appeared in 1940, was not simply a general announcement, a bit of regular corporate PR, but actually a very necessary attempt to calm Shanghailander opinion. The problem was that the war and the Japanese occupation of much of the country was disrupting both coal mining and transportation. Additionally, much of the shipping that transported coal was diverted to the North Atlantic or sunk. Supplies in Shanghai were low and in danger of running out. The company imported 350,000 metric tons of bituminous coal in 1939 and again in 1940 from British India to Shanghai. Hence the need to reassure nervous Shanghailanders that the lights were not about to go out and that they had managed to secure coal supplies to keep the party running.
Sam Chambers journeys to Beijing, Suzhou and Shanghai to discuss the crucial and complex movement of oil around the world. The uninterrupted flow of oil is essential to globalization and increasingly so as manufacturing and markets move Eastwards to Asia. However, it is threatened by conflicts between nation states, pirates and global warming. In Oil on Water, Chambers recounts his experiences reporting onboard giant tankers and examining the geopolitical shift in oil consumption. Don’t miss this all encompassing and engrossing look at the way oil is moved and consumed.
‘Why is an ancient Chinese god living under a music hall and feasting on the flesh of young women?’
Of course I like Dr Who (old and new – all regenerations) and watched it from a young lad in front of a black and white Radio Rentals Rediffusion through to my current flat screen plasma HD Star Trek like screen. Good news that there’s a new DVDÂ re-release, or Revisitation as the BBCÂ title it, featuring episodes with Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor, Peter Davidson as the fifth Doctor and Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor. All well and good.
In among the episodes included is the classic Dr Who Yellow Peril down Limehouse way episode The Talons of Weng-Chiang from 1977 – the Tong of the Black Scorpion, devout followers of an ancient god Weng-Chiang, disappearing women, an Oriental stage magician, a murderous ventriloquist’s dummy and giant rats in the sewers. Weng-Chiang was a Fu Manchu clone and played by a white actor; some North American TV channels refused to screen it citing racism and stereotyping.
