I’m talking at the Beijing International Society this Thursday on the history of foreign journalists in China and my book Through the Looking Glass. It’s a rather posh do I think at the Norwegian Embassy (so hopefully some decent smoked salmon will be on offer!). Details below:
Reporting China to the World – 1820-1949
Paul French, author of Through the Looking Glass – China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao
October 21, 2010, 7:30 pm
Embassy of Norway
Nuowei Dashiguan 1 Sanlitun Dong Yi Jie
BIS events are open to foreign passport holders only. All BIS events are off-the-record. Photography, filming and recording are not permitted.
Membership desk open 7:00 pm for 7:30 pm lecture,
No reservations necessary.
For inquiries on the day of the event, from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm, please call 137 1767 2167.
A debate rages today as to whether or not foreign journalists and the international media accurately report on China. Do they have hidden agendas and display bias or do they tread too softly and fail to criticise enough? It was ever thus. Based on his most recent book, Through the Looking Glass – China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao, Paul French traces the history of the foreign press corps in China from its beginnings through its 120-year tumultuous history until 1949 and considers whether today we are better served when it comes to interpreting China than we were a century ago.
Paul French is a writer and analyst based in Shanghai. His previous books include North Korea – the Paranoid Peninsula and Carl Crow: A Tough Old China Hand. He is currently working on a book detailing the horrific and previously unsolved murder of a young English woman in Peking in 1937 to be published by Penguin in 2011 as A Peking Murder.
Good to see a bio from Shiona Airlie of James Stewart Lockhart – Thistle and Bamboo – who served for 40 years in Hong Kong and China, perhaps most notably in Weihaiwei. Details and blurb below as normal.
“This biography of Stewart Lockhart tells much more than the life and work of one man as it shows how individuals such as Lockhart were caught up in the history of the China region and in the relationship between Great Britain and China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” — Robert Nield, author of The China Coast: Trade and the First Treaty Ports
– In her vivid biography of Stewart Lockhart (1858-1937), Shiona Airlie presents a portrait of an imperial official who helped to shape the future of Hong Kong by protecting its uniquely Chinese identity.
- When the colony was extended in 1898, Sir Lockhart was given the important task of delineating the boundaries of the New Territories and organising its administration.
– Providing valuable insight into Sir Lockhart’s character, career and friends, this is a book to be enjoyed by all readers interested in Hong Kong’s history.
Shiona Airlie has spent the last thirty years researching the British in Hong Kong and Weihaiwei and is also the biographer of Sir Reginald Johnston.
Respect to Arrive, “Amtrak’s onboard magazine for Northeast business and leisure travelers”, for alerting me to this great website and company – Out of Print Clothing. Quite simply the company puts onto t-shirts the art and typography of great book covers. Then, for each shirt they sell, one book is donated to a community in need through their partner Books For Africa. Here’s Huxley’s Brave New World followed in a traditional juxtaposition a la Eng Lit A Level question by Orwell’s 1984:
OK – Compare and Contrast. There’s a whole bunch of other book covers on T-shirts here.
Just a note for anyone looking to spend some time in either Shanghai or some rural retreat sort of thing apparently near Bangalore writing…and who wouldn’t!
The M Literary Residency Program has been established to disseminate a broader knowledge of contemporary life and writing in India and China today and to foster deeper intellectual, cultural and artistic links across individuals and communities. Applicants are invited to apply for three month residencies in India or China.
Applications for the 2011 Residency are open until October 31st 2010.
Last year Tash Aw was selected for the China Residency, based in Shanghai, while Colie Hoffman won the India Residency, in Pondicherry.
So apply now if you’re into it. Details and forms etc here; any questions email here
I’ve only been there once or twice but Stuttgart Railway Station does seem worth saving to me and nice to see some people getting out on the streets to save it too. A mix of preservationists, historians, ecologists and environmentalists have been battling against “Stuttgart 21” — a multi-billion-dollar plan to reconstruct the city’s train station. As you may have read the other weekend an otherwise peaceful rally against the destruction of the historic old Stuttgart Station building turned nasty and the German cops brought out the water cannons- 100 protesters, including some young children, were injured. As elections are upcoming in Baden-Württemberg, of which Stuttgart is the capital, Angela Merkel and her CDU may find themselves out on their ear for backing “Stuttgart 21”.
Under the “Stuttgart 21” plan the historic railway station in Stuttgart will be partly destroyed. Advocates say this is in keeping with modern times and high speed rail while protesters have a range of objections including the cost in these recessionary times (US$5.7 billion), the loss of 300 trees (some 200 years old)and the loss of the station building when other cities have managed to integrate and revive old stations (not least London’s now glorious again St Pancras which is both marvellous, awe inspiring and functions as a domestic railway, Eurostar station and transport hub to the tube etc rather well while also having all the usual revenue earning hotel, restaurants, pubs and shops).
Good luck to the protesters – here’s an image of Stuttgart Railway Station that hopefully prove it is worth saving:
In past months I’ve given quite a lot of plugs to Penguin Classics – quite right as they produce excellent books but to avoid charges of favouritism or accusations of being unfair in ignoring others reissuing classics I’ll note a recent republication from Vintage Classics.
Nancy Mitford’s Wigs on the Green is in many ways an example of her extremely witty observational novels of manners of the English upper classes between the wars. As a Mitford sister how could she not know the ins and outs of this crowd intimately! But Wigs on the Green was slightly different – it deals in part with the rise of Hitler and an absurd movement of British fascists and their leader General Jack. That Nancy’s sister Unity was obsessed with Hitler and another of her sister’s Diana married to Oswald Mosley obviously gives the book a bit of a kick. To avoid family fights the book was rarely reissued. It’s great to see it back as a satire on Mosley and his cronies as well as a great comic novel.
And a truly beautiful picture of Nancy Mitford on the cover too…though the original cover is also a work of art – see below both covers and the official blurb as ever:
Nancy Mitford’s most controversial novel, unavailable for decades, is a hilarious satirical send-up of the political enthusiasms of her notorious sisters, Unity and Diana.
Written in 1934, early in Hitler’s rise, Wigs on the Green lightheartedly skewers the devoted followers of British fascism. The sheltered and unworldy Eugenia Malmain is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of General Jack and his Union Jackshirts. World-weary Noel Foster and his scheming friend Jasper Aspect are in search of wealthy heiresses to marry; Lady Marjorie, disguised as a commoner, is on the run from the Duke she has just jilted at the altar; and her friend Poppy is considering whether to divorce her rich husband. When these characters converge with the colorful locals at a grandly misconceived costume pageant that turns into a brawl between Pacifists and Jackshirts, madcap farce ensues. Long suppressed by the author out of sensitivity to family feelings, Wigs on the Green can now be enjoyed by fans of Mitford’s superbly comic novels.
In 1940 Austrian Jewish refugees sought to stage an opera written by two refugees in Shanghai, Mark Siegelberg and Hans Schubert, and specifically about China called Die Masken Fallen (The Mask Falls). It dealt with local issues and they got local refugee stars – such as the formerly well known Vienna born silent movie actress and cabaret star living in Shanghai Lily Flohr (who I’ve written about before – here and here). There was a story line about mixed marriages in China and direct criticism of National Socialism and the Nazis.
The German Consulate in Shanghai, under the control of the Nazis, took a major dislike to the play. Two early performances were held in the secure environment of the British Press Attache’s Hall on the Bund. However, further performances were reportedly stopped after the German Consulate told the organisers, and Paul Komor of the Jewish emigre committee, that if performances continued reprisals would be taken against the Jewish community left in Nazi controlled Europe. Additionally the Shanghai Nazis threatened to take action against Jewish refugees in Shanghai too. Click here (Gestapo threat stops jewish play – CWR Nov 28 1940) to see a scan of the article reporting this provocation and attack on the Jewish refugees in Shanghai by the Germans from the China Weekly Review (an excellent publication long edited by the great JB Powell) in November 1940.
Apologies for missing the Double Ten anniversary, the collapse of the Qing in 1911 and the creation of the Chinese Republic. Of course the PRC now only celebrates its coup but elsewhere, most obviously in Taiwan, the Double Ten remains a major celebration – including in San Francisco Chinatown (where I happen to be enjoying a few days of Californian life in this most relaxed and pleasant of US cities). Happy also to see that the PRC’s soft power bulldozing isn’t working so well in San Fran and Dr Sun still remains dominant.
