My biography of the great American advertising man in Shanghai, Carl Crow, is available in Chinese!! Pubished by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press (SASSP) and a massive thanks to my translator – Nie Zuguo 聂祖国. And I’ve got a few copies to give away…. just send me your address (paul@chinarhyming.com) – sorry, but can’t mail them to the PRC or USA (they just disappear at the border in the first and the duties/tariffs now make it unaffordable to the second).
And also a few copies of the French edition of Midnight in Peking (Minuit a Pekin) for anyone in France, Belgium, or indeed anywhere but the PRC or USA who’d like one?- Sorry, but, as above, they rarely ever arrive in China and Trump’s duties/tariffs make it unaffordable to the States now. Just email me your address to paul@chinarhyming
I had a great conversation in the Casa Garden with Adam Sisman, John le Carre’s biographer, about the great man, writing biographies of people still alive (as le Carre was at the time Adam interviewed him), the secrets people try to keep and a deep dive on his Asian magnum opus The Honourable Schoolboy (1977). Click here to watch.
The 2nd Battalion, 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot in Hong Kong (others members of the regiment were stationed in Yokohama at the time). Absent from this photo is Private James Dickinson who died on April 16 1865 and was buried in Hong Kong (one of at least two regiment members that died in Hong Kong in 1865). The mount date given is 1864 but on the border of the photo ink description it says 1865 (which concurs with the missing men)…
A video interview with me up on Youtube, filmed in London recently by photo-journalist and old Shanghailander Nicky Almasy. In it we discuss research, writing, how my books are received in the West and in China, Wallis Simpson, Carl Crow, filming Midnight in Peking and what I’m up to next…. click here to watch…
An amazing new book of photographs, Our Country, detailing China’s resistance to Japan from my Beijing friend, historian and research collaborator Zou Dehuai (邹德怀). It’s published by our mutual Chinese publishers Social Sciences Academic Press (SSAP Beijing). The photos (from his extensive archives) are amazingly detailed and many focus on the behind the lines struggle in the communist base areas…..
Literary festival bucket list entry ticked – Wonderful to listen to Amitav Ghosh discuss the Opium Trade Implications at the Heart of Historic Macau (and his Canton/Macao/Calcutta Ibis trilogy) with Joshua Ehrlich at the Macao International Literary Festival in the old East India Company HQ, Casa Garden. And wonderful that you can watch it too!!
Thanks to Tina and Patrick, the loabans of Historic Shanghai, for inviting me to Garden Books on Changle Lu last week to speak on my books and writing about Old China. My Shanghai visit was a bit last minute but Historic Shanghai pulled together a great event at short notice. Thanks to everyone who came out, asked smart questions and brought along books for signing.
Another interesting series of now boarded up streets is around Yunnan Lu South and Ninghai Lu East. These, and adjacent streets that run at the back of the Great World (Da Shijie), are interesting as they were mostly created around 1915 when the old Yanjing Creek and its surrounding slums were finally (after 60 years of complaints!) cleared and covered. Ninghai Lu west of Xizang Lu was cleared in the early 2000s of shikumen/lilong and a park created running alongside the Gaojia (built earlier with a lot of protest about clearances at the time).
Anyway many will remember that Yunnan Lu and the crossroads with Ninghai Lu was a vibrant all-day/night cluster of Uyghur restaurants and foodstalls until a few years ago. Before WW2 it was recorded as an exciting area where many of the performers and “ladies of the night” who plied their trades at the Great World lived. Now the area’s future is anyone’s guess…..
