London Chinatown, CNY 1979

London Chinatown, CNY 1976….

Time for the western press to dust off a reliable old stalwart that gets resurrected every time the red lanterns and red underpants get brought out….right up there with “Santa’s Workshop is in Shenzhen” and “Chongqing: The Biggest City You’ve Never Heard Off”….

London Chinatown, CNY 1974….

Experience Chinese New Year 1894 at the newly-restored Man Mo Temple on Hong Kong’s Hollywood Road with Charles Halcombe of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service (pictured here with his wife Liang Ah Ghan, a merchant’s daughter of Yantai)…. chinarhyming.com/2026/02/17/a...

This CNY an excerpt from Charles Halcombe’s The Mystic Flowery Land (1896) & a detailed description of HK's Man-Mo Temple at CNY 1894.…. open.substack.com/pub/paulfren...

BTW: if you’re interested you can now listen to my BBC Radio 3 “Between the Ears” documentary “Return to the City of Darkness: Kowloon Walled City” on BBC.com and on the BBCSounds app (www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...)

Child’s ceremonial suit of armour, from the Samurai exhibition, British Museum

This Sunday at 7.15pm on BBC Radio 3 my “Between the Ears” documentary “Return to the City of Darkness: Kowloon Walled City”. Afterwards it’ll be on BBC.com and the BBC Sounds app to download A Storyscape production for BBCR3 Presenter: Paul French Producer: Mark Burman

The 1910 Nanyang Industrial Exposition during the end of the Qing Dynasty. It opened on 5 June 1910 and lasted 177 days. So my thanks to John de Lucy for these photos, taken by his grandfather I believe, who attended the Nanyang Industrial Exposition in 1910…

Hong Kong two cent stamp with King Edward VII and an Amoy (Xiamen) postage frank, May 1907….

The P&O Chusan dockside Kowloon, Hong Kong, 1955

Some messy and murky going’s on in Jiangsu over nearly 70 years. A somewhat confusing and multi-twisting art heist tale…. www.independent.co.uk/asia/east-as...

Opium poppy field, China, location unknown, c.1905

The Palace of Compassion and Tranquility (Cininggong), in the west of the Forbidden City’s central axis, built in 1536 as a home for Empress Dowagers. Though undated this photograph was taken sometime between Puyi’s expulsion in 1924 and the more recent manicuring of the Forbidden City…

Theatre programmes from performances held in the Forbidden City, early twentieth century….

London Chinatown appears ready for CNY….

This suit of armour (1696) & helmet (1519) is the centrepiece of the British Museum’s Samurai exhibition. It's a new acquisition. This suit is especially interesting as it has an iron cuirass (breastplate) based on that of Portuguese soldiers showing cross-fertilisation in Japan at the time.

Heads up Beijing - a Midnight in Peking walk, talk and drinks coming your way late March with me and courtesy of WildChina….

Love that the newsreaders in Macao have a whole dapper 1970s vibe going on…

The Silent Traveller in Lakeland was published by Country Life in 1937 as the first of the “Silent Traveller” books by Chiang Yee who of course famously lived in Belsize Park, London and Oxford between the 1930s and 1950s….

My BBCR3 doc on Kowloon Walled City, my latest piece in Mekong Review on HK historical fiction, a Chinese Labour Corps conference, crime in Osaka, Macao's revamped Hotel Central & more ahead in March... open.substack.com/pub/paulfren...

The Mekong Review Feb-April 2026 edition is now available by subscription (lnkd.in/eEkiEi7w) and includes a piece by me reviewing Emma Pei Yin’s When Sleeping Women Wake (Hachette), with some musings on the state of Asian-centred historical fiction and the pressures on debuts novelists these days..

The Royal Navy’s H31 with Chinese sail boats off Hong Kong painted by Thomas G Purvis (1861-1933). Purvis was a sea captain who turned to painting after he abandoned his family in Bristol and worked on various steamships, at least until 1925, mostly in Far East Ports including Hong Kong.

Our February–April 2026 issue is now available online! Check it out... or better yet, subscribe and never miss an issue: mekongreview.com/sub...

Arthur H Smith, American Christian missionary in northern China dons Chinese garb and a fake queue to preach to a “heathen” crowd!! C.1908

In case you’re around and listening to RTHK3 at about 1.25pm Tuesday i’ll be on The Brew with Phil Whelan talking about my picks for the 2026 Hong Kong International Literary Festival….

Junks in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, 1936

This week CrimeReads Crime and the City heads to the Vegas before there was a Vegas, “The Biggest Little City in the World” - Reno - it's the Mob, quickie divorces, burning through the alimony and put it all in a crime novel!! crimereads.com/crime-and-th...

Hirundo was a cargo & passenger steamer plying between Shantou & SE Asia. In 1930 it was raided by pirates but unusually the pirates commanded the chef to prepare them a banquet & afterwards complimented him on its excellence. A rather classy touch I have to say….

A mule litter fording a stream near Weihaiwei (Weihai), c.1908. This photograph was probably taken by Reginald Johnston, then assistant commissioner of Weihaiwei.

Bloomsbury Asian Arguments namecheck

Passing on language cards to a younger generation and finding explanations are needed!!!

Video wall installation at the Samurai exhibition, British Museum….

British warships at Weihaiwei (Weihai) harbour, photographed from Liugong Island on the northeastern edge of Shandong Peninsula at the mouth of Weihai Bay. C.1908. Photographed by the Ah Fong Studio of Weihai.

Junks at Harbour (undated), by Tong Wong (1948-2012), born in Guangdong, lived in Hong Kong before moving to the US in 1966.

Weekend reading recommendations required? 3 from my CrimeReads Crime and the City this week on Osaka - crimereads.com/crime-and-th...

if any Spanish language readers would like a copy of my book "Medianoche en Pekín" let me know and i’ll post one out to you as I have a few to give away….

The 15th Macao Literary Festival, 5-15 March 2026…. And yes, that’s Camilo Pessanha, the Portuguese symbolist poet who lived, worked and wrote in Macao for much of his life. 2026 is the centenary of his death and he remains buried at Macao’s São Miguel Arcanjo Cemetery.

Hisashi Tenmyouya Football poster for 2006 World Cup. “Samurai” exhibition, British Museum

Should you happen to be in Hastings, East Sussex, Orchard Road at the Seadog Pub on Station Road has a great menu and some excellent bao….

The new Mekong Review is now available! including a piece by me reviewing Emma Pei Yin’s terrific wartime HK novel When Sleeping Women Wake, the rise of Asian-centred historical fiction, & the challenges of being a debut novelist in the 2020s. You can order a copy: ko-fi.com/mekongreview...

A rare "disaster postcard" of the PS Hankow, a paddle steamer that was gutted by fire in 1906 in HK with the loss of 130 Chinese lives. This postcard was posted from HK in 1907 where it must have been purchased... It shows a large crowd watching the ship burn, along with people inside it!!

Chinese farmer hoeing, location unknown, c.1910

The new British Museum show covers Samurai in popular culture - most recently of course the multi-award winning reboot of James Clavell’s Shogun and Netflix’s Last Samurai Standing….

the Hong Mong Antiquities Authority has added two structures in the Western District on Hong Kong Island to its collection of preserved and protected monuments: the Main Building of Old Tsan Yuk Maternity Hospital in Sai Ying Pun and Kwong Fook Tsz in Sheung Wan. www.timeout.com/hong-kong/ne...

Tickets for all events for HKIlF 2026 on sale now including Amitav Ghosh, Hu Anyan, Hernan Diaz, Emma Pei Yin, Lawrence Osborne, Bonnie Tsui& man more. I’ll be talking with John le Carre’s biographer Adam Sisman on Fri, Mar 6 at the Fringe Club. www.eventbrite.com/cc/hong-kong...

Hong Kong waterfront, a 1909 postcard so the picture is obviously somewhat earlier….

The BM's exhibition Samurai is open. One of the most fascinating is of Christian samurai, Hasekura Tsunenaga. In 1613 he led a mission to Madrid and Rome to see Pope Paul V. They arrived in 1615 and he had his portrait painted in silk clothes by the Urbino artist Archita Ricci.

Retelling Wallis Simpson’s adventures in 1920s China with EA Festival’s Joanne Ooi at China Tang at The Dorchester (who are hosting a literary supper club series in partnership with EA Festivals to celebrate their twentieth anniversary)….