Calçada da Igreja de S. Lázaro, Macao

The Japan Chronicle, January 1938

Banco Nacional Ultramarino building, corner of Avenida de Almeira Ribeiro and Praia Grande, Macao, 1926

Hong Kong AA Car Badge Circa 1930-40

ChinaRhyming - January 1 2026 - Happy New Year - And so....2026 A range of stuff to kick off the new year - a Wallis dinner at the "Dorch", the HKFCC book club, some fun in 1960s Manila, memories of Mao's China, a dinner with Amy Poon & HK's Lit Fests 2026... open.substack.com/pub/paulfren...

From the roof of the Hotel Central, Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, Macao

The first volume of Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro’s “O que foi, não volta a ser…” (“What Once Was, Will Never Be Again…”) came out in 2022. Now there is a second juxtaposing photographs of Macao’s past & present. There is also an exhibition at the Rui Cunha Gallery until Jan 10 ruicunha.org/frc/?p=44769

Hospital Militar Conde de São Januário, aka the “Hilltop Hospital”, Macao, c.1800s

Litho cut designed by Cathay Ltd design studio for the Hong Kong Tourism Association, 1960s…

Hongkew (Hongkou) Police Station

William Heine, official artist to Perry’s mission to Japan, Old China Street, by the Canton Factories, c.1850s

Time for a long listen in the dead zone between Christmas and New Year? here’s my BBC drama-doc The Defectors - inspired by the defection of North Korea's Deputy Ambassador to the UK, interwoven with accounts of people who made the journey from DPRK to the UK. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

A streetside ice-cream & soft drinks vendor, China, c.1925. According to National Geographic correspondent this is “What was often referred at the time in English speaking countries as a “Hokey Pokey Man” selling ice cream mostly to children & softdrinks/juices/concentrates to adults in the summer.”

The printing press of a Christian missionary organisation, northern China, c.1905, by Arthur H Smith

The publisher Jonathan Cape undertook a round-the-world trip in 1934. A major stop on the tour was China. In Shanghai he visited with Florence Ayscough (pronounced "Askew"). Cape had published her book A Chinese Mirror (1921).

A Mandarin in full dress, c.1905, by missionary Arthur H Smith

Kim by Rudyard Kipling, New York, Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1901, artist unknown

In case you feel like a short story - from a few years ago - Murder on the Shanghai Express – an original whodunit - Detective Chief Inspector John Creighton’s journey home for the holidays is derailed by a death, a dagger and a few drinks. Sit back and enjoy the ride…. amp.scmp.com/magazines/po...

A beautiful 1925 edition of La Cuisine Chinoise by Henri Lecourt, a French member of Tianjin’s interwar “foreign colony” and Directeur du Bureau de Poste de la Concession Française for the French Concession there.

In case you fancy a Christmassy crime story: a Christmas Eve murder mystery in old Shanghai’s French Concession. It’s Christmas Eve in Shanghai in 1930 and a mysterious guest has accepted an invitation to the Carmichaels’ annual drinks party. Soon a gunshot rings out…. amp.scmp.com/magazines/po...

Snowy Stream (雪溪圖), Attributed to Wang Wei, Tang Dynasty

Snow on the rooftops of Peking Road (Beijing Lu), Shanghai, 1931

Christmas Party at the British Legation, Peking, 1923. Father Christmas arrives at the party given by Lady Macleay, wife of the ambassador, Sir Ronald Macleay

The Drum and Bell Towers seen from Beihai Park in a snowy Beijing day c.1930s

Camel with sledge, northern China, 1910

Having to find one book of the year for the China Books Review ‘best of….’ list is a toughie - but I always feel inclined towards fiction and Emma Pei Yin’s characters and setting (occupied Hong King in WW2) stuck with me…

A Chinese scholar at work, c.1905, by missionary Arthur H Smith

Ploughing with a buffalo, China, c.1905, by missionary Arthur H Smith

One last post related to Greene’s The Quiet American (1955) - the Givral café (demolished 2009), Rue Catinant (Dong Khoi Street), close to Place Garnier & the Continental Hotel. The model for Greene’s “Milk Bar” where Phuong meets her friends everyday & Fowler watches from the Continental’s terrasse

Hey, the bookstores are still open by the way….& did you know you can gift an Audible title (if you can’t make it to the shops and you’ve missed the post) - help.audible.co.uk/s/article/gi...

Still on a reread and rewatch of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955). The Hôtel Continental (1880), Place Garnier (Lam Sơn Square), Saigon - Greene stayed in room 214; grizzled Thomas Fowler arrives everyday at 11:30am to people watch.

The Arc-en-ciel (Rainbow) nightclub & restaurant, Cholon (Chinatown), Saigon - a major nightclub in the late 1940s/1950s mentioned in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955). Advertising Chinese & French food as “taxis-girls de Hong Kong” (which may of may not have been the case in reality!)

Arminho, a Pekingese dog who was the closest companion in later life to the Portuguese Symbolist poet, teacher, lawyer and Sinophile Camilo Pessanha who lived in Macao from 1909 to his death in 1926…. Drawn by Pessanha’s biographers Christopher Chu & Pui Man Hoi…

Frank Dorn’s A Map and History of Peiping: Formerly Known as Peking, 1936, Peiyang Press Ltd., Peiping 1936, which includes Dorn’s famous map of Peking many of you may known from my book Midnight in Peking. The frontispiece below is complete with Dorn’s illustrations of Chinese, Manchu and Mongols.

19th Century Chinese School. HMS Satellite in Hong Kong Harbour. I thin k this is the Satellite built in 1855 as a wooden Pearl Class screw corvette eventually broken up in 1879. Between 1866 and 1870 she served on the China Station.

Christmas 1925 - Arthur Waley publishes his translation of The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki, considered the world’s 1st novel. Reviewing it for Vogue, Virginia Woolf praised him for helping her recognize that "the differences between Japanese & Anglo cultures did not make the Anglo superior".

No doubt 1937 was a terrible & tragic year for China - Peking & Tianjin occupied, Shanghai bombed, Nanjing massacred. Always strident (often for British interests in China but here more relevantly) HGW Woodhead’s Oriental Affairs concluded the year in defiant mood….

An ad in The New Statesman in 1925 with some recommended holiday reading - a century ago all you’d have wanted for Christmas was Maugham’s The Painted Veil - Hong Kong, China, infidelity, scandal and a lot of cholera for seven shillings and sixpence (about a fiver in todays money)…

A silver-mounted black lacquer 2-handled teatray with faux bamboo handles & plaque in 1937 to Mr JC Pullen on the occasion of his marriage, from the Asiatic Petroleum Co, Shanghai. I know very little about Mr Pullen except he lived at one time on Route Mayen (Huading Road) in the French Concession.

China Books Review has issued its best of 2025 list across a bunch of categories (NB: my own pick is in the novels section if you’re into Shanghai- and Hong Kong-set historical fiction) ….. chinabooksreview.com/2025/12/18/b...

There’s still just about time to secure some holiday reading matter for the China history fan in your life…. All good indie bookshops, Amazon, Bookazine, Barnes & Noble, Daunt Books, Waterstones, & Audible…

A photo album of “The Sino-Japanese Hostilities 1937 in Shanghai” sold by Ah Fong of Nanking Road, Shanghai. Designed to be bought primarily by Shanghailanders I assume. The photos came in this brilliantly produced special album with a complete list….

A camel by the Tartar Wall, Peking, c.1928

Happy to have been asked to blurb Joseph Yen’s memoir, Book of Lost Dreams (Earnshaw Books) of Mao’s China translated by Stephen Hallett and Wang LiliLili....

Louza Shanghai Municipal Police station, Kweichow and Tientsin Roads (Guizhou and Tianjin Roads).

James Billington Coughtrie (British 1837-1920), Hong Kong Ships Heading Out, dated 1909

2 new translations, The Running Flame & Soft Burial, help reframe Fang Fang as a writer of more than Wuhan Diary. I review both (Michael Berry translating) from Columbia Uni Press - sorry it’s paywalled but now is a great time to take out a sub! - (click to subscribe - mekongreview.com/subscribe/

A. H. Aiers, Shanghai Municipal Police, photo of police constables at Louza Ststion, Shanghai, early 1900s

Just to show how a little restoration can go a long way - Macao’s Centro Comercial Teatro Capitol in 2009 & as is now refurbished. The building was abandoned with only the ground floor operating but revamped in 2019 with the theatre refurbished & modernized to host plays and cinema screenings again.

Old Hong Kong road signs 1930s to 1960s - T-shaped cast iron - Chinese characters read from right to left. This one was still up in 2008 when I snapped it….