Donald Mennie’s The Grandeur of the Gorges, 50 Photographic Studies, with Descriptive Notes, of the Yangtze. Including Twelve Hand Coloured Prints, printed A S Watson & Company (The Shanghai Pharmacy, Ltd.) and distributed by Kelly & Walsh Shanghai, 1926. Limited Edition no 880/1000.

You don’t have to wait for me to turn up in Beijing to do the Midnight in Peking Walk (though it’s fun to do it that way) - it’s available on VoiceMap too if you just fancy heading out into the hutongs - voicemap.me/tour/beijing...

Water bearer, China, c.1910

Two untitled studies of Chinese subjects by British artist Hilda May Gordon (1874-1972). Painted during her visit to China on a multi-stop 6 year tour of Asia between 1922-1928….

View across Kowloon City, Hong Kong, early 1900s

The Peak Tram, Hong Kong, c.1901-1910….

Victoria City from the Peak, c.1901-1910

Christian bookshop in north China run by Arthur H Smith, a missionary with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who spent 54 years in China, c.1904

A curious member of the Modernist circles of Belsize Park was Stella Gibbons, who lived at 33 Upper Park Rd. Gibbons wrote 22 novels inc Cold Comfort Farm, 1932. Find out about Gibbons’ fellow artists in my VoiceMap tour Historical Hampstead’s “Gentle Nest of Artists” - voicemap.me/tour/london/...

Interior of British Legation compound, c.late 1890s, by Isabella Bird

Signed Midnight in Peking Chinese editions off to the shops….

curvy. #streetphotography #photography #architecture #leica

A few copies of the French edition of Midnight in Peking to giveaway (but not the PRC or USA due to non-delivery & Trump’s duties/tariffs make it unaffordable now). Just email me your address to [email protected] - premier arrivé, premier servi!!

Arthur Smith, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, selling Bibles in northern China, c.early 1900s. His stand says Dao Tian Yang Xuan (道天扬宣) - Preaching the Heavenly Way (or thereabouts - a common missionary slogan in Chinese and a corruption of a Daoist injunction apparently)

Clube Militar de Macao, c.early 1900s, originally constructed in 1870.

Book Giveaway - My bio of legendary Shanghai adman Carl Crow, is available in Chinese!! Pubished by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press. I’ve got a few copies to give away…. just DM me your address - sorry, but can’t mail them to PRC or USA but anywhere else is good. First come; first served….

Stairs to a locked door, back behind the Bund, Shanghai

Thanks to Bookazine Hong Kong for promoting my work. Super appreciated….

@chinarhyming.bsky.social, this might amuse you. I based a lot of it on your book City of Devils.

March 31 2026 - ChinaRhyming - Spies, Gamblers, Artists, Old China's Mad Men & Murder A chance to watch some events from the Macao Literary Festival online, book giveaways, remembering Chiang Yee, and plenty of ChinaRhyming posts from March open.substack.com/pub/paulfren...

Rooftop views, downtown Shanghai….

This fortnight CrimeReads Crime and the City heads to Medellin… crimereads.com/crime-and-th...

A traditional shikumen stone gateway - 里康餘: Li Kang Yu; 29弄: Lane 29 on Shouning Lu (Rue Buissonnet) just east of Xizang Nan Lu (Boulevard de Montigny). Constructed 1935. Cleared and boarded up. Such “mothballed” shikumen proliferate across Shanghai awaiting their fate…

The Floating Population in China (1970) by GRG Worcester (the famous “Junkman” writer on all things junks). Published in Hong Kong by Vetch & Lee by French-Peking publishing legend Henri Vetch after he left China in the 1950s, ran Hong Kong University Press and then started the new venture….

Lai Kei Sorvetes ice cream is an institution in Macao, established in 1933. Their outlet on Avenida de Conselheiro de Almeida is a time travel capsule. Their signature ice cream sandwich is packaged in a cardboard box still with the original 1933 design.

Shanghai Media Group documentary maker David Wang last interviewed me 15 years ago. Last week we talked again for his forthcoming doc "Edgar Snow: Byline Between Worlds”. I hope he doesn’t leave it another 15 years!!

This weekend why not explore the art-deco of Kadoorie Hill? Amazing villas, cobbled mews, turreted homes a stone’s throw from Mongkok East yet remain little known to many. Download my VoiceMap GPS walking tour Kowloon Tong: Art-Deco and Hidden Heritage in Hong Kong here - voicemap.me/tour/hong-ko...

Thanks to Bookazine Hong Kong for stocking and supporting my Destination….. series of collected articles on Shanghai, Peking and Macao (Blacksmith Books). Massively appreciated

Shanghai can still, just about, offer up its treasures occasionally…

Marylebone’s Mews’ are so Swinging ‘60s inc John Steed (Patrick Mcnee) of The Avengers whose fictional home was #17 Duchess Mews. The location saw a lot of Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) too. it’s a location on my VoiceMap Tour Marylebone by Mews - download it this weekend - voicemap.me/tour/london/...

Qing princesses checking their phones….

The Treasure Lake Seafood Restaurant, Jubilee Street, Central Hong Kong…

If you fancy some yellow bakery Hong Kong’s got you sorted…..

Charmingly Poon’s, the beautiful and award-winning new restaurant in London’s Somerset House, has a small specialist China library diners can peruse. Wonderful to be included…..

You what??

Corner buildings of Hong Kong (this one in Sai Ying Pun)

Greg Girard is everywhere in Hong Kong but specifically at the WKM Gallery….. “HKG-TYO 1974-2023” pairs together, for the first time, Girard’s photographs of Hong Kong and Tokyo from the 70s to the present day.” www.wkm.gallery

Good Morning Mui Wo - beautiful day in South Lantau

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). The photos (from his archives) are amazingly detailed and many focus on the behind the lines struggle in the communist base areas…..

A brief drop in to Mui Wo, Lantau Island, Hong Kong….

Thanks to every1 who came on my Midnight in Peking walks last week. Thanks to Shirley & WildChina team for arranging. I’m always amazed at how fast the tour still sells out! BTW: when I’m not in Beijing the tour still runs last Sunday of every month with WildChina’s excellent guides.

A stroll in Shanghai’s former French Concession…

Two postage stamps issued by Portuguese Macao in 1976, showcasing local temple architecture. The 10 Patacas Stamp depicts the Pou Chai Sim Un temple (Kun Iam Temple). The 20 Patacas Stamp Features the Tin Hau Miu temple (Temple of the Goddess of the Sea)…

1938 - 2026 - Bubbling Well Road (Nanjing West Road), the Park Hotel, Pacific Hotel (with spire) etc taken from a rooftop on what is now Xizang Lu across the racecourse (now People’s Park)….

The Original London Chinatown Revealed- Myths and Realities Exhibition at St.Anne’s Limehouse, March 20 to July 2026 This exhibition is about the Chinatown that grew up right next to this church, flourished 1900 -1955 and yet almost disappeared from sight in the 1960s.

A quick shout to the Shanghailanders that i’ll be doing a rapidly arranged Pop-Up” event in Shanghai this Sunday courtesy of the good folk at Historic Shanghai. 7pm, Garden Books, Changle Lu - use the QR code or [email protected]

In Shanghai for a couple of days - and here some old snaps of the Bund from 1938

1912-1913 booklet - Peking Association for the Relief of Destitute Native Women (14th annual report)

Western women photographed on a visit to see the Empress Dowager Cixi in the Forbidden. City, 1904