Jon Howlett

Mid-Autumn, Tiger Hill, Late Ming "Everyone was perfectly silent, even the mosquitoes."

For the Mid-Autumn Festival, I translated the 17th century failson, epicure, and memoirist Zhang Dai's account of the annual Mid-Autumn singing competition on Tiger Hill in Suzhou. www.burninghou.se/p/mid-autumn...

Hong Kong Colonial Government Migrated Archives at Hanslope Park Following the revelation in 2011 that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office was sitting on the migrated archives of dozens of colonial governments, almost 20,000 files were transferred from s...

Brilliant new research from York's @mrmhurst.bsky.social on the 88,000 Hong Kong colonial government records that remain at Hanslope Park, contributing new insights on how outgoing colonial officials handled records towards at end of the British Empire. #history

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Matthew Hurst presenting a keynote speech in front of a powerpoint presentation reading Hong Kong Colonial Government Migrated Archives at Hanslope Park

Brilliant to see York PhD student @mrmhurst.bsky.social win the @chinesestudies.bsky.social Early Career Researcher Prize last week for his work on the Hong Kong colonial government migrated archives at Hanslope Park - huge congrats Matthew!

Great to be welcomed so warmly in Whitehall at the Treasury today putting Uk-China relations in historical perspective (not my usual Tuesday!)

You can find out more about YARN here and join if you are affiliated with York:

www.york.ac.uk/yarn/

Monday's third annual York Asia Research Network PhD Conference was brilliant - we had 16 speakers from across ten different departments and centres. Their exciting work took us from conserving ponds in northern India to Shakespeare in China and melon seeds in medieval Merv. Thanks everyone!

The British Association for Chinese Studies has announced the call for its 2025 Early Career Researcher Prize

www.facebook.com/bacsuk.org.u...

Two first pages from a 1981 Chinese version of Russ Manning's Star Wars comic strip from 1979.

In 1981, the Chinese science-fiction monthly 奥秘 (Aomi) featured Russ Manning’s first run of Star Wars comic strips. Collected and re-arranged to fit a fullpage format, the comics remained virtually identical to their American original—if not for one key difference. Let’s look at one exemplary strip.

Join us at the University of York on 2 April for a research seminar by @viviankonghk.bsky.social with the intriguing title 'In and Out of Marginality: An Anglo-Chinese 'Brothel Keeper' in Cornwall, Hong Kong, and London, 1889-1942'.
www.york.ac.uk/history/abou...
#York #history #chinesehistory

#chinesehistory

#China #Shanghai #Music #Records #History #YaoLi

Thanks for reading. If you would like to know more, there is a great webpage on this story with lyrics and images here: 78rpmshellacroundabout.com/rose-rose-i-...

74 years later, it is tempting to see the song’s sudden popularity as evidence of the world’s attention turning eastward in the early 1950s, albeit the Western gaze was still informed by colonial-era Orientalist ideas about China and SE Asia, as evidenced by Shanghai Rose's transformations. (7/8)

The song’s sudden popularity came only two years after the Communist takeover of China in 1949. By that time Yao Li had fled into exile in Hong Kong, but Chen Gexin (pictured) remained in mainland China. He was tragically persecuted for his bourgeois background and died in a labour camp. (6/8)

YouTube video by Four Seasons Oldies Petula Clark - May Kway ( Rose Rose I Love You ) (1951)

Alternate English lyrics in Petula Clark’s May 1951 version restored Rose to China, albeit the ‘fairest flower of China’ was now a resident of ‘Old Peking’:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mvg... (5/8)

YouTube video by The78Prof 1951 HITS ARCHIVE: Rose Rose I Love You - Frankie Laine

Rival English-language covers were soon recorded. The most successful was Frankie Laine's version, with lyrics by Wilfrid Thomas. Their ‘Rose’ became a ‘Flower of Malaya’, an ‘Eastern Rose’ with ‘almond eyes’, ‘fragrant and slender ‘neath tropical skies’ :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV4a... (4/8)

YouTube video by Alan Kayangan 玫瑰玫瑰我愛你:1941年-姚莉唱（歌詞）好歌聽出好心情

A copy of the record had been brought back from Asia by BBC broadcaster Wilfrid Thomas and played on his show Record Rendezvous, prompting listeners to request replays. You can hear Yao's version of the song here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP0d... (3/8)

The song had been recorded by Yao Li, ‘the Silver Voice’ of Shanghai, in 1940. It had been composed by Chen Gexin (陳歌辛), a prolific ‘golden age’ songwriter. The titular Rose was ‘dainty’ and ‘fragrant’, but strong of heart and possessing of sharp thorns. (2/8)

74 years ago, in March 1951, ‘Rose, Rose I Love You’ (玫瑰玫瑰我愛你), sung by Yao Lee (姚莉, pictured) became the first Chinese record to become a hit in Britain and America. (1/8)

Great to be back at @uobrishistory.bsky.social yesterday to talk to the wonderful Asian History Seminar Group about decolonisation, refugees, Hong Kong and even Tom Hanks at one point... Thanks @bickers.bsky.social, @viviankonghk.bsky.social and @sulinlewis.bsky.social

首獎 蘇宜琳 〈蛇彩繽紛

優選 黃昱慈〈蛇麼都順〉

The National #Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) holds an annual open call for #zodiac prints. Here are this year's winning #snake art 🐍

首獎 蘇宜琳 〈蛇彩繽紛〉: Colorful
優選 黃昱慈〈蛇麼都順〉: May Things Go (Slither) Your Way

* homophonous play on words for 蛇: 色 and 什

Opportunity at the University of Glasgow, historians of China particularly encouraged to apply:
www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/lecturer-in-asian-history-c-1500-2000-focussing-on-either-east-asian-history-slash-history-of-china-or-history-of-the-indian-ocean-world-r-and-t-track

Voicing Gender in China Fourth Conference of the China Academic Network on Gender Dates: 17-18 June 2025 Location: Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris (France) Deadline for abstracts (300 words): 1 February 2025 Send to: voicinggenderinchina@gmail.com We are pleased to announce that the Fourth Conference of the China Academic Network on Gender will be hosted by the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle on 17-18 June 2025. Titled 'Voicing Gender in China, the conference seeks to explore the multiple sites of intersection between voice and gender in Chinese society, past and present. Within Chinese studies, fruitful articulations between voice and gender studies have drawn from studies of women's political activism in history and sociology, exploring the ways in which activists and organisers have articulated new political identities in rallying cries and everyday protest. Literary scholars have looked at the shaping of gendered subjectivities through self-narratives and autobiographies, paying close attention to dialogue, orality and the mechanisms of silencing within literary establishments. In recent years, an explosion of sensory histories have explored how gender is enacted and defined through music, opera, dance and song. In parallel, sound studies scholars have brought to life the gendered soundscapes of modern and contemporary China in considering, for instance, the production of socialist state-sponsored music as well as the aural experiences of everyday life. Drawing from these multivocal approaches, this conference seeks to explore ways of rewriting into academic scholarship previously silenced minority voices, paying attention to the affective and political resonances of voicing out gender issues in different spaces, academic and public-facing. Interdisciplinary at heart, the conference aims to bring together scholars (including doctoral, postdoctoral, early, mid and advanced career researchers) from the humanities and social sciences working on gender and China. W…

as discussants in each panel session. Outstanding papers will be considered for publication in an edited volume. Participating scholars The opening keynote speaker, Prof. Howard Chiang (University of California, Santa Barbara), is a historian of queer Asian Pacific history, the author of several books, including After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China (Columbia UP, 2018) and Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific (2021). Prof. Rachel Harris (SOAS), who is an ethnomusicologist and has worked extensively on the soundscapes of Uyghur islam in China, will also present her latest research in the closing keynote. Dr Jennifer Bond (University College London), Dr. Chang Liu (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen), Dr Coraline Jortay (CNRS UMR 7172 Thalim Sorbonne Nouvelle/ENS), Dr. Beatrice Zani (CNRS, LISE UMR 3302) will also participate as panel discussants. Submission Please send a 300 word abstract to voicinggenderinchina@gmail.com, including your full name, institutional affiliation, email address, and a short bio before 1 February 2025. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by mid-February 2025, and successful applicants will need to submit full papers two weeks prior to the conference (1 June 2025). We are currently in the process of exploring options for providing funded on-site childcare for conference participants. If you would be interested in this option, please indicate the age, languages spoken, and specific needs (if applicable) of any children travelling with you in your submission email. For further information, please contact the workshop committee at the above email address. Calendar - Deadline for abstract: 1 February 2025 - Notification of acceptance: mid-February 2025 - Deadline for full submission: 1 June 2025 Organisers China Academic Network on Gender & Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Organising committee: Jennifer Bond (UCL), Chang Liu (CUHK Shenzhen), Coraline Jortay (CNRS) Scientific committee: Jennifer …

After 3 years and multiple job/country changes for us all, THRILLED to announce that the conference of the China Academic Network on Gender is back for a 4th edition! ✨

Join us on 17-18 June in lovely Paris with fab keynote speakers (Howard Chiang and Rachel Harris 💫 ) for "Voicing Gender in China"

A great read to shake off the Xmas-New Year torpor:

The Sino-Soviet Alliance for Friendship and Mutual Assistance promotes enduring world peace The framed picture of a dove is the 1949 lithograph by Pablo Picasso, used to illustrate the poster of the 1949 Paris Peace Congress (Congrès mondial des Partisans de la paix) and one of the most used...

So far from being politically dangerous nostalgia for the Christian/Westernised Christmases of Shanghai's 'semi-colonial' past, Li's poster was actually a homage to the traditions of Communist China's 'big brother' the Soviet Union.

chineseposters.net/posters/pc-1...

Don't Call It A Christmas Tree: How Russia's 'Yolka' Survived The Revolution When the Soviet Union rejected religion, it ditched Christmas, too — but kept the tree. Nowadays, many Russian Jews continue the yolka (New Year tree) tradition, though they've taken it to America.

Yolka often had a red star on top. Here is one from 1966 (sourced from here www.npr.org/2015/12/19/4...)

The tree was actually a 'yolka' - a Russian New Year tree. Christmas was banned as a religious holiday in 1929, but in 1935 Russians were encouraged to hold secular celebrations of the New Year, including putting up trees and welcoming Ded Moroz, or 'Father Frost'.

The poster, by Li Tianxin, is from 1954, five years after the Communist revolution. After taking power, the Chinese Communist Party denounced religious belief as 'superstition'. Beyond religion, Christmas represented Western cosmopolitanism and the evils of capitalism. So what was going on?

Celebrate the new year From poster series "Children's pictures - Joyous holidays".

A Christmas thread featuring Shanghai, Communists, Christmas trees, and Ded Moroz:
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I was surprised to see this heavily decorated Christmas tree in this collection of New Year posters from 1950s socialist Shanghai: chineseposters.net/posters/d85-...

A brush-written Chinese character composed of 㐅 and 也, a gender-neutral way of writing tā.

A brush-written Chinese character composed of 男 and 也, a way of writing tā with male reference.

Here's the unlikely century-long story of how a non-gendered pronoun became gendered, and then got itself re-de-gendered.

This one's got everything! Poetry! Grammar! Love songs! Queer communities! Unicode! and ... Y.R. Chao!

What more could you want?

#langsky 🀄️📚
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