Excited to be heading to Vancouver next week for #AAS2026🛫
Come see our panel 'Beyond Immigration Controls: The Politics of (E)migration in Transnational East Asia' - 3.30pm in VCC room 112.
I'll be introducing my research on displaced stateless Europeans leaving Mao-era China in the 1950s-1980s.
Monday repost: historians of modern China - come and join us in beautiful York #skystorians
Three-year Lectureship in the History of Modern China - please share widely!
jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...
#China #Skystorians #History
Good news for the weekend! Four posts in History at York:
Lecturer (Modern Middle East after 1800)
Lecturer (Medieval History c.1100-1450)
Lecturer (Modern China)
Associate Lecturer (Modern British History and Public History)
Find out all about them here:
features.york.ac.uk/history-jobs/
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, you might like to check our the resources page on my website: jonhowlett.com #universityofyork
My personal favourite 'Nine Marshals' image is this one from 1992: That there are nine marshals and seven horses makes this feel like it was made by an AI in a hurry, but I love the clash between the wild energy of the horses and the composure of the marshals.
This 1983 series was part of a wider effort to consolidate the Chinese Communist Party's legitimacy after the Cultural Revolution, using figures like Ye Jianying (pictured) to tie the post-Mao reform project to earlier successes. Ye had ordered the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, ending the CR.
As the curator notes, ten generals were made Marshals of the PRC in 1955, but one of them, Lin Biao, was not to be mentioned alongside these heroes of the revolution due to his role in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when the others were purged - including former bandit He Long (pictured)
With the Year of the Horse approaching at a canter (sorry…), I was delighted to stumble on this excellent 1983 series of paintings of the Nine Marshals of the People's Republic of China at the brilliant Chineseposters.net. chineseposters.net/themes/nine-... #China #History #Chinesenewyear #horses
As the curator notes, ten generals were made Marshals of the PRC in 1955, but one of them, Lin Biao, was not to be mentioned alongside these heroes of the revolution due to his role in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when the others were purged - including former bandit He Long (pictured)
Two full PhD scholarships in Hong Kong history at the University of Bristol:
www.hkhistory.net/2025/11/17/h...
My daughter Emily (7) is raising money for youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. Please support her if you can!
www.justgiving.com/page/howlett...
If your Thursday needs a boost, can I recommend the delightful Jin Shengtan's 金聖嘆 "Thirty-three Nice Things", translated by @bokane.org?
www.burninghou.se/p/whats-good
— if that’s not nice, what is?
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...
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....
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...
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)
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)
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)
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)
