“Alfred Raquez” is the pseudonym of Joseph Gervais, a bankrupt, reprobate lawyer from Lille. With a warrant out for his arrest, he fled France in March 1898 and headed East. He continued traveling as far as Guizhou in China, before settling in Hanoi, where he declared himself a publicist. In 1904, he was appointed to […]
By Han Li Imagine that you are a conscript, from a rural improvised countryside town of a war-ravaged country, sent to boost the hopeless defence of your nation’s capital. Your clothing comprises of cheap cotton which offers little resistance to the cold humidity brought on by the Yangtze. You stand atop a battered city wall […]
The Terracotta Warriors will be returning to the UK, it has been announced by Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP. In an exhibition to be staged at Liverpool’s World Museum in 2018, this will be the first time in more than 30 years that spectacular Class 1 National […]
Shining a light on a little-known area of Chinese decorative arts from 1850 to 1930, this lavishly illustrated book presents dazzling jewellery from an important private North American collection. Immortals, dragons, magpies, monkeys and bats populate this pioneering book on Chinese jewellery of the late 19th to early 20th century. In so many aspects, these […]
4 to 12 November at the China Exchange Qing Dynasty Shanghai: The Photographs of William Saunders features a selection of 35 to 40 original 19th-century albumen silver prints, many hand-coloured, by William Saunders from the Stephan Loewentheil Historical Photography of China Collection, the largest holding of late Qing dynasty photographs of China in private hands. This is the […]
By Young Tan – Senior Editor Immigration and travel from China to Britain has been extremely prominent ever since the start of the 20th Century and especially today, but the Chinese coming to the UK appears to stretch back even further than we ever imagined (see first Chinese in Britain). Archaeologists have recently unearthed 22 […]
The Chinese Information and Advice Centre is hosting a charity banquet on behalf of the ‘Ensuring We Remember’ Campaign aiming to raise funds to build a national memorial in the memory of the Chinese Labour Corps during the First World War. The fundraising banquet will be held today 12 September 2016 at the Golden Phoenix […]
Dr Fu Bingchang was the Republic of China’s Ambassador to the U.S.S.R between 1943-1949. He was also the late grandfather of Chinese Liberal Democrat Co-Chair, Dr Yee Wah Foo, an academic at the University of Lincoln. Radio 4 recently interviewed Yee Wah about her research into the diaries left by her famous grandfather. As Yee […]
In May 1936 the steamship Sorrento sailed into the port of Piraeus, Greece. Aboard were 452 items of Chinese pottery, destined to join another 341 already on display at the Benaki Museum in Athens. Over the past 9 years the museum’s founder, Antonis Benakis, had been in contact with their donor, Greek-origin British businessman George […]
An article by journalist Peter Kenworthy about his Danish great grandfather, who lived and worked in China from 1900 to 1936. The article discusses culture, and the nature of Western semi-colonial behaviour, and is based on quotes from reports and letters that he wrote while in and after leaving China. “We talk a lot about culture in the […]