Paul French Tuesday, 2 Mar 2021 – 7pm-8pm – Webtalk –
The event is free of charge for members. For guests or non members, the registration fee is $50. Please click here .
In this talk, well-known Chinese historian, raconteur and author Paul French talks of the Chinese capital telling numerous true stories of fascinating people who visited the city in the first half of the 20th century.
From Bolsheviks and Nazis, to artists and bank robbers, to English aesthetes, to transplanted New York Bowery Balladeers, he describes that extraordinary era. He asks the major question behind so many of these sojourners’ decisions to remain in the ancient capital – why Peking?
Since the 2012 publication of the bestselling
Midnight in Peking, Paul French has been linked to Beijing, or at least some historical iteration of it. Since then, he s followed up with
Badlands: Decadent Playground of Old Peking, and now starts 2021 with two new Northern Capital offerings:
Destination Peking, a look at the lives of 18 Beijingers of note from the first half of the 20th century, and
Peking Noir, a BBC Radio 3 docudrama, also available as a podcast. French talked to
the Beijinger about why the city s history still captivates him.
the Beijinger (TBJ): So for a guy who is not particularly in love with Beijing, it seems to keep drawing you back.
next, from the seattle asian art museum, hannah pakula presents a biography of the wife of the former taiwanese president. she was a prominent voice for nationalist china and served as her husband s translator and secretary. this event is 45 minutes. .. a brilliant book about the roosevelt white house. we ve been having one of our usual dinner conversations without our work. i.e., neither of us listening to gleek carefully to what the other one was saying. when alan told me about the time during world war ii when trantwo s thing at the white house, although there were phones and call bells in her room, when she wanted something, she would always go to her door, opened it, clap your hands loudly like this, and expect the servants to appear here this was the way they called the coolies in shanghai, but you can just imagine how this went over in the ultra- democratic roosevelt white house. why, i wondered, would such a highly intelligent woman looking for american money to a