Paul French
@chinarhyming.bsky.social
Author, historian, maker of books and radio - Midnight in Peking, City of Devils, Murders of Old China, Peking Noir, The Defectors… Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson now out everywhere. Agent - Aitken-Alexander
A Nolasco Tours Macao brochure, for which I don’t unfortunately have a date – seems to be 1950s/1960s. With a map of southern China showing Canton (Guangzhou) as cantão in Portuguese….
December 10, 2025 at 7:23 AM
A Nolasco Tours Macao brochure, for which I don’t unfortunately have a date – seems to be 1950s/1960s. With a map of southern China showing Canton (Guangzhou) as cantão in Portuguese….
A studio portrait of Sing Song girls (or geji) in Shanghai, c.early 1900s
December 9, 2025 at 6:38 PM
A studio portrait of Sing Song girls (or geji) in Shanghai, c.early 1900s
Christmas is coming…..
December 9, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Christmas is coming…..
An Old Chinese Garden – a work of poetry, calligraphy & painting by Ming dynasty artist Wen Chen Ming (Wen Zhengming); studies written by Kate Kerby (??); translations by Mo Zung Chung, published by Chunghwa Book Company, Shanghai, 1923.
December 9, 2025 at 2:08 AM
An Old Chinese Garden – a work of poetry, calligraphy & painting by Ming dynasty artist Wen Chen Ming (Wen Zhengming); studies written by Kate Kerby (??); translations by Mo Zung Chung, published by Chunghwa Book Company, Shanghai, 1923.
St. Dominic's Church (Igreja de São Domingos), Macao, by Russian emigre artist George Smirnoff - painted during WW2 and used in this tourism brochure in the 1960s….
December 8, 2025 at 11:26 AM
St. Dominic's Church (Igreja de São Domingos), Macao, by Russian emigre artist George Smirnoff - painted during WW2 and used in this tourism brochure in the 1960s….
A c.1957 guide/booklet to Macau issued by the Tourist Department. It features a painting of St Paul’s Cathedral ruins by Russian emigre George Smirnoff…
December 8, 2025 at 8:12 AM
A c.1957 guide/booklet to Macau issued by the Tourist Department. It features a painting of St Paul’s Cathedral ruins by Russian emigre George Smirnoff…
For me, like so many, Martin Parr (1952-2025) was mostly about capturing the essence & minutiae in photography of this weird and wonderful thing called Britishness. But he also went to Shanghai around 1997 & discovered the crazy American Dream Park at Jiading & captured it in all its weirdness…
December 7, 2025 at 6:27 PM
For me, like so many, Martin Parr (1952-2025) was mostly about capturing the essence & minutiae in photography of this weird and wonderful thing called Britishness. But he also went to Shanghai around 1997 & discovered the crazy American Dream Park at Jiading & captured it in all its weirdness…
looking down into the walled city of Weihaiwei (Weihai) and the European area of Port Edward (now Huancui District) with Liukong (Liugong) Island offshore, c.1910
December 6, 2025 at 10:34 PM
looking down into the walled city of Weihaiwei (Weihai) and the European area of Port Edward (now Huancui District) with Liukong (Liugong) Island offshore, c.1910
Daunt Books Marylebone China section… with a little Wallis (& other Christmas gift ideas)…..
December 6, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Daunt Books Marylebone China section… with a little Wallis (& other Christmas gift ideas)…..
February 16 1949, the 60-strong motorcycle detachment of the Shanghai Self-Defense Corps leads a parade along Bubbling Well Road (Nanjing West Road) by the racecourse to suggest preparedness against ongoing communist advances towards the city. Photo by Warren Lee.
December 6, 2025 at 8:52 AM
February 16 1949, the 60-strong motorcycle detachment of the Shanghai Self-Defense Corps leads a parade along Bubbling Well Road (Nanjing West Road) by the racecourse to suggest preparedness against ongoing communist advances towards the city. Photo by Warren Lee.
David Guerrero’s You Won’t See Me (Penguin Southeast Asia)– A very fun read about when the Beatles ghosted Imelda Marcos in 1966 Manila….
December 5, 2025 at 4:04 PM
David Guerrero’s You Won’t See Me (Penguin Southeast Asia)– A very fun read about when the Beatles ghosted Imelda Marcos in 1966 Manila….
Cecil Beaton’s portrait of Osbert Sitwell. later Sitwell sojourned in Peking with his friend Harold Acton. He stayed in the Grand Hotel de Pekin (now the Hotel Nuo) on Chang’an Jie. The photo is included in the current Cecil Beaton's Fashionable World exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.
December 4, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Cecil Beaton’s portrait of Osbert Sitwell. later Sitwell sojourned in Peking with his friend Harold Acton. He stayed in the Grand Hotel de Pekin (now the Hotel Nuo) on Chang’an Jie. The photo is included in the current Cecil Beaton's Fashionable World exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.
Cecil Beaton's "Japanese”, 1959, included in the National Portrait Gallery’s ongoing exhibition Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World.
December 4, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Cecil Beaton's "Japanese”, 1959, included in the National Portrait Gallery’s ongoing exhibition Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World.
Writer John Hopkins’ 1960s diaries of living in Tangier (Taurus Parke, 2021) has some wild stories….
December 4, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Writer John Hopkins’ 1960s diaries of living in Tangier (Taurus Parke, 2021) has some wild stories….
“A Chinese soldier at a demonstration by Chinese Surprise Troops at Pihu Training Centre in Fukien Province, China, 1944.” An images Beaton took in WW2 for the Ministry of Information included in the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World to show his wartime work
December 4, 2025 at 8:55 AM
“A Chinese soldier at a demonstration by Chinese Surprise Troops at Pihu Training Centre in Fukien Province, China, 1944.” An images Beaton took in WW2 for the Ministry of Information included in the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World to show his wartime work
Wallis in the Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World exhibition ongoing at the National Portrait Gallery, London…
Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson is available everywhere in hardback, e-book and audiobook now…
Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson is available everywhere in hardback, e-book and audiobook now…
December 3, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Wallis in the Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World exhibition ongoing at the National Portrait Gallery, London…
Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson is available everywhere in hardback, e-book and audiobook now…
Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson is available everywhere in hardback, e-book and audiobook now…
Cecil Beaton. Chinese Album, B.T. Batsford Ltd. London. Winter, 1945-6. First edition
December 3, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Cecil Beaton. Chinese Album, B.T. Batsford Ltd. London. Winter, 1945-6. First edition
Some pages from Edward Sheldon Wilkinson. Shanghai Birds. A Study of Bird Life in Shanghai and the Surrounding Districts. Shanghai: North-China Daily News & Herald Limited, 1929
December 3, 2025 at 6:18 AM
Some pages from Edward Sheldon Wilkinson. Shanghai Birds. A Study of Bird Life in Shanghai and the Surrounding Districts. Shanghai: North-China Daily News & Herald Limited, 1929
Anna May Wong photographed by Cecil Beaton at his Sussex Gardens studio, c.1929 for Beaton’s The Book of Beauty (1930). Anna May is surrounded by gypsophila held up by billiard cues! The photo is included in the current Cecil Beaton's Fashionable World exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.
December 2, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Anna May Wong photographed by Cecil Beaton at his Sussex Gardens studio, c.1929 for Beaton’s The Book of Beauty (1930). Anna May is surrounded by gypsophila held up by billiard cues! The photo is included in the current Cecil Beaton's Fashionable World exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.
The Zhengyangmen (aka Qianmen/Chienmen), Beijing, with a blue sky on a crisp October afternoon this year….
December 2, 2025 at 9:03 AM
The Zhengyangmen (aka Qianmen/Chienmen), Beijing, with a blue sky on a crisp October afternoon this year….
A great Stoppard anecdote from @oldfactoryfilms.bsky.social
December 2, 2025 at 8:25 AM
A great Stoppard anecdote from @oldfactoryfilms.bsky.social
Men by the roadside, Shandong province, c.1910
December 1, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Men by the roadside, Shandong province, c.1910
Hapoened to be googling to see if a short review I wrote recently had been published… Google’s “AI Overview” decided to tell me about two books I supposedly authored in 1998 and 2008 - needless to say I wrote neither of these, they’re pure invention - title, date, content!!!!
December 1, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Hapoened to be googling to see if a short review I wrote recently had been published… Google’s “AI Overview” decided to tell me about two books I supposedly authored in 1998 and 2008 - needless to say I wrote neither of these, they’re pure invention - title, date, content!!!!
Rua das Estelgens, Macao’s former “rag trade” street, 1986
December 1, 2025 at 4:17 AM
Rua das Estelgens, Macao’s former “rag trade” street, 1986
Your regular reminder that the Torygraph is a sickness and not a newspaper
November 30, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Your regular reminder that the Torygraph is a sickness and not a newspaper