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Recent Posts
- Guest blog: Yutong Wang on Policing urban ‘nuisance’: slum clearances in ‘semi-colonial’ Shanghai in the 1930s
- Some that got away
- Guest blog: Alex Thompson on British Law and Governance in Treaty Port China
- Guest blog: Andrew Hillier on Armistice Day and its Aftermath in Treaty Port China
- Guest blog: Kaori Abe on the Abe Naoko Collection –– a glimpse of a Japanese family’s life in Shanghai, c.1927-c.1934
- Guest blog: Ghassan Moazzin on Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China
- Guest blog: Helena Lopes on A connected place: Macau in the Second World War
- Andrew Hillier on Bessie Pirkis: A Renaissance Woman in Peking Part 2
- Guest blog: Rachel Meller on Uncovering the story of Shanghai’s Second World War Jewish refugees
- Andrew Hillier on Bessie Pirkis: A Renaissance Woman in Peking
- Need and opportunity: the new HPC website
- Everything’s changed, but everything’s still the same: HPC update
- Location/Dislocation – Admiral Keppel, the Chinese Buddha at Sandringham and three key photographs
- The Forbidden City at War: Images of the Wartime Evacuation of the Imperial Art Collections
- A name, a photograph, and a history of global connections
Categories
Category Archives: Photograph of the day
A hunting we will go
Incidental mention of the Shanghai Paper Hunt suggests a new post. Here are two members of the Hunt in action. The Shanghai Paper Hunt Club dated is foundation to December 1863, but as its history, published in 1930, noted, there … Continue reading
Posted in Digitisation, Photograph of the day
Tagged books, hats, horse, hunt, leisure, protest, riding
1 Comment
Catastrophe at the races, Hong Kong 1918
Our last post showed the fairly rudimentary Peking Race Club in 1891. The first of the important foreign race tracks in China was at Happy Valley in Hong Kong. This photographic postcard shows the scene just after 3 p.m. on … Continue reading
Posted in Elsewhere on the net, Photograph of the day
Tagged fire, Hong Kong, race
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Racing in China, 1891
The Olympic torch is racing through Bristol as I write. We lack images of sports, aside from shots of European tennis parties, and many images of the racetracks of treaty port China. So here is a dramatic photograph from 1891 … Continue reading
Examination cells and brain cells
Inexorably the exam season is upon us, a testing time for students, and also for admin staff and markers. Spare a thought for candidates in the examination system in Imperial China – applicants would think, write, eat and sleep, sometimes … Continue reading
Posted in Photograph of the day
Tagged administration, bureaucracy, Canton, cell, Confucianism, exam, examination, government, Guangzhou, hall, state
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D is for Dalny, Dairen だいれん, Dalian, 大連
History made this former Liaodong Peninsular fishing village a transational city, as it was taken from Russian control (1898-1905), to become a Japanese leased territory (1905-45), then a USSR-controlled zone in the People’s Republic of China until the end of … Continue reading
Posted in Alphabet China, Photograph of the day
Tagged cart, pony, snow, telephone, trees
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A scene from a theatrical performance
This enigmatic photograph (Ar02-070) did not have a caption for it in the album owned by the Shanghai policeman William Armstrong (1867-1931, served SMP 1893-1927). It surely depicts a scene from a theatrical performance? Whilst the character with the fan … Continue reading
Juniors at Mr Large's school, c.1908
A class of solemn schoolchildren, c.1908, with, it is presumed, their missionary teacher, Mr Large, at the back of the room (El01-28). Both the foreign teacher and the children have their hair in the Manchu style. This hairstyle was imposed … Continue reading
Another modern, smoking
A self-conscious ‘modern’, not shy of the camera, and breaking several conventions. There is a series of shots of this woman, including the less provocative portrait below. We guess that the period is the 1920s rather than the 1930s, but … Continue reading
Posted in Photograph of the day
Tagged bamboo, cigarette, consumption, dress, matshed, smoking, woman
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The flood-damaged 'Short Bridge', Foochow, 1900
Flooding in Foochow (Fuzhou) happened often enough. On night of 29th June 1900, the first arch of ‘The Short Bridge’ on Nantai was washed away – an event recorded in this photograph (Os-s091). Old Foochow was famous for its many … Continue reading
Posted in Photograph of the day
Tagged bridge, damage, floods, Fuzhou, house, Oswald, spectators
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Model Prison, Kweilin Fu, c.1900
The caption in Bishop Banister’s photograph album for this photograph (Ba03-20) is: Model Prison. Kweilin Fu, Kwangsi. The prison is in the panopticon style, first designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham. The photograph dates from around … Continue reading
Posted in Photograph of the day
Tagged architecture, Banister, crime, Guilin, incarceration, justice, karst, panopticon, punishment, topology
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