Reading Midnight in Peking
One of the authors featured at the Beijing Bookworm Literary Festival was Paul French who was promoting his book Midnight in Peking. At ticket-buying time, the event didn't appeal to me much, and it was not at a great time slot for me anyway. I passed on it, though my frequent companion through much of the Literary Festival, Sarah, did go and raved to me about it later.
Since the Literary Festival, many of the foreigners in Beijing that I follow on Twitter have continued to endorse this book. I finally gave in and bought the Kindle version, finishing the book within 48 hours, just ahead of Evan Osnos recommendation in his blog on the New Yorker website.
There are many reviews out there, and I really don't have much unique to contribute. It is a well-written, page-turner of a True Crime book, delving into a fascinating and decadent period of Beijing's history just before the Japanese invaded. My caveats are that the crime is brutal and graphically described, as are the scenes from the Badlands, a true underbelly of the old city.
What struck me, though, about this book was similar to what stood out for me when reading some of W. Somerset Maugham's Asian stories written about the early 20th century.
more after the jump
French describes classes of people and sentiments expressed contemporary to the period of his book, that could almost be true to this day.
These are just a sampling of what French wrote about 1937 that I felt in some ways could still be written about China in just the last ten years even. Part of my view is still colored by that first year and a half in Shenzhen, living above a street notorious for some of those same kinds of businesses that were found in Peking's Badlands. In fact, if the word "Badlands" was substituted with "Chicken Street" in the quote above, it absolutely could have been written about 2006 Shekou, albeit more poetically than anyone would have cared to then.
The actors have changed, but the cast is still the same.
Since the Literary Festival, many of the foreigners in Beijing that I follow on Twitter have continued to endorse this book. I finally gave in and bought the Kindle version, finishing the book within 48 hours, just ahead of Evan Osnos recommendation in his blog on the New Yorker website.
There are many reviews out there, and I really don't have much unique to contribute. It is a well-written, page-turner of a True Crime book, delving into a fascinating and decadent period of Beijing's history just before the Japanese invaded. My caveats are that the crime is brutal and graphically described, as are the scenes from the Badlands, a true underbelly of the old city.
What struck me, though, about this book was similar to what stood out for me when reading some of W. Somerset Maugham's Asian stories written about the early 20th century.
more after the jump
French describes classes of people and sentiments expressed contemporary to the period of his book, that could almost be true to this day.
Some people lost their moral compass in the East, or so the thinking went. (location 187)
Shanghai had better bars, had much better everything. Peking was a relic...(location 201)
It was a life unimaginable in England on a policeman's wage, and Dennis was a respected man in Tientsin. The police work was routine, but this position...granted an automatic place among the worthies of British Tientsin. (855)
The "better" class of foreigners thought the Badlands typified Chinese depravity; the Chinese thought it symbolic of barbarian foreign ways. Both mostly pretended it didn't exist. (959)
The social set of foreign Peking had a mantra they repeated to visitors over cocktails at the Wagons Lits, in the members' enclosure at the Peking Race Club, on long weekends in the temperate Western Hills: "We don't worry much about pasts in Peking." (1445)
The Chinese public had a general distrust of authority. (1665)
[Edgar Snow] felt himself to be 'the favored child of providence'; he believed that 'foreigners were still sacrosanct in China.'
These are just a sampling of what French wrote about 1937 that I felt in some ways could still be written about China in just the last ten years even. Part of my view is still colored by that first year and a half in Shenzhen, living above a street notorious for some of those same kinds of businesses that were found in Peking's Badlands. In fact, if the word "Badlands" was substituted with "Chicken Street" in the quote above, it absolutely could have been written about 2006 Shekou, albeit more poetically than anyone would have cared to then.
The actors have changed, but the cast is still the same.
Comments