Event Details

WHAT: Author Paul French discusses Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson. With Frances Wood


WHEN: Dec. 11, 2024 Wednesday from 7:00-8:00 PM Beijing Time


MORE ABOUT THE EVENT: Paul French discusses a controversial period in the early life of the legendary Wallis, Duchess of Windsor -- her one year in China in the mid-1920s, her Lotus Year. In 1924 Wallis Simpson followed her US Navy commander husband to Hong Kong, where he was assigned to the South China Patrol stationed there. Eventually she left her physically abusive spouse, and fled north to mainland China, spending some time in Shanghai and then Tianjin (which was in the grip of a typhoid epidemic). Ultimately she reached Beijing, where Wallis remained for what remained of the era she called, with great nostalgia, her Lotus Year -- referencing Homer's Lotus Eaters who lived in a state of dreamy forgetfulness, never to return home.

Moving in with stylish friends who lived in a traditional hutong house, she spent her days scouring local markets for antiques, discovering a lifelong passion for jade, and honing her distinctive style which included a sleek black chignon and qipao-inspired dresses. Wallis's time was curtailed by political events in China, which suffered the upheaval of skirmishing warlord armies, labor unrest, anti-foreign riots, the last emperor Puyi's expulsion from the Forbidden City, and the tumultuous early years of the fledgling Republican government. Ostensibly Wallis lived in a protective foreign bubble, but she was not blind to the chaos surrounding her.

Later, Wallis's time in China would be used against her. Racially inflected and salacious rumours of a promiscuous period were whispered around London society in the 1930s, the intent being to wreck her relationship with Edward VIII. That didn't work. Edward abdicated the throne and on their marriage Wallis became the Duchess of Windsor, after which their enforced exile began. The rumours about Wallis, collected in a so-called 'China Dossier', were unfounded. However the truth about her year in China is far more evocative. A century later, especially in Beijing, a surprising amount of Wallis's China remains for those who follow in her footsteps, strolling past the once-grand courtyard mansions of Shijia Hutong and through the echoing lobby of the fabled Peking Hotel.


MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Born and currently based in London, Paul French lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. After a career as a widely published analyst and commentator on China he is now a full-time author, focusing on China and Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. His true crime book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, a Mystery Writers' of America 'Edgar' award winner for Best Fact Crime, and a Crime Writers' Association (UK) 'Dagger' award for non-fiction. His Kirkus-starred book City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir focused on the dancehalls, casinos and cabarets of wartime Shanghai. French is also a regular contributor and book reviewer for various publications including The South China Morning Post, Financial Times Weekend, Mekong Review, CNN, Ponto Final (Macao), and Crime Reads.


HOW MUCH: Free for RASBJ members; RMB 50 for members of partner RAS branches; RMB 100 for non-members. Interested in becoming an RASBJ member? Please sign up at https://rasbj.org/membership/ You may find paying via Alipay easier than paying by WeChat; you can also use international credit cards.


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REFUND POLICY: Paying registrants will be refunded in full if RASBJ cancels or postpones this event

Speakers

  • Paul French (Speaker)

    Paul French

    Speaker

    Born and currently based in London, Paul French lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. After a career as a widely published analyst and commentator on China he is now a full-time author, focusing on China and Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. His true crime book "Midnight in Peking" was a New York Times Bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, a Mystery Writers of America ‘Edgar’ award winner for Best Fact Crime, and a Crime Writers’ Association (UK) ‘Dagger’ award for non-fiction. His Kirkus-starred book "City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir" focused on the dancehalls, casinos and cabarets of wartime Shanghai. French is also a regular contributor and book reviewer for various publications including The South China Morning Post, Financial Times Weekend, Mekong Review, CNN, Ponto Final (Macao), and Crime Reads.

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  • Frances Wood (Moderator)

    Frances Wood

    Moderator

    Frances Wood studied Chinese at Cambridge and at Beida (Peking University). She was curator of the Chinese collections in the British Library for 30 years with a special interest in Dunhuang manuscripts. She is author of “Hand-Grenade Practice in Peking: my part in the Cultural Revolution” (John Murray, 2000) and a number of other publications, including:
    • 1985 Chinese illustration. British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-0053-7
    • 1991 (with Norah M. Titley). Oriental Gardens. British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-0239-5
    • 1995 Did Marco Polo go to China?. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 978-0-436-20384-8
    • 1998 No Dogs and Not Many Chinese: Treaty Port Life in China, 1843-1943. John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-6400-0
    • 2002 The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23786-5
    • 2005 The Forbidden City. British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-2789-7
    • 2007 The First Emperor of China. Profile Books. ISBN 978-1-84668-032-8
    • 2008 China's First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-38112-7
    • 2009 The Lure of China: Writers from Marco Polo to J. G. Ballard. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15436-8
    • 2010 (with Mark Barnard). The Diamond Sutra: The Story of the World's Earliest Dated Printed Book. British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-5090-7
    • 2017 Great Books of China. Head of Zeus. ISBN 9781786694515

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