|
Beijing
Photos of Beijing in the 1930s and '40sPosted by Jeremy Goldkorn, November 25, 2008 8:32 AM
One of the delights of the English language China blog scene is In the Footsteps of Joseph Rock, a photoblog about western Yunnan and eastern Tibet, where the botanist Joseph Rock travelled extensively in the 1920s. The blog compares photos taken back then with images shot by himself in the last decade or so. He also posts photos to The Beijing Observer where has been running a series of old photos of Beijing by German photographer Hedda Morrison who lived in the city from 1934 to1946 when it was known as Peiping (北平) or 'Northern Peace'. Hedda Morrison neé Hammer married Alastair Morrison, who born in Beijing in 1915, the son of the famous (or perhaps notroious) Australian correspondent for The Times and political fixer George Morrison. More recently, The Beijing Observer has been posting color photos by Kiev-born soldier-turned photographer Dmitri Kessel. From an email to Danwei:
From Kessel's obituary in The Independent:
In 1942, Kessel became a war correspondent for Life, and after the war shot almost exclusively for that magazine, in places as far afield as China, Hungary, Palestine, India and Japan. Links and Sources
|
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Recent Comments
AllSeeingE on
Send a postcard to the future
Peter Andr on
Cats and dogs in the animal cruelty law
hanmeng on
Al Jazeera on potential dog meat ban
singingblu on
2012: a disaster movie not suitable for children
NINGT on
Goons and thugs
Len Chiu on
The body in the lake
Christie on
Pole dancing: for fitness, not about sex
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
![]() Recommended blogs and new media
Books on China
Diamond Hill by Feng Chi-shun: Feng's memoir Diamond Hill describes an era of gambling and gangsters, Suzie Wong and squatter villages, fires and food stalls, and the Kowloon Walled City and its white powder. "A time when people were poor, but life was rich," he says. The world that he grew up in no longer exists, but his book - the first ever on the Diamond Hill refugee settlement, in either Chinese or English - offers a candid picture of what life was like for most Hong Kong residents in the 1950s.
William A. Callahan's China: The Pessoptimist Nation: China: The Pessoptimist Nation shows how the heart of Chinese foreign policy is not a security dilemma, but an identity dilemma. Through a careful analysis of how Chinese people understand their new place in the world, the book charts how Chinese identity emerges through the interplay of positive and negative feelings in a dynamic that intertwines China's domestic and international politics.
The WTO ruling: a half victory at best: In August 2009, a World Trade Organization panel ruled against China's system of monopoly control over entertainment products. Was this the victory supporters hailed as the dawn of a new day for American and global entertainment companies in the China market?
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Street hawker cries of Beijing (2006.12): Yang Changhe demonstrates hawker's cries in a video shot by Muzimei. + New Weekly: Do Chinese kids know anything about traditonal Chinese culture? (2004.06): Q: Do you know what China's four great inventions are? Paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder 49.3% know all four, 37.3% get one or more wrong, 13.3% don't know at all (2004.06.12) + Some questions about SARFT's full-stop for Red Question Mark (2007.09): SARFT axes Red Question Mark (红问号). He Dong (何东) responds.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
or Feedburner |





Comments on Photos of Beijing in the 1930s and '40s
Hong Kong based photographer Edward Stokes and the Hong Kong Conservation Photography Foundation manage a great site dedicated to the life and work of Hedda Morrison.
Focusing mainly on her work throughout Hong Kong (1946 - 47), but also featuring Beijing and other parts of China she visited.
Jem, delighted to see this entry : )
Oooo - lovely.
The irony of Dmitri Kessel's photos is that they are nearly identical to today's China. I think that is an amazing quality about China that most other country's lack: the resistance to change (as much as their government tries).