FROM HAMBURG TO SHANGHAI : Years of Adventure, Business and Peril 1902 – 1949 by Hans Otto Melchior
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I never knew my maternal grandfather, who died when I was 4. So it was a huge pleasure to get to know him and his incredible life by (co-) translating and editing his memoir. He was born in Germany in 1902, participated as a high school volunteer in WW1, aborted at the last minute his participation in an armed overthrow of the Weimar republic, and went on to live in China starting in 1926. The book ends with his emigration from China to the USA in 1949. He had dinner with rapacious warlords, fled the Japanese rape of Nanjing, was interred in a prison camp in HongKong by the British at the outbreak of WW2, and fled the communist 'liberation' of China in 1949. All while keeping his family and financial resources mostly intact. It's a great read if anyone is interested, available on amazon...

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How to Catch a Mole

How to Catch a Mole: And Find Yourself in Nature by Marc Hamer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the cover of the thumbnail of this book the second part of the title reads "and find yourself in nature". I presume this was the author's preference. My hardcopy has a different subtitle "wisdom from a life in nature", which is simply preposterous. The author relates observations. He very clearly avoids drawing 'wisdom' from them. Indeed this 'wisdom' title runs contrary to the main point of the book: that observations are valuable and meaningful for their own sake, not as a means of obtaining wisdom or anything else for that matter. I guess it was added by an overly enthusiastic editor to try to boost sales? Title quibbles aside, I really enjoyed the book. Having done a bit of mole hunting myself, though far less intensely and successfully than the author, and also spent some time in, and thinking about, nature, I enjoyed reading about these things. The zen-like philosophy and poetry were ok, but the real enjoyment, came from the moles.

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Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City by Stella Dong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Shanghai from 1850 to 1950 or so was an incredibly interesting place and time. This book captures the zeitgeist very well. Lots of well researched examples of life in the fast lane in Shanghai. It is however quite confusing because important historical events and figures are sort of sprinkled through the book like salt and pepper, rather than being introduced and analyzed clearly as a historian usually would. I was particularly interested to read this book because my maternal grandparents lived in China in the 30's and 40's (my mother was born there) departing Shanghai for the USA in April, 1949 and my wife's grandfather was born and raised in Pudong, before emigrating to Indonesia in the 1920's.

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China in Ten Words by Yu Hua
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Some memories and some thoughts about Chinese social media memes from a famous author. It is pretty clear that many, probably most, of the modern 'stories' he reports are not researched and probably only dimly, if at all, based in fact. This of course makes one wonder how careful he is with the 'memories'. The writing/translating is certainly engaging, making this an easy and enjoyable read. However since it is not researched at all, and more or less just whatever Yu Hua thinks lately, the insights into China are weak at best. For example, the 'copycat' phenomenon is certainly not a novel phenomenon related to the shift to consumerism in the PRC as reported here - fake 'Nikom' camera lenses were being hawked in Hong Kong when I was there in 1983. If you believe this book has given you great insight into modern China, you have been bamboozled. I suspect the content and lessons from the great leap and red guard period are more reliable. One of the most interesting insights i got from reading the book, apparently serendipitously since it was published pre-covid, was comparing his introductory description of immunization campaigns in China in the 1970's with today's efforts in response to the Coronavirus.

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Quarnatine Quotidien - Day 7

M shoveled a loop around the yard. According to my off-line strava app it is .16km long. So we are doing 6 loops daily to get in a 1km walk despite our lockdown.  Still waiting for the home internet to be turned on - we have an appointment for Tuesday next week.   Today is 'hump-day' half way through our stay at home requirement. I'm starting to daydream about what we will do on our first day of freedom, no matter what the cost, no matter how logistically difficult. I suspect this kind of pent up demand is everywhere to some extent, so building back better may, when the reins are off, take a back seat to rampant consumption of goods and services. Once we have internet I'll try to add a photo of our yard-loop.

Quarantine Quotidien - Day 4

 

It snowed overnight. After shoveling the back patio (again), M enjoyed reading the paper in the sunshine.  Life in Quarantine is settling down to normal in some ways. In other ways it is improving rapidly. For example our dinner menu (Quarantine Quotidien Quisine - QQQ).

Day 1 - Rice and canned fish (from luggage)

Day 2 - Rice and beans with hotsauce (from luggage)

Day 3 - Rice with beans, onions, garlic, stock and a salad! (first local ingredients)

Day 4 - Rice and Grass fed Ontario beef stew w/ Carrots, Onions Garlic and salad w/grapefruit slices (other than the rice all local ingredients!)

Day 5 - Don't know yet, but I'm guessing it may include rice. LOL

Quarantine Quotidien- Day 3

Physical World Update: The good news is the Global and Mail Subscription and delivery orders from the local grocery and beer store, all worked flawlessly.  It is interesting that i tried and determined it is not possible to get delivery from the Government wine store (LCBO), but it is possible to obtain deliveries from the government Marijuana store (M would not let me do so though).  Overall, physical delivery has been much better than online news and connectivity (see below). The Globe and Mail is a great little paper with good local Canadian News, though it is a bit of a surpise how skimpy it is when considering that it is the largest national paper. I was able to complete the Sudoku and the KenKen but the crossword was too difficult. I have set myself a goal to be able to complete one of these killer crosswords before we exit quarantine.

 Online World Update: A Canadian SIM card arrived by courrier and we bought an overpriced plan so now have phone and data - though at a pretty high cost given we are paying for the non-working Verizon plan AND an overpriced Roger's Plan. When buying the plan they asked for two pieces of ID. This proved impossible, as they had to be "Canadian or resident ID". I said I did not have a PR card, but maybe I could use my wife's ID as she is a Canadian. After asking to speak with her to confirm her agreement, they said this would be OK. Min gave me her drivers license, and I read them the number. Then they asked the expiry date - oops it had expired 6 months ago! Another long pause on the other end. Eventually I succeeded with her passoport and SIN numbers. I wonder if the guy reported us to homeland security mounties given all the rather ridiculous difficulties I had producing valid ID? I reserved a home internet connection installation for next week Tuesday (the earliest they could arrange it as they have to mail us a router). The options were phone or cable and I chose cable since there is no phone in the house, and I saw some coax coming out of the wall in the study. Unfortunately, in the real world again, or at least the interface with it, I took a walk around the house and found the coax has been cut about 2 feet from the wall on the outside and doesn't actually go anywere. I'll be interested to see what happens when they try to install.

Quarantine Quotidien - Day 2

Canadians make good neighbors! Our driveway was clear of snow on arrival, and while we were out in the yard doing a bit of touch up snow clearning two neighbors introduced themselves and chatted with us (in English - such a welcome change from expat life!) offering to help with grocery delivery and such while we quarantine. 

 Verizon is a crappy company! I spent about three hours on the phone with Verizon, from whom I had carefully pre-purchased a gold plated plan that they told me covered infinte calling and data to and from CANADA. However, as soon as we crossed the border the phone went dead. their offer does not work (tech support claims due to the fact I have a verizon chip in an unlocked phone rather than a Verizon phone) and they cannot refund me my money.

Quarnatine Quotidien - Day 1

Day 1- January 24, 2021 M and I drove across the US-Canada border today. The border guard was a young Quebecoise apparently in her first day on the job (she apologized for being new and slow, that is how I know). I handed over our passports, Min's Canadian and my US and informed her we were returning to Canada after 4 and a half years in Japan (I did not mention that prior to Japan we had been in Kenya, Paris and Bern for an additional 20+ years abroad, why complicate things after all). 

 "And your status" she asked "are you a permanent resident?". 

 "Yes" I confidently replied. 

 "So you have a PR card?" she asked with a tone that obviously implied I should hand it over to her for inspection. 

 "Unfortunately, no, I sent a request to New Brunswick for a card, but it is pending. I do have my original landing form from 1995 with me though". 

 She did not ask for my landing papers, nor did she ask for our Marriage License, and proceeded to wave us through! I see three possible explanations for this minor miracle (1) New on the job, she made a mistake, (2) I bluffed my way across the border by showing supreme confidence (3) They have me listed on a computer system as a permanent resident dating back to my original landing in 1995 which was before Permaent Resident Cards existed. What do you think?

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very enjoyable read. Undine moved up through various social circles with ambition, a keen sense of social awareness, and plenty of lying in order to get her way despite seemingly insurmountable challenges. Moffat, her first fling as a teenager in the midwest, also moved up in the world to become a NY stock market billionaire, also with ambition, but with a clear sense of truth and honor. It seems a bit strange that these two would marry (twice!), given one was so honest and the other wasn't, but I suppose they shared other similarities in their ambition and love of the things that money can buy. It is ironic that, in between her marriages to Moffat, despite the fact that she was completely uninterested in anything except socializing, that she married more nerdy and conservative men without much money (twice!). Money (financial capital) did not really matter to Undine though. The dresses and jewelry, and indeed even the husbands, were not in and of themselves interesting to her. She really only wanted the social standing that she could only achieve by virtue of having these things. Somehow though, despite her being such an unsympathetic antihero in so many ways, I could not help but share her happiness at the end.

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The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara W. Tuchman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I recall thinking Guns of August was a great book when I read it decades ago though. The golden years before WW1 were an incredibly interesting time. So when I found this one on a free shelf I grabbed it. What a disappointment. This book is basically Barbara Tuchman vomiting her research notes into a book. Enormous numbers of facts, figures, characters and events from the time period, but nothing to engage the reader whatsoever. If you insist on reading it, I would select certain chapters that may be of interest to you. IF you are into music, the chapter on Strauss and the arts scene at the time might engage. If you are into revolution, the chapter on socialists and anarchists will be of interest. As a whole though, the book fails to draw any of the chapters together in any way whatsoever, and is simply long and boring if read cover to cover.

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On the Road North of Boston: New Hampshire Taverns and Turnpikes, 1700-1900 by Donna-Belle Garvin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read a version of this book with two authors (Donna and James Garvin) and a different cover design. This is a very thorough and we'll illustrated account of New Hampshire roads taverns and travelers, though more of a reference book than a page turner. A few interesting characters appear such as the thief and womanizer Henry Tufts who published an autobiography of his nefarious exploits in 1807. The book contains lots of rich local detail on the early roads of NH, which is what I was specifically researching. Conclusion: The development of River Road in Lyme, where I live, was funded by a decision of the public legislature of the colony in 1752 as part of a larger project connecting Fort number 4 (south of Claremont) and the rich farmland of Coos county. I find it interesting that Boston Mass, not Portsmouth NH, has for centuries been the major port and mercantile city for NH commerce, because it has been more easily accessible than NH's coast for centuries, by river, then road, then railroad, then interstate highway because the local geography simply makes east west travel more onerous than north south.

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Deacon King Kong by James McBride
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I suppose I must be pretty late to the party having just discovered James McBride, since there is a long list of his previous heralded novels on the first page. I read this book because it was number 2 on the NY Times 'best books of 2020' list. Number one, which I read first, was quite a disappointment (see my last review), but I'm glad i persevered! This book is wonderfully written and a real pleasure to read. I finished it in a couple days. The prose is a bit like the old potboiler dick tracy gumshoe writing style, and the story is packed with wonderfully rich characters. It is a bit of over the top with the racialization - all the characters are initially and primarily characterized as being 'irish' or 'brown' (including southerners) or 'eye-talian', followed with some pretty trite prejudicial sounding description of this characterization. I guess this was pretty standard though, in the 1960's, in NY, when the story takes place.

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A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I read this book based on the intriguing sounding review it received in the number one slot on the NY Times list of the 'best books' of 2020. Fake News NY Times! If you want to read about a apocalyptic dystopia try 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. If you want to read about children living amongst themselves without adults try 'The Lord of the Flies' by William Golding. And finally, for literary biblical allusions, I'd suggest 'East of Eden' by John Steinbeck. This book tried all three. It's main saving grace is that it is quite short, so I was able to finish it in a few hours. Had it been longer, I would have had to score this one a 'did not finish'.

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The Splendid and the Vile

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read this book on my cell phone in Japan using an interlibrary loan in my home state of New Hampshire, in the US. Interestingly, the book's main resolving chord was the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, which lead a tit for tat set of war declarations culminating in Roosevelt declaring war on Germany. This was the act which Churchill had been muttering about, making impassioned speeches for, and lobbying various American visitors dining at his country houses for, for the bulk of the book. I originally thought 'Splendid and Vile' would mean that we would read about Churchill at his best and worst in the book, but this was not the case. THere is nothing vile to see in anything about Churchill, only splendiferousness. The reference is to a journal entry where another character looks out on gleaming airplanes in the beautiful moonlit night lit below by bombs and fires and declares the scene to be splendidly beautiful, and yet at the same time evidence of the degree of vileness to which humans can fall. I was reminded a bit of the contrast between the beautiful and artistic rendition of evil flying war machines in Studio Gibli movies. The book draws mostly on journals and portrays the real life vicissitudes of the characters that wrote them, during one of the most splendid, and indeed vile, moments in human history, during the blitzkrieg from 1939-41 in London.



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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I saw the movie on an airplane. At the time, I had no idea it was a book - just thought the title looked interesting so I watched it. Of course, watching a Hollywood rendition in advance of reading a book is always a mistake. In this case, for example, I knew the eventual happy hollywood ending right from the get go. I don't think I've ever read a fully epistolary novel before (eg. I have not yet read Les Liaisons Dangereuses). Some of these letters were absurdly short (eg a single sentence, or even a single word), which made them seem like they might be telegrams. But later in the book some telegrams did appear and were indicated by 'stop' where periods go, so maybe not? To bring about the hollywood ending the author did switch to someone's journal rather than letters, just at the very end. Mechanics aside, the setting was very interesting (Guernsey) and the characters were nicely developed. A nicely constructed and appealing window into small town dynamics rent asunder by wartime atrocities.



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One Piece

One Piece, Volume 1: Romance Dawn by Eiichiro Oda

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


We have volumes 1-3 sitting in the house from when our kids were younger. I picked up volume 1, and found it fairly good, especially as our version is in French. It is interesting how difficult it is to say 'punch' in French (donner un coup de poing). Since this word comes up fairly frequently, it must have meant they needed to shrink the font size considerably to fit the text in the bubbles. The art is confusing at times, with strange perspectives that you could not get with a camera and usually don't see. I guess that is part of the appeal of anime.



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Peter the Great

Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was quite a thick biography about someone I was totally ignorant of (other than his famous name), so I started in on it with both low expectations and quite some trepidation. It was Great. Like Peter. It read like an adventure novel - quests, foreign wars, defense of the motherland, parties and royal intrigues. Peter opened Russia to European technology and culture much the same way that the Meiji Restoration (明治維新) opened Japan. He established Saint Petersburg as his capital, building it from nothing in the Neva Delta swamp, and brought Russia into the Maritime age with a new, mostly ice free port on the Baltic. Just as Japan managed a few centuries later, Russia learned quickly once Peter forced it to open up and adopt Western ways, and rapidly exerted itself as a military power.


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United Nations Resolve

This week I was wished Happy UN Day by many colleagues. Some navel gazing about the day follows.

The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945.

In 1948, the General Assembly declared 24 October to be "devoted to making known to the people of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations and to gaining their support for" its work. In 1971, the same body adopted Resolution 2782 declaring that United Nations Day shall be an international observance or international holiday and recommended that it should be observed as a public holiday by United Nations member states.

It may seem a bit introspective and self serving for an institution to go about declaring its own day (twice). Of course it was not the UN secretariat that took these decisions. It was the Member States. This begs the question, given Member States took this 1971 resolution with the above recommendation, how many countries have followed up their own resolved recommendation and actually observe it as a public holiday? I am tempted to guess the answer is zero. The UN Secretariat does not even include UN day in our list of 10 annual holidays (so we also ignore the recommendation it seems). If someone knows of a country that celebrates UN Day as a public holiday please post it in a comment on this blog. Of course setting holidays is hardly a world altering issue. It doesn't really matter if countries celebrate this day or not. But why resolve this if it doesn't really matter or if you have no intention of following through with your own recommendation, or both?

This underscores a real difficulty with recommendations in UN resolutions in general. Member states declare their mutual resolve in various venues, including the General Assembly, but the resolve too often ends in the UN chamber, and fails to result in sufficient action on the ground. How to improve the efficacy? Fewer resolution creating bodies and fewer resolutions in each of them would perhaps be a good start. Perhaps consider eschewing recommendation paragraphs altogether, and restrict the operative text of resolutions to statements of agreed mutual action. Some other document called a "Recommendation' could be adopted rather than 'resolution' for those.  Maybe pass a resolution to take fewer, more meaningful resolutions? LOL.

Happy UN Day everyone.

The China Lover by Ian Buruma
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The wonderful thing about this book is the intricate and erudite knowledge of the period. The knowledge and opinion of the author comes out strongly in each of the three protagonists. Indeed, because of this, they all sound the same in the end. The fact that they are all interested in frequent meaningless sex and not romantic relationships is another common feature. The author's commentary on Japanese society and recent history spoken through these three characters is interesting and illuminating. This said, as either a fictionalized quasi-biography of Yamaguchi, or a novel, both of which it the book seems to wish to be, it does not really work. I gained little insight into Yamaguchi, other than some trivial things like where she was located and what she was employed doing at various phases in her life, and that the author feels she was a bit vapid, but attractive, ambitious and lucky. Calling this a novel is the real problem. The three segments don't fit together at all. There are some tantalizing possible connecting threads but they fizzle out in strange ways (sato san, the 'I' from part one reappearing in part 2 only to be eaten by a dog immediately, Vandoever the 'I' from part two reappearing in part three, only to be strangely nonexistent in Yamaguchi's memory). Towards the end it gets quite tedious to read, as by then you are aware that it is not a novel. That the stories and insights, do not link together, and just sort of peter out rather than ending in a way to leave the reader with any kind of overall insight or question.


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