Colchester Cultural Strategy: Evening with Hanif Kureishi

On a cool evening in Colchester, Essex, England, goatee bearded Steve Mannix (Executive Director of the Mercury Theater), joined the internationally acclaimed author/playwright Hanif Kureishi for a ‘Colchester Cultural Strategy: Evening’ at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester.

For some rapturous minutes we (the audience) were treated to a reading by Britain’s former writer enfant terrible Kureishi, from his seminal and somewhat autobiographical work ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’. The author’s descriptions brought my 1960s/70s past right back to me with all the images of my black crushed velvet, black patent leather, brightly coloured kaftans, chunky beads, tiny bells and the curious scents of patchouli and hashish. Had the reading extended for a mere few minutes I might have expected someone to pass around a joint. It didn’t and they didn’t, though it was an opportunity missed.

I had gone to the Mercury Theatre, I must confess, to see and listen to Hanif Kureishi and not necessarily to become involved in the ensuing discussion about Colchester’s cultural future, inclusive or not. What emerged was a lively debate about the future of culture in Colchester and its surrounds and, as interesting as it was, I would have preferred more from that Pakistani Bromley boy (and intriguing cultural personage) sitting on stage.

Having only momentarily arrived back from the Far East, and the lack of cultural support for most events and affairs of the arts by various governmental bodies found there, I found that Colchester, and Britain, to be well blessed by governmental (local and central) support. The Colchester Cultural Strategy discussion, to me, sounded like a constant and never-ending moan about a lack which can never end. Britain looks to ‘officials’, to ‘government’ to fulfil their cultural needs, in places like Cambodia and Malaysia people, though wishing for governmental support, understand that the only way cultural events and happenings take place, is by people getting off their arses and doing something for themselves. And I was sorely tempted to say just that, last evening, so it was a good job that the microphone never reached me.

The Blue Lotus magazine issue 50

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/the_blue_lotus_magazine_50

Sessue Hayakawa heart throb

Until recently, I had never heard of Sessue Hayakawa, although I have must have watched him as Colonel Saito in David Lean’s ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ which, in the England of my youth, played on TV screens most Christmases, though I frequently confuse that film with Nagisa Ōshima’s ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’ (1983).

From that youth I only remember Asian characters, not Asian actors. The ‘Chinese’ detective Charlie Chan was, incidentally, written by the non-Asian Earl Derr Biggers for a series of ‘Mystery' novels. The character of Charlie Chan was occasionally played on screen by nine different actors over the years, these include George Kuwa (Keichii Kuwahara) in a 1926 serial, Kamiyama Sojin in a 1928 film, E. L. Park in a 1929 film, then Warner Oland in 16 films, 1931-37; Sidney Toler, in 22 films, 1938-47; Roland Winters in six films, 1948-52, and none of those actors were Chinese, although the early actors, George Kuwa and Sōjin Kamiyama, were Japanese. In 1981, the British actor of Russian descent Peter Ustinov (Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov) played the lead in Clive Donner’s ‘Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen’.

Then there was the Chinese character Fu Manchu in some 18 books written by another non-Asian writer, the British Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, better known as Sax Rohmer. The character Fu Manchu continued after Rohmer’s death in 1959, and his total appearances are 25 to date.

In films, the dastardly evil criminal genius Fu Manchu had been played by Harry Agar(1924) Warner Oland (1929 - 1931), Boris Karloff (1932), Lou Marcelle (1939–1940), Henry Brandon (1940), John Carradine (1952), Glen Gordon (1956), Christopher Lee (1965 - 1969), Peter Sellers (1980) and Nicolas Cage (2007), and none of those actors were Asian.

All that was to change for me when that Hong Kong legend, Bruce Lee, came on the Kung Fu film scene during the 1970s. I was quickly to learn that not only did Hong Kong have its own films, but so did China. China’s first film being ‘Dingjun Mountain’ (1905) and Hong Kong’s ‘Zhuangzi Tests His Wife’ in 1913, though there is much debate about which really was first China, or Hong Kong.

The Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa didn’t get to play either Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu, but between 1914–1966 he did act in 80 feature films (including ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’, 1957). 

Kintaro Hayakawa (later known as Sessue, and as Kinbo by his friends) was born into a Japanese samurai family, on the 10th of June 1890. He lived in Nanaura township, Boso Peninsular, Honshu Island, Japan, with his father Yoichiro Hayakawa, the Governor of Chiba Prefecture, his mother Kane and four elder siblings.

As a young man Kintaro Hayakawa was fit and skilled in ‘Kendo’ and ‘Judo’, and longed to be in the Japanese navy like his father had been, but mishap and illness prevented that. Hayakawa felt disgrace (renshi-shin) that he had failed his warrior family and, to atone, he attempted hari-kari (Japanese suicide). Miraculously he survived the sword cuts to eventually embark on a journey to San Francisco, America, in 1909, aged 19. Crossing the United States from the West to the East, then to North, Hayakawa became an undergraduate in the University of Chicago then, in 1913, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.

Intending to return to Japan, for a political career, Hayakawa’s attention was soon taken by amateur dramatics in a small Japanese theatre in Los Angeles, where he was awaiting the boat to return home. After being bitten by the acting bug, he soon changed his name from Kintaro, which he deemed unsuitable for an acting career, to ‘Sessue’, which means snow in Japanese, as he originated from Japan’s main island harbouring the famous snow-capped volcano Mount Fuji. 

Sessue Hayakawa acted in black and white silent films at the beginning of his film acting career. He was seen by the great film producer Thomas H. Ince in Hayakawa’s own production of the play ‘Typhoon’, (made famous by the great Laurence Irving in the Haymarket, London. 1912), Ince soon persuaded Hayakawa to follow him and starred him in his production of the play with Reginald Barker directing. In that film, Hayakawa was supported by fellow Japanese countrymen and women Tsuru Aoki, Henry Kotani and Thomas Kurihara (1914), the latter two formed part of a Japanese actors support group in the US, until returning to Japan in 1920 to be leaders of cinema there.

Hayakawa’s smouldering good looks soon had the ladies swooning. His career was built, not just on good acting, but on his oriental ‘bad boy’ appeal to women. He was undoubtedly a precursor to the matinee idol Rudolf Valentino, and had quickly became cinema’s hottest property. At the height of his career Hayakawa was reputed to be earning over 2 million dollars a year, the equivalent to 28 million dollars in modern terms.

In Kalton C. Lahue’s book ‘Gentlemen to the Rescue’ it’s indicated that…

“He owned a greystone castle at the corner of Franklin and Argyle in Hollywood (since replaced by a motel), where lavish entertainment in the early twenties was almost continuous—weekly luncheons were held for 150, buffet suppers for 900 with three different orchestras playing, and sit-down dinners hosted for 250 guests. Seven servants ran the place while Sessue and his wife, Tsuru Aoki (also a screen star) worked hard and played hard. Charles Ray with his solid gold doorknobs had nothing on the most cunning Oriental of the screen—Hayakawa owned a gold-plated Pierce-Arrow complete with liveried footman…”

A slew of best selling films, including ‘Typhoon’ and ‘The Cheat’ (directed by Cecil B. DeMille, 1915), helped Hayakawa make a name which was in every way equal to Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. However, in the 1930s, Japan went from being friend of the United Staes of America to being an enemy. It became harder for Japanese actors to exist in US cinema. 

During the Second World War, Hayakawa was in France, fighting with the Resistance against the invading German army. He was rediscovered there by Humphrey Bogart's production team and was offered a role in the film ‘Tokyo Joe’ (1949), and later ‘Three Came Home’ (1950).

As well as acting, Hayakawa wrote several plays, painted watercolours, performed martial arts, wrote ‘Zen Showed me the Way’ (his autobiography, 1960), and in 1961 became a Zen master as well as a private acting coach.

Other film roles followed, up to and including ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ in which Hyakawa was nominated for ‘best supporting actor’ in the 1958 Academy Awards. He died in 1973.

Cuisine Colchester (published in Travellers World India)

I currently hang my somewhat battered (travel worn) hat in the East of England, in the small British town of Colchester with a long history of diversity. I’d been away from my home town for 17 years, living first in India, then Malaysia and finally in Cambodia. Because of the current pandemic (Covid 19) I have, momentarily, returned back to Colchester to take stock.

Before the Romans came the place now known as  Colchester was home and settlement to a Celtic tribe - the Trinovantes.  In 44 AD it became the ‘first recorded town in Britain’, as the first capital of Roman Britain (known then as Camulodunum,  fortress - dunum of Camulos, god of war) in the nearly five hundred year history of Roman Britain. There are the remains of Roman villas and of walls built by the Romans still in evidence around the town and, incidentally, the Romans had brought with them all sorts of strange things, like figs, cherries, plums, damsons, mulberries, dates, olives, turnips, apples, pears, celery, carrots, cucumbers, asparagus, lentils, pine nuts, almonds, walnuts and sesame as well as coriander, dill and fennel,  grapes, wine and the cultivation of oysters, for which Colchester is now renown.

When I left, Colchester, like many small British towns, had presented a very limited range of cuisines. Wimpy (Britain’s first burger joint opened in London, 1954), then the American Kentucky Fried Chicken (1964) and McDonalds (1974) moved in to vie with the ‘traditional’ fish and chip shops (1863). 

Although the first Chinese (Cantonese) restaurant was opened in London in 1908 (by Chung Koon, a ship’s chef), Chinese restaurants and takeaways didn't really develop until after W.W.II with the influx of Hong Kong Cantonese migrants. 

Indian (Bengali) restaurants had their beginnings with British East India Company Army officer Sake Dean Mahomed, who founded London's first Indian restaurant, the ‘Hindoostane Coffee House’ in 1810. But Indian food in the UK  didn’t take off until the 1970s, when large numbers of people from East Pakistan (which was becoming  Bangladesh) came to England. 

The recent discovery of an ancient kebab shop (circa 1215) in Dunwich marks it as being ‘Britain’s oldest kebab shop’, yet it wasn’t until 1966 that Turkish (kebab) takeaways began their rise across the UK.

After seventeen years being away from Colchester, imagine my surprise when I discovered that Colchester has since become genuinely multi-ethnic and multicultural, enabling Colchestrians to embrace a momentous food evolution. Of course, food magazines, foodie TV shows and the fact that Colchester has an international university with a vast array of nationalities on its doorstep, has all helped to create the fusion of cuisines now available in restaurants and takeaways here.

In these glorious summer days, wandering around Colchester town you can witness a plethora of ‘burger’ places which, happily, include a menu of burgers ‘inspired by the flags of the world’, including the ‘Moroccan Burger’ which harbours falafel, vegan harissa mayo, pomegranate, pickled vegetables, hummus and a spiced apricot tagine paste, and the ‘Mexican’ with toasted Bretzel bun, fajita chicken, guacamole, deep fried jalapenos, onion, bell pepper, tequila and lime salad, sour cream, elemental cheese and salsa roja, courtesy of  ‘The Flag Burger’.

Aside from burgers, Colchester’s British Indian cuisine has evolved from Colchester’s first Indian restaurant - ‘Curry India’ (1964) and later the 1970s Bangladeshi dominance to include ‘South Indian’ Dosa (plain, Masala Dosa, Paneer Cheese Dosa, Egg Dosa etc etc etc) Uttapa (Plain or with tomato or onion) and the ‘North Indian’ Channa Batura, as well as the ubiquitous Tandoori or Tikka this that or the other. Now in Colchester (which has a long history with the British Army’s Gurkha Regiment) there is a ‘Gurkha’ restaurant serving ‘spiced kheer’ and ‘Gulab Jamun’, another advertises a ‘blend of Nepalese, Indian & Tibetan cuisine’ which also features the succulent Nepali ‘Momos’ (steamed or fried dumplings).

Not just Indian, but Chinese food in Colchester has moved past ‘Sweet and Sour Pork balls’ and ‘Egg Fried Rice’ to feature delicacies including Cantonese Dim Sum (which translated means ‘touch the heart’) with my favourites like ‘Chicken Feet in Black Bean Sauce’, ‘Char Siu Cheung Fun’ and ‘Pork & Prawn Dumplings’ (Siu Mai). Colchester’s  first ‘Chinese ‘ restaurant was ‘The Rice Bowl’, established in 1962. 

Elsewhere in Colchester you can find a version of ‘Malaysian NasiLemak’, and ‘Malaysian Sambal Kangkong’ as well as ‘Sliced Beef in Malaysian Rendang’, and even a fairly decent ‘Char Kuey Teow’ from the North Hill Noodle House. There are a variety of other Southeast Asian foods like Vietnamese ‘Beef Pho’, Indonesian ‘Chicken Laksa’ and  ‘King Prawn Pad Thai’. Aside from those there is ‘Inihaw na Liempo’ (Filipino Chargrilled pork belly slices, served with Jasmine rice, cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices) and ‘Pancit Bihon’ or Filipino rice noodles in an eatery hosting food from The Philippines.

Aside from all those delectable Asian eateries, Colchester presents a host of (Turkish) kebab eateries serving Shish Kofte Kebab, Lamb Shish Kebab and all the usual suspects. There is a Mauritian restaurant serving ‘Red Lentil Soup Aka Dhall Chow Chow’ and Mushroom And Grilled Pepper Curry Aka 'Rougaille De Champignons’. And some Trinidadian Cuisine (serving traditional ‘Curry Fine Beans’ with other dishes including ‘Potato and Pumpkin and Pepper Roti’), as well as African cuisine including ‘Nigerian Red Stew / Sauce with White Rice and Plantain’, ‘Cow foot in a spicy palm oil paste’ and ‘Isi-Ewu’ (spicy goat head delicacy amongst the Igbo people of Nigeria). And not to forget the various places experimenting with all kinds of pizza, including the usual Domino's Pizza, Pizza Express, Papa John’s, White Label Detroit Pizza and one exciting restaurant ‘Cuckoo Dough’, which will whip you up an amazing ‘Everyone’s Favourite’ of harissa lamb and pomegranate pizza (using double fermented sourdough), for lunch.

Since I’ve been back I’m wonderfully impressed by the great variety of cuisines that even a small British town can offer. In the supermarkets there are a multitude of ingredients which you can easily find to create dishes from a wide variety of cuisines, including flavourings such as the Middle Eastern ‘Sumac’, the North African ‘Harissa’ and even South East Asian ‘Galangal paste’. 

Also, around Colchester town, there are a few specialist mini-markets such as the Dhaulagiri Store, Geylanii Stores, Ichina, Feng Huang Oriental Shop, Queen Street Continental Supermarket, Noor Super Market and Yawee Foods selling ‘Continental’, ‘Turkish’, ‘Indian’, ‘African’ and ‘Caribbean’, as well as ‘Chinese’ food stuffs. There are many ingredients and hardware for you to cook tantalising meals for yourselves, and all conveniently found around Colchester.

All in all, it has been a surprise and a great delight too, to discover such a diversity of food and cuisines in my old home town of Colchester; there is much more diversity than I could have hoped to be possible, so much more than there had been when I exited all those years ago.

Kari Ayam; A Review

In' 'Grandma’s Gangsta Chicken Curry and Gangsta Stories from My Sixties' Azly Rahman writes of memories. It is another he, another place, as Rahman reveals mankind's  similarities from across the globe, while simultaneously opening up his culture's dissimilarity to others. This memoir proves to be the creation of an epicurean event with experience of cautious mixing and satiation of the hunger created.

In 'Snippets from my memory palace' the author explains..."Our mind is like a palace, goes the metaphor, and in it lie these rooms, enchanting spaces that we enter through exquisitely designed doors and in which are objects and thoughts we call memories."

As with the wistful poems of a young Muhammad Haji Salleh, one of Malaysia's National Laureates (and fellow Malay), when he too was sequestered abroad, missing his homeland, Azly Rahman, in his fond remembrances of the land which gave him "union,", "birth" and eventual "separation", fosters fond images of that vert, equatorial land made complete within our own individual mind's eyes, and helps his reader "get high" with thanks to the author's carefully crafted narrative.

Malaysia tugs at my heart strings too. After spending fifteen years writing there and, at present, unable to return, my mind too drifts back to halcyon days of my own retrospective illusions, engendering an empathy with writer Azly Rahman and his recollections of "Ais Kachang" "Cendol" and, of course  'Kari Ayam' (Chicken Curry) "Gangsta" or otherwise, but not the stink, unless you include 'Petai' (Stink Beans) or 'durian' (king of fruits).

I only came to know Malaysia (and its kampongs in Kedah and Perak), later than the author (early 1970s), a decade later, on my first journey to Malaysia, in 1981. I doubt whether village life would have changed that much in that time as I witnessed many of the things the author talks about, in Sungai Petani, Kedah.

Strong images spring from this celebratory meal of a book, from recalling P. Ramlee who, through film, epitomized Malaysian everyman, and LAT who lampooned and cartooned for the local worthy paper The New Straits Times (NST).

The jumping from Malaysia to America, explaining the culture clash is interesting as the book is tailored more to a US audience than, say, a British one. And that is entirely understandable, as are the cultural comparisons and explanations of the differences. It is never going to be easy explaining what is heartfelt and soul deep, to others. Yet this book, quite heroically  attempts just that. 

Overall, having fed upon (the book) ''Grandma’s Gangsta Chicken Curry and Gangsta Stories from My Sixties' the reader will have ultimately gained an inkling into Rahman's recollections and explanations. They will have experienced the taste(s) of Malaysia and gained a soupcon of insight into both the author and the tropical place of his birth.

Azly Rahman's memoir is a gastronomic platter of short stories, poems and short form extracts of memory, giving samples of another cultural reality. One can only hope that he is able to expand upon these tasters for those whose appetites are surely whetted by this book's Pages.

The Blue Lotus magazine Youtube Video

 

https://youtu.be/zkGs5MYdUIs

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGs5MYdUIs

YouTube Video

 

Mai Trung Thu

LA JEUNE FILLE DE HUÉ

 

Mai Trung Thu, one of Vietnam’s founding modern artists, was born in 1906, in Do Nha village, An Duong District, Kien An Province (Tan Tien commune, An Duong District, Hai Phong), (North) Vietnam. He first studied traditional Vietnamese art and craft (such as cabinet making, pottery, embroidery, inlay work etc.) at Hanoi’s ‘Professional School in Hanoi’ (founded by the French in 1902) then, later, underwent the very first entrance examination to study at the newly opened (1925) Indochina Art School (Ecole des Beaux- Arts de l'Indochine). This school of art was one treasure that colonial France gave to colonised Vietnam, with French artist teachers and workshops organised by Vietnamese artisans. Nadine Andre-Pallois in her excellent article ‘The Ecole des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine: A Striking Shift in Vietnamese Art’, (when talking about the founding of art schools in Vietnam), reminds us that…

 

“In the first instance, there were schools for applied arts where the teachers were French and Indochinese and where the teaching look into consideration regional traditions Since 1902, the ‘Professional School in Hanoi’ has trained artisans in skills such as cabinet making, pottery, embroidery and inlay work. Some of the students like Le Pho and Mai Trung Thu who trained there later joined the Ecole des Beaux- Arts de l'Indochine and became famous in their own right. Teachers were French, but the workshops were organised by Vietnamese artisans. Gustave Hierholtz, a French sculptor, was director from 1919 to 1930.”

 

While Gustave Hierholtz, a French sculptor, was director of the ‘Professional School in Hanoi’, Victor Tardieu was the founder and first director of the Indochina Art School (Ecole des Beaux- Arts de l'Indochine), with assistance from local painter, and former student at Paris’ Ecole des Beaux –Arts, Nam Son.

 

As Nora Taylor (Crossroads 11:2) has attested, it was in the French colonial time (late 1880s to 1954) that Vietnam saw its “...modern art tradition beginning.” The founding of the Indochina Art School (Ecole des Beaux- Arts de l'Indochine, was a great leap forward for the arts in Vietnam, away from the traditional and the Chinese styles arts (mostly calligraphy) and the Vietnamese craft centered arts, and into a bright ‘modern’ future. The gaining of knowledge concerning western ‘Modernism’ was not, as you might suspect, a mere imposition of western values onto unwitting recipients cloistered in what the French had name ‘Indochina’, but a truly revelatory experience for young artists in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, enabling those artists to grow into their own unique styles while remembering their homelands.

 

Nadine Andre-Pallois mentions that…

 

“The curriculum was supposed to combine Western art with Far-Eastern traditions. The teaching was close to that of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts in Paris. Topics taught there included life drawing, linear perspective, open-air painting, and oil painting……..In addition, there were classes on the history of art and techniques specific to the Far East, such as silk painting and lacquer painting.”

   

Mai Trung Thu graduated from the Ecole des Beaux- Arts de l'Indochine’, in 1930 and became adept at painting with gouache and ink on silk, as well as oil on canvas. He proceeded to teach at the Hue’ National School (Lycée Français d Hue’), Hanoï in 1931. It was in 1937, before Mai Trung Thu left for Vietnam to live in Paris, that he painted ‘La Jeune Fille De Hue’, (‘The Young Hue Girl’) an oil on canvas. A Christies ‘lot essay’ for that painting (by Jean-Francois Hubert) suggests that the painting’s subject was Mai Trung Thu’s student at Hue’. There is the merest of hints of his fondness for this student (though nothing untoward happened) in the back story, with Mai Trung Thu returning to Vietnam in 1962 to look for her and, finding her, became disillusioned by her being married and with a large family.

 

In the 1937 of Paris, France, Mai Trung Thu entered the ‘International Exhibition of Decorative Arts’ and, later that year, both Mai Trung Thu and Le Pho left Vietnam to exhibit in various countries (Italia, Belgium, USA and France) before finally settling in France joining Vu Cao Dam who had arrived in 1931 and, later, joined by Le Thi Luu (1940).

 

While in Paris Mai Trung Thu participated in annual exhibitions such as the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d'Automne (from 1938 to 1940), in 1941 he exhibited with Le Pho, in Algeria (1941), and then underwent military service in Mâcon, France. With assistance from Mâcon’s notable Combaud family, Mai Trung Thu was commissioned to paint portraits for members of Mâconnaise society. He was also commissioned to decorate the memorial chapel in Mâcon’s Saint-Pierre church, and (returned to Paris in 1944.

 

Mai Trung Thu, who spent the greater part of his life living in France, became a film maker and made a documentary concerning Ho Chi Min’s visit to Paris, and another documentary of his own work. During the 1950s, with professional representation by Jean-Françoise Apesteguy, Mai Trung Thu’s fame began to grow and has been growing ever since. In 1974, he visited Vietnam again.

 

Mai Trung Thu has chiefly been known for his practically illustrative images of Vietnamese women and families, sometimes gouache, on silk, and occasionally oil on canvas. To some these images might represent a form of Asian kitsch; to others they represent the artist’s longing both for tradition and for his homeland, using knowledge gleaned from the west but using styles more familiar to the east. Mai Trung Thu’s background in Chinese imagery, and the traditions of Vietnam are given form and substance by his training in western modern art and filtered through memory and expectations of a Vietnamese artist living in Paris.

 

 Mai Trung Thu died in 1980 of a heart attack, aged seventy four, and is buried in the cemetery of Vanves commune (southwestern suburbs) Hauts de Seine, Paris France.

 

Both Le Pho (1907–2001) who’s painting ‘Les deux enfants et les roses’ (an Oil on canvas) recently sold for $50,000.00 in 2018, and Mai Trung Thu who’s 1930 "Portrait de Mademoiselle Phuong" sold for US$3.1 million this year (2021) have gained world recognition since their days at the first intake at Vietnam’s first school of art – ‘Ecole des Beaux- Arts de l'Indochine’.