RAS WEEKENDER LECTURE
Saturday 13TH November, 2010 at 4.00pm
The PuLi Hotel and Spa, 1 ChangDe Road, JingAn District
Breaker Point, 1932: Life and death in the shadow of a Chinese lighthouse
PROFESSOR ROBERT BICKERS
In February 1932, two foreign lighthouse keepers were taken from the Breaker Point lighthouse at Shabeishan, near Shantou, by Communist guerilla fighters. They never returned. This talk explores the background to this odd affair, which was ostensibly an act of dramatic political theatre: the building of the large network of lighthouses on the China Coast by the British-led Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and the complex relations between foreign nationals at each lighthouse, Chinese employees, and local communities. Newly-accessible archives now allow us to better understand the murky circumstances which actually lay behind the kidnapping at Breaker Point and to follow the course of events that otherwise barely survive in the written record.
Robert Bickers is the author of Empire Made Me: an Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (Penguin), and directs the Historical Photographs of China project [http://chp.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/]. A Professor of History at Bristol University, and Co-Director of the British Inter-university China Centre, his new book The Scramble for China: Foreign devils in the Qing empire, 1832-1914_ will be published in February next year.
ENTRANCE: RMB 30.00 Members RMB 80.00 Non Members –
Membership applications and renewals will be available on the afternoon. Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption.
RSVP: to RAS Enquiry desk