TRAVEL TUESDAY 531 - OLD CITY, SHANGHAI, CHINA

"There is something in Shanghai that is very exciting and alive - the idea of a city with two different souls, one from today and another from a long time ago, is amazing." - Alessandro Michele.

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The Old City of Shanghai (Chinese: 上海老城厢; pinyin: Shànghǎi Lǎo Chéngxiāng; Shanghainese: Zånhae Lo Zenshian), also formerly known as the Chinese city, is the traditional urban core of Shanghai. Its boundary was formerly defined by a defensive wall. The Old City was the county seat for the old county of Shanghai.

With the advent of foreign concessions in Shanghai, the Old City became just one part of Shanghai's urban core, but continued for decades to be the seat of the Chinese authority in Shanghai. Notable features include the City God Temple, which is located in the centre of the Old City and is connected to the Yuyuan Garden.

With the exception of two short sections, the walls were demolished in 1912, and a broad circular avenue built over the former wall and moat: the southern half was named the "Zhonghua Road" and the northern half the "Minguo Road" (together making up "Zhonghua Minguo", or "Republic of China" in Chinese). The Old City was for decades essentially coterminous with the old Nanshi District, which is now part of Huangpu District.

Yu Garden or Yuyuan Garden (traditional Chinese: 豫園; simplified Chinese: 豫园; pinyin: Yù Yuán, Shanghainese Yuyoe Wu, lit. Garden of Happiness) is an extensive Chinese garden, first built in 1559, and  located beside the City God Temple in the northeast of the Old City of Shanghai at Huangpu District, Shanghai. It abuts the Yuyuan Tourist Mart, the Huxinting Teahouse and the Yu Garden Bazaar.  Boasting over 40 scenic spots, including pavilions, rock formations, and ponds, it is now a key site under state-level protection.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 530 - YANGSHUO, CHINA

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” - Laozi

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Yangshuo County (simplified Chinese: 阳朔县; pinyin: Yángshuò Xiàn) is a county under the jurisdiction of Guilin City, in the northeast of Guangxi, China. Its seat is located in the town of Yangshuo. Surrounded by karst peaks and bordered on one side by the Li River, it is served by bus and by boat from nearby Guilin.

The area has been inhabited for about 3,000 years. In 590 CE, under Emperor Wen of Sui, Yangshuo County was incorporated. At the time, the county hosted a street 5 metres wide, and 200 metres long that would become contemporary West Street.

Yangshuo County would briefly fall under Japanese occupation in 1944, and Imperial Japanese troops looted many prominent local businesses in the county during that time. By the 1970s, domestic tourism in Yangshuo County was commonplace, and the government made efforts to open up the county to foreign tourists, including European and American tourists.

Tourism is a major component of Yangshuo County's economy. West Street serves as a major local focal point for tourism, receiving over 21.1 million tourists in 2023, and is lined with various tourist-oriented shops and restaurants. Due to the county's popularity with foreign tourists, including those who speak English, the county has a sizable English language learning industry.

Yangshuo offers spectacularly beautiful scenery, particularly along the hill-lined Li River, which you can tour by cruise boat or, if you’re feeling more confident, by bamboo raft. Streets in Yangshuo are kept in their original style, preserving the layout of the ancient city. savoury local specialties like beer fish and shatian shaddocks are served on West Street, one of the town's liveliest thoroughfares. Kids will adore the local butterfly cave.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 529 - GUILIN, CHINA

“To have friends come to visit from afar is happiness, is it not?” - Confucius

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Guilin (Standard Zhuang: Gveilinz), formerly romanized as Kweilin, is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is situated on the west bank of the Li River and borders Hunan to the north. Its name means "forest of sweet osmanthus", owing to the large number of fragrant sweet osmanthus trees located in the region.

The city has long been renowned for its scenery of karst topography. Guilin is one of China's most popular tourist destinations, and the epithet "By water, by mountains, most lovely, Guilin" (山水甲天下) is often associated with the city. The State Council of China has designated Guilin a National Famous Historical and Cultural City, doing so in the first edition of the list.

According to the 2020 Chinese census, its population was 4,931,137 inhabitants, and 2,148,641 lived in the built-up (or metro) area. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the largest ethnic group in the prefecture-level city was Han Chinese, accounting for 84.53% of the total population. This was followed by Yao at 7.79% and Zhuang at 4.81%. Citizens of Guilin's urban area speak a dialect of Mandarin, while Pinghua is predominantly spoken in suburbs and surrounding areas.

The Sun and Moon Pagodas (Chinese: 日月双塔; pinyin: Rìyuè Shuāngtǎ) are twin pagodas located in Guilin, Guangxi, China. Originally built in the city moat of Guilin during the Tang dynasty, the pagodas were reconstructed in 2001 using historical records as the centerpiece of Riyue Shuangta Cultural Park—a park themed around the unity of Buddhism.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 510 - BADAIN JARAN DESERT, CHINA

“I had to live in the desert before I could understand the full value of grass in a green ditch.” - Ella Maillart

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The Badain Jaran Desert (Chinese: 巴丹吉林沙漠; pinyin: Bādānjílín Shāmò) is a desert in China which spans the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. It covers an area of 49,000 square kilometers. By size it is the third largest desert in China. This desert is home to some of the tallest stationary dunes on Earth, with some reaching a height of more than 500 meters, although most average at around 200 meters. Its tallest dune is also measured, from base to peak, as the world's third tallest dune and highest stationary dune in the world.
The desert also features over 100 spring-fed lakes that lie between the dunes, some of which are fresh water while others are extremely saline. These lakes give the desert its name which is Mongolian for "mysterious lakes". These lakes are not completely studied and high pH lakes harbour extremely interesting animal communities. It is also crossed by one river, the Ruo Shui ("weak water"), which has formed an alluvial plain in the desert.
The Badain Jaran megadunes is one of the few places where the singing sand phenomenon occurs, in which the sand emits a sharp, loud noise that can be maintained for more than a minute. Although it is not fully understood, it is believed that it is caused by an electrostatic charge that is generated as wind pulls the top layers of sand down a dune slope. This will produce a low pitched rumble that can reach over 105 decibels. The "singing" starts with an avalanche of sand down the leeward face of a large dune.

On July 27 2025 China's Badain Jaran Desert - Towers of Sand and Lakes, successfully passed the review process to be included on the World Heritage List by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 472 - MACAU, CHINA

“Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.” - Wilson Mizner

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Macau or Macao is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China. With a population of about 710,000 people and a land area of 32.9 km2, it is the most densely populated region in the world. Formerly a Portuguese colony, the territory of Portuguese Macau was first leased to Portugal by the Ming dynasty as a trading post in 1557.

Portugal paid an annual rent and administered the territory under Chinese sovereignty until 1887. Portugal later gained perpetual colonial rights in the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking. The colony remained under Portuguese rule until the 1999 handover to China. Macau is a special administrative region of China, which maintains separate governing and economic systems from those of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems". The unique blend of Portuguese and Chinese architecture in the city's historic centre has resulted in its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005.

Originally a sparsely populated collection of coastal islands, Macau, often referred to as the "Las Vegas of the East", since the late 20th century has become a major resort city and a top destination for gambling tourism. Its gambling industry is seven times larger than that of Las Vegas.

The city has one of the highest GDPs per capita and GDPs per capita by purchasing power parity in the world. It has a very high Human Development Index of 0.925, as calculated by the Government of Macau, and the fourth-highest life expectancy in the world. The territory is highly urbanised, holding the status of the most densely populated territory on Earth; two-thirds of the total land area is built on land reclaimed from the sea.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 471 - HUAJIANG CANYON BRIDGE, CHINA

“What I do is the opposite of building walls. I build bridges. A bridge is something that connects instead of separating.” - Santiago Calatrava

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The Huajiang Canyon Bridge (Chinese: 花江峡谷大桥), is a suspension bridge under construction in Guizhou province, China. The bridge crosses the Beipan River as it passes through the deep Huajiang Canyon. Upon completion, it will be the world's highest bridge, measuring 625 metres from the bridge deck to the bottom of the gorge. It will surpass the current highest bridge, the Duge Bridge, which crosses the same river 200 kilometres upstream. The completed bridge is expected to be open in June 2025.

Among the reasons for the construction of the bridge were: the revitalisation of a very rural region, and the promotion of tourism, with the projected creation of a centre for extreme sports at the bottom of the canyon. The canyon crossing time, which is currently 70 minutes, will be reduced to just over one minute.

The construction began in 2021. In April 2023, the first tower of the suspended part reached 199 metres in height and the construction of the upper transverse beam has begun. The inauguration is planned for 2025. The bridge will have a total length of 2,890 metres, including a main span of 1,420 metres. It is supported by two main 262-metre tall towers. As a result, the difference in altitude between the future deck and the water level of the river reaches 625 metres, which would constitute a world record.

It has been divulged that the total cost of this bridge is ≈ $300,000,000 USD and it is projected that the project will be completed within the constraints of the budget!

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 470 - CHONGQING, CHINA

“When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will transform itself.” - Deng Xiaoping

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Chongqing is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the Central People's Government, along with Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. It is the only directly administrated municipality located deep inland. The municipality covers a large geographical area roughly the size of Austria, which includes several disjunct urban areas in addition to Chongqing proper.

Due to its classification, the municipality of Chongqing is the largest city proper in the world by population, though Chongqing is not the most populous urban area. The municipality of Chongqing is the only Chinese municipality with a resident population of over 30 million; however, this number includes its large rural population. In 2020, Chongqing surpassed Shanghai as China's largest municipality by urban population; as of 2022, it has an urban population of 22.8 million.

The municipality contains 26 districts, 8 counties, and 4 autonomous counties. The city served as the wartime capital for the Republic of China (ROC) during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). On 14 March 1997, the current municipality was separated from the surrounding province of Sichuan, with the goal of furthering development in the central and western parts of the country. University of Washington professor Kam Wing Chan argued that Chongqing's status is more akin to that of a province rather than a city.

As one of China's National Central Cities, Chongqing serves as a centre for finance in the Sichuan Basin and the upstream Yangtze, as well as for manufacturing and transportation. It is a connection in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and a base for the country's Belt and Road Initiative. It is one of the top 40 cities globally by scientific research output, as tracked by the Nature Index; the municipality is home to several notable universities, including Chongqing University, Southwest University, and Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 298 - MACAU, CHINA

“Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. It's getting money without giving an equivalent for it.” - Henry Ward Beecher

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Macau (Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China), is an autonomous territory on the western side of the Pearl River estuary in East Asia. Macau is bordered by the city of Zhuhai in Mainland China to the north and the Pearl River Delta to the east and south. Hong Kong lies about 64 kilometres to its east across the Delta. With a population of 650,900 living in an area of 30.5 km2, it is the most densely populated region in the world.

A former Portuguese colony, it was returned to Chinese sovereignty on 20 December 1999. Macau was administered by the Portuguese Empire and its inheritor states from the mid-16th century until late 1999, when it constituted the last remaining European colony in Asia. Portuguese traders first settled in Macau in the 1550s. In 1557, Macau was leased to Portugal from Ming China as a trading port. The Portuguese Empire administered the city under Chinese authority and sovereignty until 1887, when Macau became a colony through a mutual agreement between the two countries.

Sovereignty over Macau was transferred back to China on 20 December 1999. The Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau and Macau Basic Law stipulate that Macau operate with a high degree of autonomy until at least 2049, fifty years after the transfer.  Under the policy of “one country, two systems”, the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China is responsible for military defence and foreign affairs while Macau maintains its own legal system, public security force, monetary system, customs policy and immigration policy. Macau participates in international organisations and events that do not require members to possess national sovereignty.

Macau is a resort city in Southern China, known for its casinos and luxury hotels. Its gaming revenue has been the world’s largest since 2006, with the economy heavily dependent on gaming and tourism. According to The World Factbook, Macau has the fourth highest life expectancy in the world. Moreover, it has a very high Human Development Index, ranking 18th in the world as of 2014. Macau is among the world’s richest regions and its GDP per capita by purchasing power parity was higher than that of any country in the world, according to the World Bank.  It is widely known as the pre-eminent gambling (or gaming) capital of the world, greatly dwarfing other gambling centres/cities (2016 Gross Gaming Revenue, for Las Vegas was $11.1 billion, while for Macau was $28 billion).

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 204 - GUANGZHOU, CHINA

“I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.” - W. H. Auden 

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Guangzhou (simplified Chinese: 广州; traditional Chinese: 廣州), traditionally romanised as Canton, is the capital and most populous city of the province of Guangdong in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about 120 km north-northwest of Hong Kong and 145 km north of Macau, Guangzhou has a history of over 2,200 years and was a major terminus of the maritime Silk Road and continues to serve as a major port and transportation hub today.

Guangzhou is situated at the heart of the most-populous built-up metropolitan area in mainland China, an area that extends into the neighbouring cities of Foshan, Dongguan, and Shenzhen, forming one of the largest urban agglomerations on the planet. Administratively, the city holds sub-provincial status; and is one of China's five National Central Cities. In 2015 the city's administrative area was estimated to have a population of 13,501,100. Guangzhou is ranked as an Alpha- Global city.

In recent years, there has been a rapidly increasing number of foreign residents and immigrants from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and especially from Africa. This has led to it being dubbed the "Capital of the Third World". The migrant population from other provinces of China in Guangzhou was 40 percent of the city's total population in 2008. Together with Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, Guangzhou has one of the most expensive real estate markets in China.

Guangzhou has a comparatively recent history of two centuries related to its importance for foreign trade. Long the only Chinese port accessible to foreign traders, the city fell to the British during the First Opium War. No longer enjoying a monopoly after the war, it lost trade to other ports such as Hong Kong (which is close by) and Shanghai, but continued to serve as a major entrepôt. In modern commerce, Guangzhou is best known for its annual Canton Fair, the oldest and largest trade fair in China. For the three consecutive years 2013–2015, Forbes ranked Guangzhou as the best commercial city on the Chinese mainland.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY #165 - HONG KONG

“Life in Hong Kong transcends cultural and culinary borders, such that nothing is truly foreign and nothing doesn’t belong.” – Peter Jon Lindberg 

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Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the eastern side of the Pearl River estuary in East Asia, south of the mainland Chinese province of Guangdong, and east of the former Portuguese colony and fellow special administrative region of Macau. With around 7.3 million Hongkongers of various nationalities in a territory of 1,104 km2, Hong Kong is the fourth-most densely populated region in the world.

Hong Kong was formerly a colony of the British Empire, after the perpetual cession of Hong Kong Island from Qing China at the conclusion of the First Opium War in 1842. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860, and further acquired a 99-year lease of the New Territories from 1898. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during the Second World War, until British control resumed in 1945. The territory was returned to China under the framework of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed by the United Kingdom and China in 1984 and marked with the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, when it became a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.

Under the principle of "one country, two systems", Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system apart from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong retains independent executive, legislative, and judiciary powers. Nevertheless, Hong Kong does directly develop relations with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of "appropriate fields", being actively and independently involved in institutions such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the World Trade Organization.

Hong Kong is one of the world's most significant financial centres, holding the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranking as the world's most competitive and freest economic areas. As the seventh-largest trading entity in the world, its legal tender, the Hong Kong dollar, is the 13th-most traded currency. Hong Kong's tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by competitive simple taxation and supported by its independent judiciary system.

Although the city boasts one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, it suffers from severe income inequality. Hong Kong features the most skyscrapers in the world, surrounding Victoria Harbour, which lies in the centre of the city's dense urban region. It has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the world's longest life expectancy. Over 90% of its population makes use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring industrial areas of mainland China, which adopts loose emissions standards, has resulted in a high level of atmospheric particulates in winter.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY #113 - BEIJING, CHINA

“Once I became interested in China, I flew to Beijing in 1996 to spend half a year studying Mandarin. The city stunned me.” - Evan Osnos 

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Beijing (Mandarin: [pèi.tɕíŋ]), formerly romanised as Peking, is the capital of the People’s Republic of China and the world’s second most populous city proper and most populous capital city. The city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighbouring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast; together the three divisions form the Jingjinji metropolitan region and the national capital region of China. 

As a city combining both modern and traditional architecture, Beijing is a megacity rich in history, exemplified in its global influence in politics, economy, education, history, culture, and technology. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by urban population after Shanghai and is the nation's political, cultural, and educational centre. It is home to the headquarters of most of China’s largest state-owned companies and is a major hub for the national highway, expressway, railway, and high-speed rail networks. The Beijing Capital International Airport has been the second busiest in the world by passenger traffic since 2010, and, as of 2016, the city’s subway network is the busiest and second longest in the world, after Shanghai’s subway system. 

The city’s history dates back three millennia. As the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. With mountains surrounding the inland city on three sides, in addition to the old inner and outer city walls, Beijing was strategically poised and developed to be the residence of the emperor and thus was the perfect location for the imperial capital. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A.D. (about 25 million people). 

The city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture and art in China. Encyclopædia Britannica notes that “few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China.” Beijing has seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites – the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Ming Tombs, Zhoukoudian, as well as parts of the Great Wall and the Grand Canal, all popular locations for tourism. 

Siheyuans, the city’s traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, making it the first city to ever host both Winter and Summer Olympics. Many of Beijing’s 91 universities  consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities of the world. 

In 2015, 52 companies of the Fortune Global 500 company headquarters were located in Beijing, more than any other city in the world, including state-owned enterprises State Grid, China National Petroleum, and Sinopec Group, ranked 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, respectively. Beijing CBD is quickly becoming the centre for Beijing’s economic expansion, rapid modernisation, and radically changing skyline, with the ongoing or recently completed construction of multiple skyscrapers. 

Beijing’s Zhongguancun area is also known as China’s Silicon Valley and China’s centre of innovation and technology entrepreneurship. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory “Personal Finance Index”, a measure of expats’ salaries versus cost of living in the city. Expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi.

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FOOD FRIDAY - CHINESE VEG STIR-FRY

“He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skills of the physician.” - Chinese proverb 

We love vegetables and as Chinese cuisine provides opportunity for using several bits and pieces that are in the fridge, a vegetarian stir-fry provides a nutritious, healthful and satisfying meal. 

Chinese Vegetarian Stir-Fry

Ingredients

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp sesame oil

1 and1⁄2 cups broccoli florets

1 Tbsp water

1 cup baby carrots, julienned

1 and 1⁄2 cups snow peas, ends trimmed

6 fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced

1⁄2 cup sliced water chestnuts, drained

1⁄2 cup sliced capsicum

1 clove garlic, minced

2 Spring onions, chopped

1 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder

3 Tbsp soy sauce

3 Tbsp vegetable stock

1 tsp corn flour

 2 cups hot cooked rice or vermicelli 

Method

Cook the rice or vermicelli and keep warm. In small bowl, combine the soy sauce, broth and corn flour; mix well to dissolve, reserving till needed.

Heat the oils in the wok and add the broccoli, stirring to coat with oil. Add the water and stir-fry for 1 minute or until broccoli is bright green. Add carrots, snow peas, mushrooms, water chestnuts, garlic and spices; stir-fry for 1 to 2 minutes or until tender crisp, the add the chpped Spring onions, stirring to mix through. Add the corn flour mixture to the wok and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Serve over rice or vermicelli immediately.

ALL ABOUT CHINESE 5-SPICE MIX

“Spices, of course, are essential…” - Marcus Samuelsson 

Five-spice powder is a spice mixture of five (or more) spices used primarily in Chinese cuisine or Desi Chinese cuisine but also used in other Asian and Arabic cookery. Five-spice powder is used for cocktails as well.

While there are many variants, a common mix is: Star anise (bajiao) Cloves (dingxiang) Chinese cinnamon (rougui) Sichuan pepper (huajiao) Fennel seeds (xiao huixiang) Other recipes may contain anise seed, ginger root, nutmeg, turmeric, Amomum villosum pods, Amomum cardamomum pods, licorice, Mandarin orange peel or galangal.

In Southern China, Cinnamomum loureiroi and Mandarin orange peel, are commonly used as substitutes for Cinnamomum cassia and cloves, respectively, producing a slightly different flavour profile for southern five-spice powders.

Five spice may be used with fatty meats such as pork, duck or goose. It is used as a spice rub for chicken, duck, pork and seafood, in red cooking recipes, or added to the breading for fried foods. Five spice is used in recipes for Cantonese roasted duck, as well as beef stew. It is used as a marinade for Vietnamese broiled chicken. The five-spice powder mixture has followed the Chinese diaspora and has been incorporated into other national cuisines throughout Asia.

Although this mixture is used in restaurant cooking, few Chinese households use it in day-to-day cooking. In Hawaii, some restaurants place a shaker of the spice on each patron’s table. A seasoned salt can be easily made by dry-roasting common salt with five-spice powder under low heat in a dry pan until the spice and salt are well mixed.

Here is a recipe I use at home: 

Chinese Spices Mix
Ingredients
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon fennel seed, toasted and ground
1 teaspoon ground star anise
1 teaspoon black peppercorns, toasted and ground
1 teaspoon dried ginger powder
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
pinch of ground cardamom
pinch of ground chili

Method
It is best to toast the spices just as you are ready to compound the mixture. Ensure that all spices are ground well and mix thoroughly before use. You can upscale the recipe if you need more. Rather than store it, I prefer to make it as I need it from the raw spices.

MUSIC SATURDAY - TEODORICO PEDRINI

“The Kangxi Emperor also used to write music notes, and let me review, giving me his own pen, he made me write on his desk, and we often played together the same harpsichord, each with one hand” - Teodorico Pedrini’s letter of 1727 

Teodorico Pedrini, C.M. (June 30, 1671 – December 10, 1746), was an Italian Vincentian priest, musician and composer, but mainly missionary for 36 years at the Imperial Court of China. Pedrini was born in Fermo, in the Marche, then part of the Papal States. He was the founder of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Beijing (西堂). He was the music teacher to three sons of the Qing Dynasty’s Kangxi Emperor, he was co-author of the first treatise on Western Music theory ever written in Chinese: the LǜlǚZhèngyì-Xùbiān, later included in the Siku Quanshu. His Chinese name was 德理格 – Dé Lĭgé.

He was baptised Paolo Filippo Teodorico Pedrini on July 6, 1671, in the parish church of St. Michael the Archangel, in Fermo in the Marche. His father, Giovanni Francesco Pedrini, who had been born in Servigliano on February 5, 1630, had worked as notary in his native town for two years from 1654 to 1656, before going to Rome for ten years, as Chancellor for the Auditor Camerae. He then became the most important notary in Fermo, from 1669 to his death in 1707. Teodorico’s mother was Nicolosa Piccioni, born in Fermo on March 14, 1650, daughter of another notary, Giovanni Francesco Piccioni, from Altidona.

Teodorico received his clerical tonsure in 1687, and the minor orders in Fermo in 1690. He attended the University in Fermo, graduating in Utroque Iure on June 26, 1692. From November 16, 1692 to August 7, 1697 he lived in the Collegio Piceno in Rome. In this period he joined the Academy of Arcadia in 1696, where he received the name of Dioro Taumasio. On December 21, 1697 he received the Subdiaconate; on February 23, 1698 he joined the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul (known as the Vincentians or Lazarists), in March 1698 he was ordained a deacon and two weeks later (on the Easter night of 1698) presbyter, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. In June 1698 he entered the Lazarist house of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Rome, where he remained until January 1702, when he was sent to China, as a missionary of the Propaganda Fide, after meeting Pope Clement XI.

Pedrini’s journey to China was very long, at first following the Via Francigena to Livorno, then by ship to Toulon, and then Paris, where the Nuncio was Filippo Antonio Gualterio, also born in Fermo. Although selected as a member of the first papal legation of Patriarch Carlo Tommaso Maillard de Tournon, who had already left from Spain to the Canary Islands, Pedrini never managed to join him, and, after waiting a year and a half, sailed from Saint Malo with other missionaries, on December 26, 1703, on a French ship heading to South America. The ship landed in Peru December 31, 1704, and stayed there for more than one year. In 1705 he arrived in Mexico but only in March 1707 did he manage to sail from Acapulco, on a Manila galleon.

After reaching the Mariana Islands, Pedrini arrived in the Philippines, where he stayed for almost two years. In Mariveles he joined five other missionaries of the Propaganda Fide, among whom was Matteo Ripa (who later founded the Chinese College in Neaples, now Università degli studi di Napoli L’Orientale), and together they reached Macau in January 1710. Here they met Cardinal Tournon, who recommended Pedrini as a musician at court, in answer to a request from Kangxi himself. After assisting him on his death-bed on June 8, 1710, they set off for Beijing, where they finally arrived on February 6, 1711.

Being, along with Matteo Ripa, the first non-Jesuit missionaries to settle at the Chinese court, 100 years after Matteo Ricci’s death, in 1714 Pedrini spoke with the Kangxi Emperor about the Pope’s decisions over the Chinese Rites, so he could send back to Rome the emperor’s peaceful reactions on the matter. His reports to Rome met the negative reaction of the Jesuits, who strongly opposed the Decrees. This contrast marked all his missionary life, and led him to the dramatic events of 1721 when, at the end of the second Legation of the Patriarch Carlo Ambrogio Mezzabarba, he refused to sign the final document called Mandarin’s Diary, and was imprisoned in the residence of the French Jesuits in Beijing until 1723. The Yongzheng Emperor set him free in February 1723 but the whole fact caused the bitter polemics in Rome in the following years until 1730, which anticipated the final condemnation of the Chinese Rites, with the papal Bull Ex Quo Singulari in 1742.

In 1723 Pedrini bought the residence at the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Beijing (popularly called Xitang or “Western Church”), where he established the first non-Jesuit Church in Beijing. Towards the end of his life Pedrini reconciled himself with the Jesuit missionaries, without denying his faithfulness to the Holy See, which had brought him so many problems in all his life, especially from 1714 to 1721. Pedrini died during the night of December 10, 1746, in his house at the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel without ever returning to Italy, and was buried in the cemetery of Propaganda Fide, at the expenses of the Qianlong Emperor. Pedrini’s gravestone, visible till the first part of last century in the wall of the All Saints Church, does not exist anymore.

Besides being a priest, Pedrini was also a musician. This competence helped him first to be admitted to the court of the Chinese emperors and then to gain the favour of three successive emperors, ruling during his lifetime – the Kangxi Emperor (1662–1722), the Yongzheng Emperor (1722–1735) and the Qianlong Emperor (1735–1796). As a musician, Pedrini was the teacher of three sons of the Kangxi Emperor, and he constructed musical instruments and mended those present at court.

In addition, carrying on with the work of his predecessor, the Portuguese Jesuit Tomas Pereira, Pedrini completed the text of the first treatise on Western music theory ever published in China, the LǜlǚZhèngyì-Xùbiān, which was later included in the huge encyclopaedic work called Siku Quanshu (1781). With this work Pedrini asserted himself as one of the main figures in the introduction of western music in China. Furthermore, Pedrini is the author of the only Western Baroque music compositions known in China in the 18th century: The Dodici Sonate a Violino Solo col Basso del Nepridi – Opera Terza whose original manuscript is still preserved in the National Library of Běijīng.

Here are some of his representative pieces, as they may have been performed in Chinese Court of his time, performed by Musique des Lumières XVIII-21.

1. Premier divertissement chinois
2. Sonata No. 1 for violin & continuo in A major (Adagio; Allegro; Largo; Adagio; Allegro)
3. Premier divertissement chinois
4. Sonata No. 7 for flute & continuo in B flat major (Grave; Vivace; Adagio; Balletto Allegro; Allegro)
5. Troisième divertissement chinois
6. Sonata No. 4 for cello & continuo in G minor (Grave; Cantabile; Allegro; Grave e Arcate Lunghe; Allegro)
7. Deuxième divertissement chinois
8. Sonata No. 10 for violin & continuo in C minor (Preludio; Corrente Andante; Grave; Sarabanda Vivace; Minuetto Allegro; Adagio; Giga Allegro)
9. Troisième divertissement chinois
10. Sonata No. 5 for flute & continuo in G major (Largo; Allegro; Vivace; Allegro; Adagio; Allegro).

HAUNTED BY LOVE

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.” - Henry DavidThoreau

Today I give you a poem that I have based on a short verse by Chinese poet Ping Hsin, which I have recast in the form of a septet (3, 5, 7, 9, 7, 5, 3 syllables):

Chinese Septet

To escape
From thoughts of my love
I run, haunted, from my room.
Outside, the silver moon makes snow gleam -
But gnarled twigs throw shadows on
Shining snow, spelling:
Love, love, love…

After Ping Hsin

Ping Hsin was born in 1902 in Fuchien, the daughter of a naval officer. Ping Hsin’s real name is Hsieh Wang’ying, and her nom-de-plume “Ping Hsin” means “Ice Heart”. She was educated both in her father’s library and later in Peking. She graduated from Yenching University in 1923 and during 1923 -1926 attended Wellesley College where she obtained her her MA. She returned to teach at Yenching. In 1951 she and her husband Wu Wen-tsao, a sociologist, returned to the mainland, where until the Cultural Revolution in 1964 she was active in many literary organisations. Fond of Tagore, she wrote “” (1921), which she claimed was not poetry.  Although she also claimed in 1931 that she did not understand “modern poetry” her publications launched her as a leading modern Chinese poet.