Here are the highlights from the final Tales of Asia talk, featuring cities of the British Empire – Rangoon, Penang and Singapore.
The full talk to follow.
Tales of Asia V – Rangoon (Yangon), Penang & Singapore HIGHLIGHTS
Reply
Tag Archives: Travel
Tales of Asia IV – Saigon (HCMC) and Hanoi HIGHLIGHTS
Highlights from the fourth Tales of Asia talk on Saigon and Hanoi, at the Marine Parade Public Library, Singapore on 8 November 2015 are here.
Full talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df5t70mbXaA&feature=youtu.be
Tales of Asia IV – Saigon (HCMC) & Hanoi, 8 Nov, Sunday, 2 – 3 pm, Marine Parade Public Library
Rue Catinat in the 1930s, with the Hotel Continental at right.
Part IV of Tales of Asia features the cities of Saigon (today’s Ho Chi Minh City) and Hanoi, capitals of French Indochina in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the most dynamic cities in today’s Vietnam.
Join me as we travel back in time to:
- Take a guided tour through the French colonial architecture of Old Town Saigon, uncovering what remains today from the French era, what remains unchanged and what has changed drastically.
- Explore la Rue Catinat in Saigon – the Orchard Road and Champs Élysées of the 1900s – 1950s, with its fashionable cafés, boutiques and specialty delicatessen. Peer into the lives of the French in Saigon.
- Learn of how the French brought their Culture and Civilisation Francaise to Hanoi, only to come up against a far older and more enduring influence – that of the Chinese. [Spoiler: I reveal the strong link between quốc ngữ － 國語 － and Chinese Han characters.]
- Explore the Sino-Vietnamese heritage of Old Town Hanoi (河內), including Hoan Kiem Lake (湖還劍) the former Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, the Temple of Literature (文廟), and the 36 Streets (三十六行).
- Take a pleasant wander through the French quarter of Hanoi, ending off at la Terrasse of the splendid Hôtel Métropole.
…amongst other things.
Tales of Asia III – Bangkok & Phnom Penh HIGHLIGHTS
Highlights from the second Tales of Asia talk on Bangkok and Phnom Penh, at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore on 30 October 2015 are here.
A link to the full talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCFaDv0gfBE
[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and London. Find it at: http://www.amazon.co.uk,http://www.amazon.com, http://www.waterstones.com and http://www.bookdepository.com.]
Tales of Asia II – Batavia (Jakarta) HIGHLIGHTS
Highlights from the second Tales of Asia talk on Old Jakarta, at the Toa Payoh Public Library, Singapore on 25 October 2015 are here. A link to entire talk to follow soon.
A link to the full talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD81C_LExjo
[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and London. Find it also at http://www.amazon.co.uk, http://www.amazon.com, http://www.waterstones.com and http://www.bookdepository.com.
Steamships, Grand Hotels and Port Cities in Southeast Asia
Dear Readers,
After two and a half years of working on this, my new book, The Romance of Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is finally to be launched on 15th April, 2015 in my home city of Singapore.
It is a new coffee table book celebrating the Grand Tour of Southeast Asia in the 1920s. Retracing the journey of those grand tourists of the ‘20s, the book takes today’s traveller through 12 fabled port cities in what was then known as the East Indies.
Setting sail from Rangoon (Yangon), we visit Penang, Malacca, Singapore, Batavia (Jakarta), Surabaya, Bangkok, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Phnom Penh, Hanoi and Manila before disembarking at Hong Kong harbour.
Each chapter presents a historical and photographic overview of the city’s old town, colonial precincts and living cultural heritage, drawing on archival images, maps and accounts, as well as contemporary photos.
In each city, we also stop at the city’s grand colonial hotel – the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, the Eastern & Oriental Hotel in Penang and the Hotel Metropole in Hanoi, to name a few.
As part of the on-going marketing and publicity campaign for the book, I am starting this new blog, where in the course of the year, I shall be posting images, photographs, maps and quotes from my book; interesting stories related to the “making of” the book; book events in the region, AND – as a plus – images, quotes, bits of history that are related to the history of travel, or to the 12 port cities in my book, but which did not make it into the “final cut.”
Welcome on board ship… and to a year of history, nostalgic and excitement!
Sincerely,
Kennie Ting
The Romance Of The Grand Tour 