RAS WEEKENDER SPECIAL EVENT
Sunday 18th May 2014
Guided Walk, Book Club & Film Club
J. G. Ballard
To celebrate the life and legacy of a writer who immortalised Shanghai in literature and brought the city’s history to life, RAS is holding a day of J. G. Ballard events on Sunday May 18th. Members and friends are welcome to attend all three events, or just one or two depending on preference.
GUIDED WALK: 1pm – 3pm
We will meet at the former residence of J. G. Ballard at 508 Panyu Lu at 1pm. Duncan Hewitt will then lead us on a walk around the Xinhua Lu area, where Ballard lived for part of his time in Shanghai. The walk will conclude at the beautiful Metropolo Dahua Hotel, where tea/coffee and cookies will be served. There is a maximum of 20 places available on the walk, and priority will be given to RAS members. (Ticket price: 100 RMB for members, 150 RMB for non-members)
BOOK CLUB: 4pm – 6pm
RAS Book Club will meet at the cafe in the Metropolo Dahua Hotel to discuss Ballard's ‘Empire of the Sun’. Snacks and meals are available à la carte from the Metropolo's menu. (Ticket price: 20 RMB members, 50 RMB non-members).
FILM CLUB: 7pm
RAS Film Club will screen the film adaptation of ‘Empire of the Sun’. Snacks and meals are available à la carte from the Metropolo's menu. (Ticket price: 20 RMB members, 50 RMB non-members).
To reserve, email bookings@royalasiaticsociety.orgn.cn
ABOUT J G BALLARD
Before the success of Empire of the Sun, Ballard was known principally for darkly surreal novels such as The Crystal World (1966), which described a West African country undergoing an inexplicable process of petrifaction, and Crash (1973), in which he put forward the idea that modern society finds traffic accidents erotic.
Despite his avuncular appearance and booming voice, Ballard’s air of bonhomie belied a much darker side. Acquaintances recalled that as a young man he was “obsessed” with topics such as assassination, car crash injuries and psychosis. One of Ballard’s more outré projects had been an installation at the Institute of Contemporary Arts called The Assassination Weapon, featuring a story about a deranged bomber pilot simultaneously screened on three walls to the sound of cars crashing.
Friends, while remembering Ballard as “generous and jovial” also described him as “jolly peculiar” and on occasion as “straightforwardly mad”.
Ballard admitted to spending too much of his adult life drinking. “It was a great sense of achievement,” he recalled, “when my first drink of the day was not at nine in the morning but at noon and then at eight. Life got much duller as a result.
James Graham Ballard was born on November 15 1930 in Shanghai, the elder child of a cotton mill owner and his wife. Ballard’s sister was not born until he was seven and he recalled that much of his childhood was spent alone or in the company of his nanny. “My father worked,” he remembered, “and my mother played bridge. Every time I went out of the house I was chauffeur-driven with my nanny next to me to stop me being kidnapped.”
He died on 19th April 2009 in London.
ABOUT THE WALK LEADERS
William Savadove is an American journalist who has worked in Asia for two decades. He is currently Shanghai Bureau Chief for Agence France-Presse. He was previously Shanghai Bureau Chief for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper and also worked for the Reuters news agency as Chief Economic Correspondent for China. He a co-author of "Still More Shanghai Walks", to which he contributed a chapter on Xinhua Lu.
Duncan Hewitt is a Shanghai-based journalist who was reported for the BBC and Newsweek during more than a decade and a half in China. He spent his first year in the country as a student from 1986-7, and, like many other foreigners in Shanghai at that time, was an extra during shooting of scenes from Empire of the Sun in the city. This sparked his interest in both Shanghai history and JG Ballard, on whom he has written and researched in recent years. He is the author of Getting Rich First - Life in a Changing China (Vintage 2008)