The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China
By: Jonathan Kaufman / Narrated By: Joel Richards
Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
Engaging, a real treat!
I was a barely 18-year old Freshman at UT Austin when I signed up for m’ first Asian History class. Poor Dr. Rhoads, as opportunities for an excellent education are almost ALWAYS wasted on the Young… Boooo, Me!!!
I’m older now, like, MUCH older, and I’m sooo fond of Histories of all ilks, so I was really looking forward to The Last Kings of Shanghai, hoping that I’d be given yet another opportunity to learn much. As this spans freaking CENTURIES, I was daring to dream: Might the writing be as captivating as the concept?
Oh indeed it was. Author Jonathan Kaufman opens the book with a personal anecdote that manages to be kinda sad yet incredibly funny at the same time. Imagine a Chinese bellhop affably decrying Kaufman’s lack of French language skills… in French (“Quel dommage…!” the bellhop opines). This in a hotel that captures the glory days of wealth and luxury… days where great wealth was thrown around by European (And some American) playboys and genteel women… all while there was devastating poverty for Chinese citizens living in squalor and the dead being carted away each day.
This is a chronicle of the lives of many of two families: The Sassoons (No relation to hair care products!) and the Kadoories, from their grand beginnings (Wealth in Baghdad: Sassoon) to humbler starts (Also from Baghdad but looking for just any opportunity available: Kadoorie). Both families would take advantage of a hostile opening of ports of trade in China and would go on to amass great wealth and power via trade in opium. This is at once deplorable yet fascinating at the same time the way Kaufman pens it. We’re given a view to cultures, economics, shrewd business wheelings and dealings. We come to know many of the movers and shakers within each families, their cutthroat treatment of each other (Think most esPECially of the way they treat the women in their families), and while the Sassoons get the lion’s share of text, and while the Kadoories also had somewhat appalling business practices, I found the Kadoorie family to be truly beguiling.
Both families would navigate turbulent times in the history of China, hedging bets throughout a Dynasty and the Revolution, and then Japanese military takeovers at the start of war, and then a massive influx of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism during WWII, then Communism, oh my good golly gosh. Let’s throw in the Cultural Revolution, shall we, then the reopening to trade in the 1970s… and on to today. Jeez!!! Kaufman covers it ALL, and it’s all beYONd engagingly written. While some practices were reprehensible, the families (Who never bothered to learn Chinese) did much throughout the history of China that wound up being notable and important. At least to the extent that, well, Let’s let bygones be bygones, shall we?
An ending that cracked me up…!
Joel Richards narrates this so well, I felt as tho’ I really knew each family member, and I celebrated achievements even as some actions made m’ toes curl they were so exploitative. But never was the story boring, so chalk that up to grand writing of sensational stories as delivered by a narrator whose tongue was most firmly planted in cheek. I canNOT guarantee that pronunciations were correct as dude! my Chinese speaking skills from the Shanghai region are sooo lacking (Again, my apologies, Dr. Rhoads: You did indeed try to instill in us a basic and solid footing for pronunciation, readying us for all we’d come across…). At times, it seemed to me that Richards said a name or thing one way and then an entirely different way when it was spoken the next time, but those were fairly rare occurrences, and all else flowed smoothly. His delivery was a treat to these untrained ears, so no problem there.
Riveting from start to finish with not quite 10-hours flying by. Charming in spots (Think: Victor Sassoon’s shenanigans), uplifting in others (Think: Horace Kadoorie’s schools for Jewish child refugees), gripping in others (Think: Aaaallll these things juxtaposed against Chinese inhabitants dying from starvation and disease), The Last Kings of Shanghai was a real treat, and I gave it the time and listening speed it deserved, plenty to learn and absorb.
Well, Dr. Rhoads? You DID inspire in me an honest-to-goodness desire, so I’ve gone ahead and done it: Learned soooo much all whilst being vastly entertained. Yay, Dr. Rhoads!
And?
YAY, meeee!!!
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