yesterday peter and i hit the page one bookstore so i could pick up this book cindy had told me they had in stock. the age of shanghainese pops 1930-1970. a few years ago i had bought the cd that comes with this book, not being aware there was a book that was supposed to come with it. the book was a bit pricey, but once i opened the book any misgivings i had about the price soon disappeared. the book is all in chinese, but that hardly matters as it is jam packed with photos of record jackets, flyers, promotional photos etc of famous old chinese singers. there are even pictures of certain stars with western stars(cliff richard, louis armstrong, cary grant,...). one photo is from some fan magazine or newspaper clipping and contains the following bit in english on grace ge lan chang's appearance on the dinah shore show:
it is no exaggeration to say that miss grace chang, mp & gi's star of many talents, has scored a sweeping victory at the dinah shore show over the nbc network last month. grace recieved top billing in the tv programme of international guest stars which went on a nationwide hook-up in colour. in the hour-long show, grace delighted her estimated 60 million strong audiences with two songs and a dance number against an oriental setting. grace's amazing success is most eloquently reflected by the fact that the dinah shore programme which was staged at the same hour as cbs's frank sinatra show edged out frankie's by two points, according to the authoritative nielsen ratings.
after thumbing through the book, i sat down and watched air hostess. a film about a group of women training to be flight attendants. of course since it stars grace chang, there are plenty of excuses for dancing and singing throughout the film. the film was made in 1959, so you get to see shots of bangkok, taipei, hong kong, and singapore as they were at that time. the taipei shots were of particular interest to me as a lot of things hadn't changed all that much. it was great to see them visiting places not far from here such as bi tan and wulai.
