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From: Leopold PANDER
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2024 2:44 PM
To: 'Leopold PANDER'
Subject: FW: Weihsien - Belgium and Tientsin
Forwarded by:http://www.weihsien-paintings.org
Dear Simon,
Indeed, the weihsien-paintings’ website includes a “books” chapter in the main menu. Books about Weihsien, books about China, books in French and books in Chinese. For many of the books about Weihsien, I have been given permission to copy/paste them for the website with the layout of my choice. Some other books were so old (more than 70 years) that I took the liberty of copying large excerpts. For the other ones ― more recent books, you can certainly order them directly from the Internet.
I also added your e-mail address to my BCC list in order for you to participate with our chat. If ever you want me to rub it out, do let me know.
All the best,
Leopold
P.S.
Many years ago, when Father Hanquet was still alive, we visited the S.A.M. in Brussels.
http://weihsien-paintings.org/hanquet/SAM/p_56.htm
… you can “Google” société auxiliaire des missions Bruxelles ― and as you are a “Historian”, they may give you access to the documents I was not allowed to consult then …
From: Yongjun Zheng
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2024 12:36 PM
To: Leopold PANDER
Subject: RE: Weihsien - Belgium and Tientsin
Dear Mr. Pander,
Thank you very much for your email.
May I kindly ask, once you have a new digital book available to be added to your website, can you please update me on the news and send this book to my email as well? Then I can read them in time.
I realized that there are many digitalized books on your website. How can I find them all at once in an easier way?
Thank you and many greetings,
Simon
From: Leopold PANDER
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2024 12:21 PM
Subject: FW: Weihsien - Belgium and Tientsin
Forwarded by:http://www.weihsien-paintings.org
Best regards,
Leopold
Dear Simon,
This message has been forwarded to the more or less 40 members ― ex-prisoners and friends of this website. Hopefully, they will be free to contact you personally or via the website to enable you in your research work.
By the way, I added a book about the Chinese railway network:
http://weihsien-paintings.org/books(other)/index.php
Best regards,
Leopold
From: Yongjun Zheng
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2024 10:42 AM
To: Leopold PANDER
Subject: RE: Weihsien - Belgium and Tientsin
Dear Mr. Pander,
It is a pleasure to receive your email, and I am very grateful for your kind response.
I apologize for the delay in responding. My VPN malfunctioned for some reason, which prevented me from accessing my KU Leuven email while I was in China.
Certainly, I am comfortable with our conversation per email, and you are more than welcome to forward our conversations to all members of the Weihsien group, as I would very much like to get to know all the Belgians who lived in Tientsin before the communists took over.
The website of Weihsien provides a wealth of information regarding Belgians in Weihsien camp and the Belgians in China in general. I am very impressed with how much effort you have put into creating this website - a great work.
I am currently focusing my academic research on the Belgian Scheut missionaries in China and their Sinological works (I have attached a recent article of mine within this email) 
. Tientsin was one of their headquarters. But unfortunatly, little information is available about Tientsin from the writings of the Scheutisten.
Should it be possible, in the future, I would also like to initiate a decent academic research focusing on Belgians living and working in Tientsin (prior to the communist era). Thus, I would be most grateful if you could let me know that there are any Belgians (still alive) have been involved in that part of history or any historical materials, such as dairies and photos particularly, have been preserved for future research on this nearly forgotten chapter of Sino-Belgian relations.
Please stay in touch!
Simon
Leuven
From: Leopold PANDER
Sent: Saturday, November 9, 2024 11:53 AM
To: 'Yongjun Zheng'
Cc: pierre.ley@pandora.be
Subject: RE: Weihsien - Belgium and Tientsin
Dear Simon,
Thanks for your message and interest in our Weihsien-paintings' website. 😊
If it is OK for you, I prefer the e-mail solution and if it is also OK for you, I can forward our e-mails to our Weihsien Group of more or less 40 persons ― ex-prisoners and friends that could eventually help you with pertinent information about your eventual research. Open source, in fact. Let me know.
About me (...) I wasn't two years old yet when we entered camp and over four when we were liberated by the American soldiers in August 1945. I am the webmaster of this website, non-profit and free access. I am now in my eighty-fourth.
You tell me that your interest is History. Same for me.
Since I started this website, 25 years ago, I have read many books and learned a lot about China in the 20th century and long before.
I might start with "1421" and "1434" by Gavin Menzies that broadened my views about who discovered what and by completely invalidating the fact that Christopher Columbus discovered "America".
I never understood much about the "Opium Wars" until I read a chapter in C. Hulme's book: "Tientsin" →.
http://weihsien-paintings.org/books/Tientsin/Chapter-27.pdf
and even more interesting: →
http://www.weihsien-paintings.org/books(other)/SacPalaisEte/p_SacPalais.htm
... it is written in French but I trust that it has been translated into English since first published.
About Tientsin, there is a recent work by Yi Edward Yang that will certainly interest you →.
http://www.weihsien-paintings.org/pander/bbe/BelgianTianjin.pdf
Of course, you can freely question us and I will guide you into and across our website that could seem messy at moments but it is an addition of so many documents coming in ― randomly ― since the last twenty-five years.
Best regards,
Leopold
From: Yongjun Zheng
Sent: Thursday, November 7, 2024 4:41 PM
To: weihsien@proximus.be
Subject: Weihsien - Belgium and Tientsin
Dear Sir or Madame,
I have seen your website about Weihsien and I am greatly interested in this part of history as well as the history of the Belgian concession in Tientsin and life of the Belgian people during the concussion period in China - as myself is a native of Tientsin and living currently in Belgium (Gent) I will be very glad to meet you one day and hear all of your stories in Tientsin. I do speak English and Dutch, but unfortunately my French is very limited.
I am currently working in KU Leuven as an academic researcher of Sinology and you may contact me at anytime via email (yongjun.zheng@fvi.kuleuven.be)or GSM (0492538151)
Many greetings，
Simon Yongjun Zheng
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