Siam Society hosts talk on Opium War

Interested persons are invited to learn about a series of events in 19th-century China related to the Opium War in a lecture on “Tea, Opium And The Burning Of The Old Summer Palace”, at Siam Society, Asok Road, on Oct 26 at 7pm.

It will be conducted by Eileen Deeley, a passionate student of China’s 5,000-year history, culture and art. She will take participants back to the year 1860, at the culmination of the Second Opium War (1856-60), where British and French troops looted and burnt the imperial buildings in Yuanmingyuan (known to foreigners as the Old Summer Palace).

Built by the early Qing emperors, Yuanmingyuan was their principal residence, a paradise on Earth — beautiful, extravagant, utterly private and totally their own creation.

This widespread destruction of China’s most…