A Comparing China Reversal – Li Hung Chang on Broadway as Hatamen Street

I’ve posted a number of times on “Comparing China” – cases where foreigners compared parts of China to parts of their home countries. The Brits are by far the most prolific and loopy at this but the Americans liked to give it a go too occasionally. See here for some examples from the likes of Jules Verne, Peter Fleming, Somerset Maugham, Auden etc etc.

So lets twist it around for a change – how about a Chinese doing a “comparing China” while travelling overseas? Why not indeed and so here no lesser a great Chinaman than Li Hung-Chang (Hongzhang, however you like it), leading self-strengthener, elder statesman of the Qing Dynasty, the man who quelled several major rebellions and served in important positions of the Imperial Court, including the premier viceroyalty of Zhili. He travelled to America in 1896 (and the picture below was also taken that year). And so this from The Memoirs of Li Hung Chang (1913 – Houghton Mifflin, NYC)

“In New York their principal street is called Broadway, when it is not broad  at all, but narrow, as thoroughfares go in this coun-  try. I think it is not as wide as the Hatemen Road  in Peking; but with its buildings it makes me think  of the Si-kiang River at Sin-chow, with its tremen-  dous depths and high banks. But Broadway leads  the universe for business, and ‘Business’ is the key-  note of progress to-day. In America, especially,  everything is ‘Business,’ even to the art of writing.  Nobody in the United States writes for the mere love  of the work. No, the most immortal poem or the  greatest tale of true love and heroism must be paid  for before the writers will let their manuscripts out  of their hands. It is wonderful to think that if I had  been paid even a tael for each full page I have written  I should be almost a millionaire!”

Broadway, Manhattan – 1890s

Hateman Road (or more usually Hataman Street), Peking – 1890s