All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
The British Film Institute (BFI) has gathered together some of its collection of footage of old China, including Shanghai, Peking and Hong Kong…well worth a look…click here
Should you happen to be in East Sussex tomorrow (Monday) and have time for a trip to the Rye Arts Festival, Jane Gardam will be talking about her Old Filth trilogy (which I personally like very much) – very happy to finally see her talk in person after enjoying her Hong Kong Old Filth books for years….
Last Friends is the final part of the Old Filth trilogy by novelist Jane Gardam and she will be talking about the book in the Marquee in Lamb House garden at 3pm on Monday 15th September.
Old Filth is the acronym for ‘Failed in London try Hong Kong’ and described the colonials in the Far East who didn’t quite the mustard in the UK and therefore chose to go into the service of the mother country and its natives on the other side of the World. Sir Edwards Feathers, the eponymous character, was anything but a failure. A child of the Raj who had been born and orphaned in Malaya, he moved to HK and was a colossus in its legal system.
In the first book Old Filth, the story is told from Sir Edward’s point if view and it recounts his life history, including his childless marriage to Betty and long and bitter rivalry in the courts and in love with Terence Veneering. Stolid, dull Old Filth – v- the flashy arriviste Veneering. Book two The Man in Wooden Hat retells their stories from Betty’s standpoint and reveals her very deep love for Old Filth but passion for the louche, dangerous and very clever Venereering.
Now in the last part of the trilogy Jane Gardam rounds up and concludes the story of the two lawyers, who in retirement in the UK find themselves next door neighbours in the English countryside which neither would nor could have called ‘home’ for most all of their lives.
The books are funny but bitter and recount the apogee and relentless decline of Empire. But there is hope in terms of the rapprochement of the two formerly powerful colonialists.
Quite by chance, and in want of something to read on a train journey, I’ve been delving into the diaries of the noted London theatre critic James Agate (A Shorter Ego) and his recollections of the 1930s. Agate was mildly known to me for having written a great debunking of the London and New York stage production of Pearl Buck’s massively over-rated The Good Earth. I’ve never much liked this book so was pleased once to come across a review of Agate’s entitled “Chinese Bunk”, trashing the play and asking the rather good question of why no Chinese actors were cast in any of the lead roles? Fair point and one made often today, but distinctly less so back then – poor old Anna May Wong desperately wanted the lead but was harshly rejected.
Anyway, Agate was strangely fascinated by the kidnapping case of a certain Mrs Pawley in 1932. I didn’t know this case, but I should. Apparently, in the autumn of 1932, Mrs Kenneth Pawley and Mr Charles Cochran, Mr Duncan-Macintosh (all Brits) and two Chinese servants were kidnapped and held for 44 days by Chinese pirates. Macintosh managed to slip his bonds and escape, raising the alarm. They were released eventually after a ransom of $32,500 (a massive sum at the time I think), a chest of opium and some winter clothing were handed over. Mrs. Pawley lived in Newchwang (now Yingkou), was only 19 and had only been married three months. The bandits, clearly desperadoes of the highest order, also kidnapped Mrs Pawley’s dogs (an Irish Setter and an Alsatian) and threatened to cut her ears off if the ransom wasn’t paid. Mrs Pawley was the daughter of medical-missionaries and was heading of to visit them in Newchwang, leaving her husband at home in Tientsin. Like all good China sojourners Mrs Pawley (fully Edith Muriel Philips Pawley, or just called “Tinko” by her friends) got a book out of the escapade, dictating it to her friend Joy Packer nine months later while recuperating in Weihaiwei (now just Weihai) – My Bandit Hosts (1935).
Tinko was clearly a character such as are rare these days. Agate records her, threatened with dismemberment, freezing cold and half-starved writing to her parents to request they “send me some lipstick”. At the time there were fears, unsubstantiated but reported in the more sensationalist British press, that Mrs Pawley would undergo death by a thousand cuts with cayenne pepper placed in the cuts to accentuate the slow agony of death! When it looked likely that the ransom might not arrive, Mrs Pawley’s only comment was “Soap required urgently”. Agate reports on November 16th 1932 simply, “Mrs Pawley ransomed.” and indeed a Japanese official in occupied Manchukuo (Manchuria) did appear with the ransom and Mrs Pawley, Mr Cochran and the two dogs were set free. The French newspaper L’Illustre carried a rather dramatic picture on its cover (click here).
Mrs Pawley also inspired a short story by Evelyn Waugh – Incident in Azania – more on that soon….
The ever fascinating Jonathan Wattis Gallery in Hong Kong has a new sale and exhibitions until the 11th October….
A collection of fine antique maps from 16th to 20th century
including a group of city plans
Thursday 11th September until 11th October 2014
Plan of Chengdu 1894 – Wu Zhuofu, Chengdu Studio
Personally I’m more old Shanghai than rugger buggar but still Simon Drakeford’s history of rugby in old Shanghai is now available and sheds some further light on those old Shanghailanders and there goings-on….I wonder if rugby players then were as generally obnoxious then as they invariably are now?
This book provides the full history of rugby in Shanghai from the 1860s through to today. The path to the creation of the Shanghai Rugby Football Club was winding. Rugby football and association football were played in each of the four different Shanghai Football Clubs established in 1867, 1881, 1889 and 1892. In 1904, the rugby players broke away from the fourth Shanghai Football Club and so at last a standalone rugby club was formed which remained in existence until 1950. Forty-five years later, foreigners once again established a rugby club in Shanghai. This book tells the story…
Ever since Shui-On group built the faux heritage nonsense that is Xintiandi the fate of Dongtai Lu has really been sealed. Demolition.
The market itself (a bit more tat and fake than curio and antique) has only been on that site since the 1980s. Dongtai Lu was once Rue Tai Chan in the French Concession and constructed around 1902. The street was originally named after Taishan in Guangdong Province and well-known by many at the time as it is estimated that over 75% of all overseas Chinese in North America until the mid- to late-twentieth century could claim origin from Taishan. It was   renamed in 1906 after A. Hennequin, a member of the Conseil Municipal and an agent of the Messageries Maritimes shipping line. Though French he was elected Chairman of the British dominated Shanghai Club in 1878. The road was a popular location for street entertainers long before it became a market.
I expect it’s been a while since anyone scored a real bargain down Dongtai Lu. Going back to the early 90s it was still possible to find old books and old Shanghai signage and I got a few maps there. I’ve heard of wonderous finds at bargain prices but suspect these were truly miracles. Still it had a certain old school charm and such streets (think of New York’s flea markets, London’s Portobello Road or Paris’s Cligancourt) are, I think, essential pieces of a city’s infrastructure. More tower blocks and probably coffee shops and a luxury mall won’t add much I fear. Of course many of these properties are uncomfortable from the point of view of modern conveniences, but not unrecoverable by any means if there’s a will to do so – which there, of course, is not. As ever I doubt any of the current residents will be able to afford, or have the sway, to stay living in the area and the community will go as well as a mixed environment in downtown Shanghai.
A recent trawl by the RAS Shanghai librarians turned up a list of Honorary Members of the North China Branch for 1909…but who were these people?
The Honorary Protector (a post that sadly no longer exists) was held by His Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians (a post now held by His Majesty King Philippe). Not sure Leopold did very much as Honrary Protector as he died in December 1909. Leopold II has gone down in history rather infamously as best known for his rather horrific imperialist exploits in the Congo. Belgium was a treaty port power so he had a foothold in China and, apparently, a taste for Chinoiserie and the Far East. At the Royal Palace of Laeken he included a Japanese Tower and a Chinese Pavilion in the grounds. He did visit China shortly before his accession to the throne in the early 1860s. He was a keen investor in China, believing in railways. According to Adam Hochschild’s excellent book King Leopold’s Ghost, ‘In 1897, Leopold began investing in a railway in China, seeing China as “a feast to be consumed, and he was as ready as ever to invite himself to the table†He said of the Chinese railroad route he wanted to get: “This is the spine of China; if they give it to me I’ll also take some cutlets’â€
And what of the Honrary Members?
Well, Dr. S.W. (Stephen Wootton) Bushell was not likely to be attending any meetings as he had died in September 1908. Bushell, resident in England at the time anyway, was a specialist in Chinese ceramics, numismtaics and deciphering Tangut script. In January 1868, at the recommendation of Dr William Lockhart, Bushell was offered a position as physician to the British Legation in Peking, with an annual salary of £600 and the promise that he could also engage in private practice if he wished. He set sail for Shanghai on the last day of the next month, and except for a few periods of leave, he remained there for the next 32 years.He had eturned to England in 1900, due to ill-health. In autumn 1872, Bushell and Thomas G. Grosvenor (1842–1886), a secretary at the British Legation, went on a journey beyond the Great Wall to Mongolia, and visited the ruins of Shanghdu, the fabled summer capital of the Yuan. They were the first Europeans to visit Shangdu since the time of Marco Polo. He was appointed a Chinese ceramics collector for the V&A in London while most of his personal collection was left to the British Museum.
Edouard Chavennes was a French Sinologist who specialised in the history of religion in China. He was a leading light in the second wave of formal Sinologists in France. After studying Chinese in Paris, Chavannes obtained a position as an attaché to a scientific mission associated with the French Legation in Peking in January 1889. Chavannes stayed in China until 1893, when he returned to France to take up the position of Professor of Chinese at the Collège de France. He died in 1918 at the young age of 52.
Professor Henri Cordier had been one of the French Sinologists that inspired Chavennes to study Mandarin. A self declared Orientalist, Cordier became the President of Paris’s Geographic Society. In 1869 at age 20, Cordier sailed for Shanghai, where he worked at an English bank. During the next two years, he published several articles in local newspapers. In 1872, he was made librarian of the North China branch of the RAS. In this period, about twenty articles were published in Shanghai Evening Courier, North-China Daily News and the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In 1876, he was named secretary of a Chinese government programme for Chinese students studying in Europe. Later Cordier returned to France and was appointed a professor at l’École spéciale des Langues orientales. He died in 1925.
Sampatrao Gaekwad is a somewhat different character – the son of Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the Maharaja of Baroda, and therefore making him a prince. His achievements included being one of the men who established the Bank of Baroda, now one of India’s Big 4 banks. He died in 1935
Professor Herbert Allen Giles is no surprise on the list – I don’t think China Rhymers need an exhaustive biography of Giles – British diplomat in China (at Shanghai and Ningpo) and Formosa (at Tamsui – see my post from 2009 on his former residence in Taiwan), Professor of Chinese at Cambridge (only the second ever appointed), writer of numerous studies and, of course, the Chinese-English Dictionary and the Wade-Giles system which has given many authors on China long hard arguments with their editors!! He made it 89 and died in 1935.
Sir Robert Hart – I’m going to hold back on the old “IG” too as everyone who visits China Rhyming regularly knows that old Ulsterman and the scion of the China Maritime Customs.
Professor Friedrich Hirth is a new one on me though – A German-American Sinologist who served (under Hart) in the Maritime Customs before becoming Professor Chinese at Columbia University in 1902. He died in Munich in 1927.
Sadly Mr T.W. Kingsmill has slightly slipped from history too though was living on Yuhang Road (now Dongyuhang Road) in Shanghai at the time and had been an early President of the RAS North China branch. Kingsmill was a classical scholar (ancient Persia and all that) but wrote rather a lot on China and especially for the RAS Northern China branch Journal, an article on ” The Border Lands of Geology and History,” in 1877 for instance, the identity of the Hiung-nu with the Huns of Europe – that sort of thing. A German Sinologist recently commented – “we know little about the emotional life of T.W. Kingsmill (a.k.a., Jin Simi 金斯密, 1837-1910), British pioneer geologist, indefatigable NCBRAS [North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society] architect, prolific amateur sinologist, Daodejing translator and long term Shanghai resident…” Sadly Kingsmill died in 1910.
Of Professor Charles R Lauman of Harvard University I know even less I’m afraid. A long-time Harvard man I believe, a member of the American Philological Society in the 1870s and 1880s, but sadly no more!
John Stewart Lockhart of Weihaiwei has, of course, featured on this blog many times and so I Won’t go into too much detail – a British colonial official in Hong Kong and China, Commissioner of Weihai between 1902 and 1927, founded the Hong Kong Football Club and returned to London to be involved with the RAS in England. He died in 1937, aged 79.
J. F. Marques Pereira is an interesting character and a great historian of Macao and the Portuguese presence in Asia. His A questão do Extremo-Oriente e a missão portugueza á China was a classic on the subject.
And finally, the Reverend William Alexander Parsons Martin, aka Ding Weiliang, American Presbytarian missionary resident in Peking and a translator of many works (many legal) from English into Chinese and served as interpreter for the United States minister William B. Reed, in negotiating the treaty of Treaty of Tientsin in 1858. He was also occasional translator to America’s Ambassador Ansom Burlingame. He was reputed to be the first foreigner to make the journey from Beijing to Shanghai on the Grand Canal of China (I once tried that and gave up south of Suzhou!!), and described the trip in the “Journal of the Asiatic Society” in 1866. He died in Peking in 1916.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is your Honorary Protector and Honorary Members of the Royal Asiatic Society North China Branch for 1909….
A visit to the Pitt Rivers in Oxford last week – I love the architecture and the really big bugs. REminded me that the Curator for Asian Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Dr Clare Harris, is also the author of The Museum on the Roof of the World, an excellent recent book I haven’t noted on this blog previously. The book did win the 2013 E. Gene Smith Inner Asia Book Prize so I should have stuck it up here – anyway, better late than never….
