A Taste for China: English Subjectivity and the Prehistory of Orientalism

An interesting looking new book from Oxford University Press, A Taste for China, by Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins, which claims to present a new theory of Orientalism and a new account of the role of China in English literature and culture. A rather bold claim and not exactly justified in the blurb as Rape of the Lock and Defoe are well known forerunners of Orientalism. Still, looks worth a read…

Through an examination of England’s obsession with Chinese things throughout the long eighteenth century, this book argues that chinoiserie in literature and material culture played a central role in shaping emergent conceptions of taste and subjectivity. In the wake of recent scholarship in the field of eighteenth-century writing that examines English identity and nationalism in the context of trade, commodity culture, and the social role of literature, this study demonstrates how the figure of the Chinese object was variously deployed throughout the period to authorize new epistemologies and subject-object relations, ultimately redefining what it meant to be English. The book opens with a reading of Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters that contextualizes the accumulation of imported material goods from China as part of the process by which early modern English nationalism gave way to a more commercial notion of English identity. Jenkins then considers the appearance of chinoiserie in English writing that ranges from Pepys’ diaries to Restoration drama. Subsequent chapters consider international commerce and the Far East in Daniel Defoe’s under-studied novel, Captain Singleton, and the relationship between subjects and objects in Pope’s The Rape of Lock. Broadly considered, A Taste for China shows that prior to the nineteenth century, English culture did not necessarily organize the world in terms of the orientalist binary, defined by Edward Said. By historicizing British orientalism, Jenkins reveals how the notion of the East as anathema to English identity is produced through various competing models of subjectivity over the course of the eighteenth century.

China’s Role in World War One Remembered in the Pyrénées-Orientales

Just can’t get away from China references! Happen to be writing about China’s involvement in the First World War at the moment what with the centenary up next year – more on that to follow as it progresses. And then happened to be passing through the town of Vernet Les Bains in the Pyrénées-Orientales and came across the town’s Entente Cordiale monument – the only one in France apparently. Of course every French town has a memorial to the men of the area who fell in the war but this monument is a bit different as it celebrates the alliance between Britain and France – and all the other nations that supported the Allies in the Great War. While China wasn’t actually a combatant it did side with the allies and sent the Chinese Labour Corps to Europe so should really be included. And so it is….(more on the memorial from Wikipedia below)…

Near the highest point in Vernet-les-Bains, next to the mairie (town hall), stands a monument to the Entente Cordiale of 1904. It is the only one of its kind in France.

The pedestal of the monument is made of Canigou granite. On it rest two white marble statues representing France and Britain. The pedestal itself is set upon a circular base. That in turn is located on a raised, level area of ground which covers 1,000 square metres and which is bounded by low stone walls.

The idea of erecting this monument was conceived around 1912 by the town council and its then mayor, Monsieur Joseph Mercader. The wealthy British visitors who regularly came to this health spa at that time actively supported the project. A committee of prominent French and British patrons was set up to promote the scheme. Its leading members were Lord Roberts and General Joffre. Monsieur Lambert-Violet, a leading Perpignan businessman, gave the land for the memorial to Vernet. The monument itself was the work of the Roussillon sculptor Gustave Violet, who displayed a model of his proposed work in 1913. However, progress came to a halt in 1914 with the outbreak of World War One. Little further happened until August 1920, when it was proclaimed by presidential decree that work on the monument would proceed but that it would be dedicated both to the Entente Cordiale and to the memory of those killed during the war. At the same time a new appeal was launched for funds to complete the project.

Work on erecting the monument soon got underway. Granite was hauled up from the bed of the River St-Vincent in carts pulled by oxen. The stonemason, Monsieur Herbetta, worked up to fourteen hours a day, often in the sun’s full glare, fashioning and putting into place the enormously heavy blocks of stone. A circle of wrought-iron fencing was erected around the base of the monument. Monsieur Antoine Mercader remembers, as a six-year-old child, how he and other children watched with amazement as the craftsman, Monsieur Serra, poured molten lead into small holes in the ground to seal in place the fence’s iron bars. When the monument was completed, it bore the following dedications:

“To the Entente Cordiale between France and Britain. To the glory of the Allied Nations. To the memory of soldiers from Vernet who died for their country”

Edward Morse’s Glimpses of China and Chinese Homes, 1902

Published in 1902, Morse’s Glimpses of China and Chinese Homes was a follow up to his popular Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings. His trip to China was mostoly to write for  American Architect, and his article for them form the basis for this book. Also included are a number of sketches. Morse knew Japan better than China and had been a professor of Zoology at Tokyo University but this is still a lovely book with some charming sketches.

If you want to read the text you can download it here.

Barthes’s Travels in China now in paperback

French philosophy and theory takes on 1970s China – not always a happy meeting!

In 1974 Roland Barthes travelled in China as part of a small delegation of distinguished French philosophers and literary figures. They arrived in China just as the last stage of the Cultural Revolution was getting underway – the campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius. While they were welcomed by writers and academics, the travelers were required to follow a pre–established itinerary, visiting factories and construction sites, frequenting shows and restaurants that were the mainstay of Western visitors to China in the 70s. Barthes planned to return from the trip with a book on China: the book never materialized, but he kept the diary notes he wrote at the time. The notes on things seen, smelled and heard alternate with reflections and remarks – meditations, critiques or notes of sympathy, an aside from the surrounding world. Published now for the first time more than thirty years after the trip, these notebooks offer a unique portrait of China at a time of turbulence and change, seen through the eyes of the world’s greatest semiotician.

Coco Chanel and Her Chinoiserie Tastes

Watching the movie of the relationship between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky the other night reminded me of Chanel’s tastes for Chinoiserie. There’s a rather nice moment in the movie when Coco welcomes the Stravinsky family (exiled White Russians by this time) into her villa Bel Respiro at Garches and shows them the China Room. However, Chanel had Chinoiserie wherever she lived be it her Parisian apartment at 31 Rue Cambon, her French Riviera villa La Pausa or her suite of rooms at the Paris Ritz. Chinoiserie wherever she was in residence…

the movie recreation of Chanel’s China Room at Bel Respiro in Garches

Chanel’s China screen at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris

Chanel’s bedroom at La Pausa on the Riveria which was draped in Chinoiserie fabrics and wallpaper

Gene Luen Yang’s “Boxers” Graphic Novels

Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers is a great idea – a graphic novel that depicts the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and tries to explain both sides. It’s actually a diptych of graphic novels called Boxers and Saints (sorry, I’m not really au fait with comic culture). Saints is about an unwanted daughter who finds acceptance among the Christian missionaries and their Chinese converts. Anyway, there’s an article here on the books and an interview with the artist who also has a very cool site here too. And, there’s a brilliant trailer on Youtube too.

And of course – you can buy the books here….

A Perpetual Fire: John C. Ferguson and His Quest for Chinese Art and Culture

A slightly different take on Ferguson (usually most writing is about his missionary work or newspaper activities in Shanghai) from Lara Jaishree Netting…

Which Film About Shanghai Did Hitler Really, Really Hate?

Well apparently, according to Ben Urwand’s fascinating new book The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler, it was the 1935 Charles Boyer/Loretta Young movie Shanghai. It seems Hitler demanded the projector be switched of half way through.

Why this dislike of an otherwise rather unexceptional film about Shanghai? In the movie Loretta Young and Boyer fall in love – Boyer (Dmitri Koslov, a half-Russian/half-Chinese millionaire industrialist in the film) is actually Eurasian, though denying his mixed heritage. Loretta Young is an all-American gal and, as the film’s slogan exclaimed, “Love hurls a challenge at a law as old as civilisation itself.” Hitler though wasn’t much of a fan of mixed heritage or mixed relationships and couldn’t stand the film. As a footnote Warner Oland (of Shanghai Express and numerous Charlie Chan flicks) appears in yellowface, as he so often did. Adolf should have stayed to the end – it all ends badly for the leads (or well, if you’re Hitler I suppose) and true love doesn’t win out.

the original, and rather mixed, 1935 New York Times review is here by the way

And here is a review of Urwand’s book, from which I culled this interesting fact about Shanghai

 

Doomed mixed race love – hated by Adolf!