Shanghai – First Impressions No.2 – Alexander Michie on the Arrival of Sir Rutherford Alcock at Shanghai, 1846

Congenial Recreation – Rutherford Alcock – 1846

Alexander Michie (1833-1902) was born in Earlsferry, Fifeshire though virtually his  entire adult life was connected with the China trade while he was also an intrepid traveller across China, the local agent for Jardine Matheson in Tientsin and the editor of the Tientsin-based newspaper Chinese Times. For a time he acted as the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce at Shanghai. In his obituary the Royal Geographic Society in London noted, ‘…the work which he subsequently gave to the world, under the title of An Englishman in China, is valuable as containing the matured judgment on the modern relations between East and West of one who had lived in the Celestial Empire for over forty years.” In this excerpt he describes the arrival of Rutherford Alcock in Shanghai.

Sir Rutherford Alcock KCB (1809-97) (pictured above) was the son of a London physician who himself became an army surgeon. In 1844 he was appointed British Consul at Foochow (Fuzhou) before moving to the British Consulate at Shanghai where he remained until 1846. His most notable contribution to Shanghai was to formally lay out the borders of the British Settlement. In 1848 he was appointed Consul General to Japan, the following year being made Minister Plenipotentiary and opening the first British Legation in Japan as well as becoming the first foreigner to climb Mount Fuji. In 1865, after a spell back in England, and then a return to Japan, he was transferred to Peking, where he represented the British government until 1871 and his retirement though he remained active as a President of the Royal Geographical Society.

Michie on Alcock’s arrival

To ground thus wisely prepared Mr Alcock succeeded in the autumn of 1846. His four months at Amoy and eighteen at Foochow were only preparatory for the real work which lay before him in the consulate at Shanghai, whither he carried in his train the interpreter Parkes (1), with whom he had grown accustomed to work so efficiently. Shanghai by this time was already realising the position assigned to it by nature as a great commercial port, and the resident community, 120 Europeans all told, was already forming itself into that novel kind of republic which is so flourishing today, while its commercial interests were such as to give its members weight in the administration of their own affairs as well as in matters of public policy.

 

The level country round Shanghai was, as we have said, very favourable for excursions by land and water, affording tourists and sportsmen congenial recreation. The district was in those days remarkably well stocked with game. Pheasants of the “ring necked” variety, now so predominant in English preserves, abounded close up to the city wall, and were sometimes found in the gardens of the foreign residents. Snipe, quail, and wildfowl were plentiful in their season, the last named in great variety. All classes of the foreign community took advantage of the freedom of locomotion which they enjoyed. Newly arrived missionaries, no less than newly arrived sportsmen were encouraged by the ease and safety with which they cold prosecute their vocation in the towns and villages accessible from Shanghai. Within the radius authorised by treaty the foreigners soon became familiar objects in a district which is reckoned to support a population as dense as that of Belgium. Not only did friendly relations exist, but a wonderful degree of confidence was established between the natives and foreign tourists. It was not the custom in those days for foreigners to carry money, the only coinage available being of a clumsy and non-portable character. They paid their way by “chits” or orders upon their comprador (2), and it was not uncommon for them in those early days to pay for supplies during their excursions into the interior by a few hieroglyphics pencilled on a scrap of paper, which the confiding peasant accepted in perfect good faith, and with so little apprehension that sometimes a considerable interval would elapse before presentation of these primitive cheques – until perhaps, the holder had occasion to make a journey to Shanghai.

Alexander Michie, The Englishman in China – During the Victorian Era – Volume 1, (William Blackwood & Sons, 1900, Edinburgh)

1) The remarkable Harry (later Sir Harry) Parkes (1828-1885) who arrived in Macao in 1841 to see his cousin, Mary Wanstall Gützlaff (the wife of the Pomeranian missionary Karl Gützlaff). After learning Chinese he accompanied Sir Henry Potinger to witness the signing of the treaty of Nanking (which created the treaty port of Shanghai) on board the British warship HMS Cornwallis in August 1842. He went on to become Consul at Amoy (Xiamen), Canton (Guangzhou) and Shanghai before being appointed British Minister in Japan, a post he held for 18 years. In 1890, the Duke of Connaught unveiled a statue of Parkes on Shanghai’s Bund.

2) Chits were signed notes to pay that were redeemed at the end of the month by creditors. Compradors were Chinese agents employed by the foreign trading companies as go-betweens and extremely powerful in their own right.

Shanghai – First Impressions No.1 – Ernest O Hauser, 1842

The Foreign Devils Arrive – Ernest O. Hauser – 1842

Hauser (1910-97) was a writer of travel books and a regular contributor to The Saturday Evening Post, the New Yorker and other American publications. He was the author of Shanghai: City for Sale published in 1940. In 1941 Time magazine described him as a foreign correspondent who, ‘had not been content to meet the East over a Scotch & soda in Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel’ but had rather, ‘dug his way deep into the mysteries of the Oriental temperament.’ In 1953 Hauser was awarded a Christopher award presented to producers, directors and writers which ‘affirm the highest values of the human spirit.’

In his classic study of the history and development of Shanghai he re-imagines the arrival of the British ship, Nemesis, in Shanghai that came to first stake out Britain’s claim on Shanghai as a treaty port.

The Foreign Devils Arrive

On the dark and squally night of June 11, 1842, the British man-of-war Nemesis (1) (pictured above) slipped unnoticed into the mouth of the Yangtze River and dropped anchor near the Woosung forts, twelve miles below Shanghai.

The Nemesis was the first steamer ever to double the Cape of Good Hope. She had left Liverpool under secret orders, on a secret mission, and she carried two brand-new thirty-two pounders; she was the pride of the British flotilla that had crept up the Yangtze mouth that night and that was now assembled there below Shanghai, ready for action.

Action was taken in a few days swift, efficient, British action. The thirty-two pounders opened fire upon the forts, and the Chinese soldiers and mandarins were much impressed with British “cannon balls innumerable, flying in awful confusion through the heavenly expanse.” The Chinese war junks ran away as fast as their paddle wheels would move them, the Chinese garrison fled after a brief, heroic fight, and the Woosung forts were taken. “No one who witnessed the obstinacy and determination with which the Chinese defended themselves would refuse them full credit for personal bravery,” reported the victors. Their guns and bayonets, however, were better weapons than swords and spears. The way to Shanghai was free.

And this was how the West took the city of Shanghai.

Ernest O Hauser, Shanghai: City for Sale, (Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York)

1) Nemesis was actually the first armed iron ship anywhere – a paddle-gunboat built in 1839 at the John Laird yard Liverpool – but was not part of the Royal Navy but was owned by the Honourable East India Company and known as their ‘secret weapon’. Nemesis was last noted in Burmese waters in the early 1850s.

Shanghai – First Impressions – A Little Summer Series of Excerpts

Seems like there’s an ex-pat exodus from China at the moment with plenty of final, final, final essays, posts and whinges from half-baked laowai heading home to mum’s. Most of it is silly, a little of it self congratulatory and universally it’s boring as batshit – as all those leaving posts are self-referential they are by default dreary. Well, enough of that nonsense. I’m away for a while on holiday for a bit so thought I’d post a series of first impressions of Shanghai by various people from the 1840s up to the Second World War, all of whom are far more interesting than anyone complaining about a bit of bad air or spitting these days. Arriving in Shanghai during this century of change, by boat invariably, or occasionally overland, was to be staggered by the city (rather than moaning about the strength of the wi-fi signal and poor lattes)…..and so…

…a gallimaufry of writings upon arriving in Shanghai.

But first a little more introduction:

There’s something very special these days about stepping off a boat and arriving in a city for the first time, or even for a return visit. You don’t do it that often and usually now it’s at a remote location some distance from the city centre rather than in the pulsating heart of a metropolis. Many cities have historically allowed for a grand entrance to made by boat – the vats ports of London and Liverpool and Hamburg, the spectacular geographies of Gibraltar, Hong Kong and Yokohama; the teeming waterfronts of old Marseilles, Bombay and San Francisco while, of course, passing the Statue of Liberty to arrive at Manhattan was the dream of many a new world immigrant. These great cities not withstanding, Shanghai was probably the best place to arrive anywhere in the world. Whether you came in from the South China Sea all the way up the Huang Pu River to Pudong or transferred to a smaller craft for the final arrival right on the Bund, it is clear, as the reminiscences, in this book remind us, of how spectacular it must have been to arrive, disembark and then be swallowed up by the most teeming, modern and cosmopolitan city in the Far East. The shock to the senses was, over the years and across all those arriving, pretty immense, even for travellers relatively used to arriving in cities across Asia. Shanghai was then, as it is for many people now, just “more so” than most other places.

 Of course the craft they arrived on changed over the years, as did the Bund they arrived at. British Consul Rutherford Alcock, arriving in 1846, wouldn’t have recognised the Shanghai waterfront British soldier Ralph Shaw did when he arrived in 1937 with the Durham Light Infantry.

Tomorrow back to 1842….and an early arrival….

 

Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China

Morrison was of course the man who launched the Protestant missionary assault on China where before it had basically been an all Catholic affair. Just how this theological and converting assault was planned is the subject of Christopher Daily’s new book….

China 1913 – Getting in Early on WW1 Fever

Without doubt you will not be able to forget next year that its the centenary of the start of the First World War – books, TV and God only knows what will remind you, you can bet on that. Traditionally, in amongst all those images of the trenches and battlefields of France and Belgium, China has been a rather forgotten element in the conflict. However, of course China was technically an allied power, sent the Chinese Labour Corps to Europe (or at least allowed them to be recruited by Britain and France), had problems of its own with Japan and ultimately refused to sign the Versailles peace treaty in 1919. There will be a lot on all that next year – hopefully I’ll be able to reveal some exciting plans around work on China and the Great War soon. However, before that worth noting that Charles Emmerson has got in early on the WW1 bandwagon with his book 1913 – The World Before the Great War.

1913 is essentially an overview of the world on the eve of war and does include a pretty useful chapter on the situation in Peking and Shanghai. I’m reviewing elsewhere so just the book jacket and blurb here but excellent that China is included. With a few notable exceptions there’s been a dearth of scholarship on China and the First World War though hopefully the centenary of the war will change that….

Forever in the shadow of the war which followed, 1913 is usually seen as little more than the antechamber to apocalypse. Our perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features – last summers in grand aristocratic residences, a flurry of extravagant social engagements – or its most destructive ones: the unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the anxieties of a period of accelerated change, the social fear of revolution, the violence in the Balkans. Our images of the times are too often dominated by the faded pastels of upper-class indulgence or by the unmitigated blackness of a world rushing headlong into the abyss of an inevitable war.

CHARLES EMMERSON was born in Australia and grew up in London. After graduating top of his class in Modern History from Oxford University he took up an Entente Cordiale scholarship to study international relations and international public law in Paris. The author of The Future History of the Arctic (2010), he has also written numerous articles for a variety of newspapers, as well as speaking widely on geopolitics to university, literary, government and business audiences.He is a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House (the Royal Institute for International Affairs).

Enchanted by Lohans: Osvald Siren’s Journey into Chinese Art

Minna Torma’s new book on Osvald Siren fills some gaps in our knowledge of this man and his times….

A History of Future Cities – Old Shanghai as an “instant city”

I haven’t had a chance to read this book yet so can’t actually vouch the author has anything new to say on Shanghai or knows the city particularly well but this looks a potentially interesting new book by Daniel Brook, A History of Future Cities. The book is a collection of concise portraits of St. Petersburg, Russia; Bombay, India; Shanghai, China; and Dubai – Brook argues that these are all “instant cities” of the past in the way that Shenzhen and the like are today. Indeed, Brook argues, these cities were “dress rehearsals for the twenty-first century.”Brook argues that, “Shanghai became the fastest-growing city on earth as it mushroomed into an English-speaking, Western-looking metropolis that just happened to be in the Far East” Of course there are longer and more detailed studies of Shanghai history and rise (recommended especially is Building Shanghai by Edward Denison and Guang Yu Ren) but this book may add some perspective….

Daniel Brook is the author of The Trap and a journalist whose work has appeared in publications including Harper’s, The Nation and Slate.

Mai-Mai Sze’s Echo of a Cry – a Charming Little Curiosity

A quick reference to a rather charming little book by Mai-Mai Sze, Echo of a Cry: A Story Which Began in China (1947). Sze is best known and remembered today as the American based Chinese painter (she sadly died in 1992), writer and book jacket illustrator. However, Sze was born in China the daughter of Alfred Sze, the noted Chinese diplomat who was the Republic’s ambassador to London and Washington and attended the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919 for China. Mai-Mai was educated at private schools in England and then Wellesley, graduating in 1931.

Echo of a Cry is her childhood memoir and has some nice reminiscences of London during World War One, life at the Chinese Legation on Portland Place, being the only Chinese girl at a private school in Sussex and then moving on to America. The book is also nicely illustrated with drawing by Sze. Unfortunately I don’t have a cover for the book.